Now what?

Somebody pass me a shovel please. Because I need to find a way to dig us out of the hole that the Union buried us in. There is a dark cloud indeed, floating above my head today. This is the part where you would assume that I tell you the inevitable news that Josh got his most current pink slip. But that moment will have to wait until another day. I'd like to be able to say that this is good news, but alas...it is not. First of all, you must understand that Josh's current employer is a wonderful man who is keeping Josh employed for the sole purpose of keeping him off of the bench and off the path of unemployment. Problem: This guys business has slowed down exponentially since last year. This is bad. How bad? Turns out that last year, his boss proceeded to tell Josh, was very slow. This year? Much slower.

Not. Good.

His boss, (the owner and only other employee left besides Josh) told Josh a very uplifting thing. He said that whenever Josh wants to jump ship just to say the word and he'd give him the pink slip. Encouraging, right? Even more encouraging is the fact that the owner's son jumped ship last week for a much more promising job. So seeing as we have a whopping two whole weeks left of unemployment to claim for the year, we have decided to stick out his current job in hopes of matching the pay of unemployment. Sadly, Josh has gotten a grand total of 5.5 hours of work this week. Shocking, isn't it? So it has become time to weigh our options once more. Out of my sheer (and seemingly morbid) curiosity, I thought that today would be a good day to call the Union and see what the bench is looking like. I thought that perhaps work was picking up and things would be promising if he were to take his boss up on the pink slip offer. Would you like to know how many people (state-wide) are on the bench? Yes? You asked for it...

273 Journeymen and 45 Apprentices. That's 318 people at the mercy of the Union waiting for a job.

Three-hundred and eighteen.

*sigh*

Forget the shovel. We're gonna need a backhoe.