Pay cuts...

[woodychitwn]

Driving to work this morning, I stopped at a red light and, while sitting there, looked at the neighborhood around me.  Just last summer, I biked through this area regularly and every storefront was filled with businesses...  Here in the city, we're ALL about the small business.  Yeah, we have chain stores as well, but every neighborhood is filled with locally owned shops.  With an 8-mile commute that takes 30-40 minutes every day...  Why drive across town to shop at some mega-store, when you can walk across the street, where they know your name?  And...  As I turned to look at the flower-shop, I realized it was closed...  So was the boutique next door...  So was the diner on the corner that's been there since the 50's!!!  Across the street, more closed restaurants, stores, bakery, Hardware store going out of business, Banquet hall closing up shop...  The entire intersection, everything around it...  Dead.  Going of business and NOW LEASING signs filling every window...  There's a local bank chain and a Burger King left.  That's it.

They keep saying that...  It's going to get worse before it gets better.  The true impact of that hadn't hit me until this morning.

Poll Keeping your job...