There's been a lot going on this week at work, and after three days off to sort it all out I finally feel like I can talk rationally about it without going somewhere I shouldn't with this entry.

I knew I was in for something tough this week, because as of Monday The Sun News officially lost another group of workers from its latest round of layoffs. From the get-go I knew that this meant more work for me, but as I have done across the last two rounds of layoffs I decided to look at it as an opportunity instead of a burden. Not only would I get to do some things that sounded like fun (designing features pages, helping plan content for our entertainment magazine) but I would also get yet another chance to show to my co-workers that I could handle more responsibility.

You see, that had been my strategy for as long as I can remember...I figured that since doing my own job comes pretty easily, I'd try and expand my skillset and do more things in more departments in an effort to make my job as secure as possible. In the past this led me to be able to not only do illustrations and graphics, but also lay out pages, do web design, write stories, help plan future stories and try to push the envelope with new ways to present the news to people.

I found that the more things I did, the busier I got. But with all the extra work came a chance to be more and more involved with planning stories and packages, and i got to have more input into the way we presented stories visually in the paper. I had never really seen myself as wanting to be an editor or to take much charge of anything, but as I got more opportunity to have input I really started to see how getting involved at a higher level led to better work. Thus moving toward a leadership role has become a major goal of mine over the past year.

When our graphics editor got laid off, I took it in stride and took more ownership of how all our graphics looked. When our design editor got laid off, without hesitation I stepped up and tried to fill the void by helping with every little design project I could find and contributing more to the daily paper. When we lost not only our Features Editor, but also a features reporter and the designer who put together all the feature pages, I was all set to do my best to once again fill the void, laying out, writing for and editing for as many features pages as I could.

However, this time was different.

The ever-tightening belt of the bad economy and a struggling newspaper industry -- the same one that has cost us all these people --  has now clamped down on everyone in our company. Every person on salary took a small percentage pay cut, while every hourly employee is now expected to work 37.5 hours a week as opposed to the standard 40.

At first, I wasn't sure how this would effect me. Although I'm technically an hourly employee I function more like someone on salary in that I don't EVER work 40 hours a week. For the past two years, as I have taken on all these extra tasks, I have worked more like 45-55 hours a week. It's been great because as the industry has struggled and things like raises and promotions have become less common, I've been able to more or less control my own destiny by simply working harder and harder.

I knew these hourly cutbacks were coming, but I was SO confident in my own mind that when the time came, they would understand that I simply COULD NOT do what has come to be expected from me in less hours. I realize now that it was ridiculously arrogant of me to think that way, but yet up until the middle of last week I still held out hope that there would be some way I could garner some sort of sideways "promotion" that would at least keep me making the same as what I have been with all the overtime.

Now with the rug of OT I've been standing on pulled out from under me, it seems I'll be taking something like a 15-20% cut, instead of the nominal amount others have taken. So basically, despite the hard work I've done and awards I've won I'm actually going to come out of this worse off than most everyone else. I'm sure you didn't need me to say so, but losing this much money poses quite a problem for someone with a young child at home and someone looking to buy their first home.

But it wasn't the realization of my looming financial issues that made me upset. It was the fact that I feel like everything I've worked for and stressed about for the past few years really didn't mean anything to anyone but me. I now feel like I can no longer trust in the "work hard and it will all pay off in the end" attitude that I have always tried to carry. I suppose It's just another in a long line of "wake up and smell the cynicism" moments that have introduced me to how the world really works.

But, in the end, I think THE THING that hit me the hardest is that if this scenario continues the way it looks like it will, I'm not sure I can still go to work every day and say I'm doing the best that I can do. I'm just not sure I can put in the same dedication and effort when I KNOW that I don't really matter, and when I'm going to have to be losing out on more sleep and more time with my family while I try to get a part-time job or try to pull together enough freelance projects to make up for the difference in pay which I need to support them.

I know that nationwide there are a million other stories just like mine and even MUCH worse, so I hope I don't come off as ungrateful -- I definitely feel blessed for all the things I DO have -- but you can just never really know how much something like this will hurt until it happens to you.

But, alas, it HAS happened and I just hope I can find a way to continue down this path (or possibly a new one) without losing the drive that has gotten me this far.