Winding down?

I was scheduled for two days of overtime in these four days off.  I worked one of them, but the second was cancelled.

I worked out early on that if I were to have one day of overtime each rotation I would be earning an income equal to what I was making in my salaried position prior to February 27, 2007.  After working several consecutive sixty-hour weeks recently, I realized that if I were to do that on a continuous basis - which would involve one or two days of overtime each rotation, depending on the week - I would warn about 20% more than I had been making on salary.  Of course, maintaining that pace would have also probably killed me.  (It's come pretty close several times.)

But now it looks like we may be hitting a slowdown.  And the deadline for my permanent layoff is looming, sometime between December 13 and December 26.  At least without all this damned lucrative overtime, I'll have time to start my job search.

It's funny.  You would think that with the economy the way it is, and the jobs situation the way it is, the most radicalized anti-government people making the loudest noise would be working-class stiffs facing layoffs.  But from a sampling of people I know, the opposite is true:  the most anti-Obama, anti-general welfare noises are coming from people with very secure jobs - people who are employed by, or are contractors for, the U.S. government, particularly the Department of Defense.  Except for the most radical, loudest mouth of all:  he works in road construction.  Which is the one sector of the economy that has benefited the most from the much-hated (by him) government stimulus program.

Speaking of that:  There is a road project that has been going on near my house for over a year.  There are numerous highway programs along my commute that have been going on for about that long.  I don't remember single projects taking this long in the past.  Is it maybe just a little bit possible that these construction contractors are strrrreeettttttcccching things out as much as possible, as long as the phat stimulus money is pouring in?

Of course, soon these projects along my commute won't be an issue for me any more.  Until I get myself a new commute.

VOTE NOVEMBER 2nd