Pray For A Good Severance Package

My office does not allow people to take time off unpaid. They won't fire you if you do, but they will count it towards your allowed amount of time for calling in sick, leaving early, etc. And they only allow a certain number of employees off at a time since we need the phone coverage and all the other work that we do around here needs to stay current. Well...... here's an email that we just got (and I'm X-ing out certain things since it's company stuff that I don't know if I should share):

"Afternoon All,

You have all done an amazing job at handling our office workflow. As you know our mail goes up and down throughout the year and we’re currently at the time of the year where the volume of submitted claims are down. We have been and are all looking for ways to offer assistance to other offices and share/distribute office responsibilities such as XXXX's and XXXX's. Since most offices are in the same situation we are currently in a position to allow additional staff off using PTO or E-time without being considered an occurrence. However, there are guidelines and expectations to be met before this can occur.

Expectations:
XXXX's need to be through 6/4/08,
XXXX (office) - needs to be blank,
XXXX's - PN's through 6/12/08, all others though 6/4/08 need to be completed or documentation on the status.

If it is your Early or Late you're are still expected to provide phone coverage

If you are interested in either PTO and/or E-time please contact the sups via the sup email list, 'xxx xx xxx xxx'. Approval will be based on balancing customer service, business need and workflow.

For those of you who have never had or heard of E-time the following is an overview:
E-Time allows employees to voluntarily take Time off without pay. The time away from work does not count against the employee's PTO accrual or attendance records. However, E-Time could impact an employee's yearly earnings; it could lower his/her total yearly compensation.

This could affect any benefit that is driven by this figure, such as:
· 401K
· PrinPay
· Defined Benefit Pension
· Hours worked toward FMLA eligibility"

So there we have it. For the first time ever since I've worked here (November of 2000), they are offering unpaid time and extra paid time off. And that scares me. We are the only West Coast office so we are in a good position for business from Oregon, Washington, and California. But things haven't been coming in. We have quoted on a couple of groups and done some presentations, but nothing has come of it so far. If we don't start getting some more business, our office could be in trouble. My personal job role isn't suffering since there's never a lack of work for what us "specialists" do. There are only 3 of us and nobody else wants to do what I do. And like I said, we ALWAYS have plenty of work. But still..... I'll just have to think positively and not let myself panic. We always have ups and downs (just as everyone else) so this is probably just one of our down times and will soon pick itself back up. That's what I'm going to tell myself, and honestly, it's probably the truth.

Much Love!