This is the third late payroll in a row. Fourth in just over 2 months.

My first IT job I took a paycut for six months because my company was circling the drain. They bounced back by basically eliminating all of the products I was working on, so I ended up leaving not long after I started getting a full paycheque again.

This summer, during the slow months, we had to make absolutely sure we took the previous day's deposit to the bank to ensure we didn't overdraw the account. Also, we had to pay for our food deliveries using the company AMEX.

When the last company I worked for had their line of credit cut off, they had to switch to a different bank ON PAYDAY and I barely got it on time. Luckily, it was a super small company.

We're waiting on one payment from an outside customer to cover payroll. Here's hoping they remember to pay for our benefits.

Oh. And the whole company's been on reduced wages since April. I just got on as FTE about a month and a half back. We're all getting 75% pay. Yeesh.

Ugh. Sounds like they're doomed. :-(

They might rally, but it ain't likely.

It's the same thing with my restaurant. I've been sacrificing my pay to pay out my employees, but even with that I've been late. It's always slow around this time, but coupled with the failing economy, it's been been doubly bad.

This sucks. I'm sorry i_i, Carlo.

They are making cuts in the state budget here, and I'm nervous about how that'll shake out. Ugh.

We always take out a loan to cover the slow months anyway, but we've never had to do it this early.

it's brutal out there. even if you had an loc, many banks are reducing them, or canceling them altogether and calling the debt.

the big banks are fucked, but the regionals are well capitalized. sadly, over the last 20 years they've gotten out of a lot of these business as consolidation yielded colossal banks that could undercut the regionals.

the bigs have lower costs partly through economies of scale, but also by taking on much much more risk. they justified the added risk by being able to hold a much larger portfolio diversified by geography and industry, which in theory lent security. all those receivables couldn't go bad at once, y'know.

now, the regionals have the capital, but not the machinery and expertise. so, now what?

I remember right after the bust, and some mgmt missteps by the absentee owner, our company was so broke that we were actually BANNED from some check-cashing places. (Lots of the guys in the shop are immigrants and for some reason or another don't have accounts. I don't know. Also, people knew our payroll was iffy so they were going just to be sure to have the cash.) The accountant we had liked me, so as soon as she saw deposits and could do what she could she'd say, "Go to the bank, RIGHT NOW. There is cash in." That's how I had to get paid.

At one point I was holding my checks for weeks- and I only get paid 1st/16th. I could never do that now, because my cushion is nonexistent.

Here's one for you. Dex applied for a job. He was offered the job. They asked for a salary quote. They accepted it gladly, saying it was low-end for CTO work. Then they disappeared for 2 weeks -- the first two weeks of the Paulson affair -- then they confessed they couldn't afford to hire anyone for that position even though they needed someone for that position but offered him a decent freelance wage to work on a specific project. He liked the work and them and they liked him and made some noises about hiring him for the original position at the turn of the year. 2 weeks like that, then they emailed him to say that the client of his project wasn't paying so the project was postponed for a couple of days and they wanted save him the commute. A week of radio silence. Then they said they still hadn't gotten paid and couldn't even pay him for the work he'd done until they were paid. And now we are in two more weeks of silence.

Meanwhile, he's applying all over and told that he's over-qualified, a threat to management, etc.

I dragged this poor boy (with 25 years work experience and an alphabet soup of degrees) to NY to marry me and he has spent 18 MONTHS looking for work.

He feels lousy and discouraged and I am at a loss how to advise him.

@be secret: I hope George finds something suiting his talents and respecting his hopes.

...in related news, it'll be late again this time. Maybe only a day or so but since it comes via direct deposit on friday, that's de facto 3 days late.