The reason I was placed on this furlough is becasue my division doesn’t have enough work to keep me busy.

Essentially, I’ve been let go because of lack of work, and no fault of my own.

If work picks back up they will call me back.

I think it’s about a 50%-50% chance that work will pick back up.

I wasn’t the only designer/detailer that was put in this situation, there was one other, and a couple of engineers.

I’m free to go on unemployment and get another job.

I’m not sure if I’m going to look for another job right away or try to wait this out for 3 months. It’s all going to depend on what my financial situation is going to turn out to be.

First thing, I have to do is set a budget with what I have in the bank, to see how long I can last doing nothing. But that seams kind of passive, and that’s not really in my personality to just sit and wait for something.

Good news is, if there is any, is that I don’t have any credit card debit, and the only real debit I have is the mortgage for this house.

So slow in fact, that I haven’t charged and entire 40 hour week to a project all year.Ive been charging my time to overhead and training. I need to have 100% of my time chargeable to a costumer, or “billable time” as we call it.

So we had a meeting this week with the department manager and all of us designers. (I design mechanical systems, HVAC, piping, plumbing, I lay the systems out using AutoCAD and other drafting software.) The department manager said we have work coming in just not right now and a lot of our current projects are on hold by the client for whatever reason.

He suggested that some of us could go on a less that 40 hour work week, or a modified work week, or people might be temporarily switched to part time.

Eff that!

I looked at my PTO (paid time off) and realized I had a shit load coming to me.

I have an excess of 126.5 hours, that’s about 3 weeks of EXCESS PTO!

At the end of the year I’ll have 270.50 total hours of PTO that’s over 6 weeks of PTO I have to take this year.

So instead of having to put someone on a modified work week schedule for multiple weeks. I going to volunteer that I take one day off a week until all of my excess PTO is used up. Using 8 hours a week will take about 15 weeks.

By then we will be going full bore on the projects that are being negotiated now, and I’ll still have over 3 weeks of PTO left.

The good thing is the department manager assured us all that no one will be let go becasue we do have work coming down, it just not gotten to us yet.

I just have to get some new running shoes and I’m all set. (I got some new headphones yesterday).

So I’ve been researching some diets lately becasue I’m a Fatty Fatty Boom Balatty, and I’ve settled on these.

The main criteria for all of these is cost. I spend about 50 bucks a week at the grocery store. So the cost of any of these would need to be comparable to my grocery bill.

Vegan Diet – This place is close to my house and they deliver. Plus, I won’t have to do any of the cooking. If there is such a thing as “Vegan Cooking” (ZING!) I don’t think anyone has ever died from eating vegan so what harm could it do? It can’t be any worse that what I’m eating now.

Primal Diet – I’ve heard good things about this diet. But I really haven’t dug too far into it more research is needed.

Weight Watchers – Everyone knows this one. My concern is the cost. I’m not a Rockefeller for Petes sake.

Juice Diet – These guys are morons. Their web site is down for weeks because of too much traffic. Of course your getting a lot of traffic! Every one and their dong starts diets at the beginning of the hear. Idiots. I found out about this from a documentary I watched a few months ago on Netflix called fat Sick and Nearly Dead.

Stick with what I know – If you’ve been reading this site for years then you know that I lost 85 pounds 3 years ago and ran a 1/2 marathon. So I know how to do it.

If you’ve done any of these diet for even a short amount of time I’d like to hear your thoughts.

I’ll let you know what I choose.