The economic trends that benefited me in allowing me to by my first house with a great fixed-rate mortgage less than a year ago have now led to harder times at my company.  The difficulty is that our business is still busy, still profitable, and still growing, and yet forces unclear have brought about 2 rounds of layoffs in less than 3 months.  I understand the state of the economy and the fact that it may get worse before it will get better.  I understand that many businesses and markets are making painful cuts to weather such lean times.  What I’m not clear on is how one can justify making cuts when the math doesn’t seem to do so.  What I’m not clear on is how one can justify directing such cuts to integral and valuable members of the population.

I’ll admit that I might be biased.  My friend was hired within a month of my own start at the company and we spent the first 6 months of our shared tenure sharing an oddly-shaped, over-sized desk.  Last week I celebrated my second full year in the company and now he has been cut loose weeks shy of hitting that same milestone.  And while I have worked close to him and know what he does, to be honest I know little about how well he does his job – it doesn’t relate closely to my work and we tend to work with different groups of people.  But in the stead of his departure, I did feel some of the ripples besides those that stirred within.  Some were shocked, some became scared.  Many felt that to see cuts so deep meant that few had the insulation they once thought.

In truth, I am not worried about him.  He is a smart guy and will likely be able to keep afloat until something else comes together.  And I have no doubt that even in the current climate, he should have little difficulty finding work soon.  He is very marketable and he knows people.  I’m more worried about the rest of us:  those of us who will need to fill the void left behind; those of us who have today had a degree of innocence stripped away.

I hope that he and I will be able to remain friendly and spend time together outside of work.  I hope that we will be able to remain part of each others lives in some fashion.  But we rarely managed to do much together outside of work before as we both have families to go home to and things to occupy much of our free time.  It was always good enough to just have the time we did in the office.  Now that time is gone.  So while we may end up remaining close, our friendship is forever changed.  Today, that office friend was lost.

No, I’m not referring to the actual price in the form of fees for transactions from banks or increases in costs of goods to cover the credit card transaction fees – that is a cost of convenience I would expect.  It is the tariff of ignorance this seems to no be leveeing from our society as a result (it made more sense in my head).  I think I can best explain this with a narrative:

[customer pulls up to drive-thru and orders some food - then proceeds to window to pay] 

Burger Jockey:  That will be $5.17.

[customer produces a $5 bill, a quarter, and 2 pennies] 

BJ [looking slightly confused]:  Sir?  You can have these pennies back.  Your total was only $5.17 and you already gave me the 5 and a quarter.

[BJ proceeds to finish transaction and produces a nickel and 3 pennies in change - customer is saddened by this reflection on the intellect of our youth]

I must confess that I hate pennies.  I’m not a big fan of nickels either.  So I avoid having them on my person to the best of my ability and give them away when opportunities arise to do so.  So when situations like the one illustrated above occur, it is also personally frustrating as I am left not only with the knowledge that the high school teenager fielding my order does not have a grasp of basic math but also a handful of change that I had been deliberately trying to avoid.  I can only imagine the look that would have been on her face if my bill came to $4.77 and I handed her a $5 bill and 2 pennies (which, if it did, I would have done).

So I’m making a bit of an assumptive leap here by saying that the fact that these children don’t have to deal with cash anymore for probably 75% or more of the transaction they handle is directly leading to their lack of accumen in simple currency math.  But I don’t think it is an inaccurate leap.  The fact of the matter is that part of the reason that we send our teenagers out to get jobs like these is not only to teach them to handle real world responsibilities, but also to learn about real fiscal responsibilities.  And part of that should also mean learning to apply some of the basic knowledge that they’ve been getting pounded into them since grade school.  Am I overstating things to believe that if these kids can’t figure out simple transactions like these then they are likely not prepared to budget their own money wisely or make even some more abstract yet basic calculations of judgement?  I sincerely hope so.

Currently, I have a job that I like more than any I’ve had before and I make more money than I’ve ever earned before (which helps me enjoy my job as well).  And yet I still find myself living paycheck to paycheck and seeing my health benefits get more expensive and less effective.  I can’t say that I’m struggling with money, but it would be nice to feel like I was getting ahead rather than just keeping pace (and hoping I’m not falling behind).

My wife is currently a full-time stay-at-home mom to our 2 kids.  This was a conscious choice as (a) our kids are a lot happier in these younger pre-school years not being in daycare all day and (b) even if she did work, it would cost all of her salary to keep the kids in daycare.  So her working would only earn us lost time together as a family.  And now she is considering getting a job anyway so that we can be more financially comfortable, but that will likely mean a part-time job during hours that I can be home with the kids (nights and weekends) which means it will likely be a low-paying retail job.

I really do want to be more eco-friendly in my lifestyle, but to do so is not cheap (and as illustrated above, I’m not really in a position to opt for friendly over frugal).  I WANT to eat more organic foods.  I WANT to produce less waste (as in garbage).  I WANT to purchase goods that use less packaging and more recyclable materials.  I TRY to use less water, less electricity, less plastic and chemicals.  But the next steps seem to be the ones that will cost me more.  It is hard to justify buying organic juice when the grocery store has a buy-one-get-one-free sale on Juicy Juice.  It is hard to justify driving 2 to 3 times as far to go to a Whole Foods market and pay 50% more for the same amount of food when gas is around $3.50 a gallon (I HAVE been trying to coast more to save on gas – it actually works when driving manual).  It is hard to say it is worth being green if it means possibly going into the red.

I am not overly worried – I will soldier on and I am optimistic that I will find the balance.  But I hope that the declarations that I hear on my TV are not hollow.  I know there are people in this country who are worse off than I and they need these promises to bare fruit.  They need the economic stimulus that a $300 tax rebate ain’t delivering.  They need the growth of industry and the moderation of big business that is currently lacking more than I do.  But if those things come, I plan to use whatever windfall I may reap of it to achieve the greenness that currently seems so elusive.