Uh, I Don't Think So.

Tomorrow was supposed to be that quarterly bonuses were to have been paid at our company. Regular readers of Ham Salad will know the seriousness of this issue when I say that management made the decision not to pay bonuses. There are some serious, serious issues with senior management and the investors. Allegedly they're working them out, but up until today there had been no real movement.

Even as late as noon my boss, the COO, was hoping for a miracle. Still, in the likelihood that an announcement would have to be made, he composed a message similar to this:

Due to a payroll timing issue, quarterly bonuses will not be paid with this payroll, but may take a couple of days to be issued.

Since I'm in charge of payroll, I took issue with that. It sounded to me that instead of saying we didn't have the money to pay bonuses, the payroll department screwed up, and once they pull their heads from their asses you'll get your money. I offered an alternative:

We had hoped to pay quarterly bonuses with this payroll. However, because of irregularities in cash flow we will not be able to issue bonuses at this time. While we hope to be able to pay bonuses in the near future we cannot anticipate when the pay date may be.

I sent that off to my boss and then stopped into his office and told him he needed to send it out. He wanted to wait. I went to a LONG lunch and came back at 2:00, to find that the message had not been sent. I marched into my boss's office and told him he needed to send the message. He said he wanted to wait until 4:00. Did I tell you that he planned to leave on a two-week vacation at 4:00? With the CEO, COO, and CFO all out on vacation, any guesses as to who would be left to mop up the carnage?

I folded my arms in the imperious way that only a six-foot-five, two-hundred-fifty-pound raging queen can and said, "Either you send out the message, or I will."

By the time I got back to my desk the message had been sent, and in less than a minute -- seriously -- I had my first employee in my office complaining about the injustice of it. What I found particularly amusing was that this was the same employee who hasn't spoken to me in a month because I told her that showing up to work an hour and a half late without calling was a problem. Now all of a sudden I'm supposed to go to bat for her bonus.

God knows what's going to happen, and at this point maybe only God cares. I'm clogging the information highway with my resume, but very few nibbles. I'm at that awkward point in a career where I have too much experience for most of the available jobs, and not enough experience for the really good ones. I've interviewed for a couple of things, but nothing has really clicked. Worst case scenario is I get laid off and can't find work while on unemployment. That would take me into the spring, which should be just months away from going back to school. If I have to I'll temp and wait tables through next summer. I'd prefer not to, but daddy's got bills to pay.