The 6 Percent Dissolution

By Bob Goldman

Remember the good old days when you company would match your 401(k) contribution up to 3 percent, 4 percent, 5 percent, 6 percent or even 15 percent? The goal driving this beneficence was to encourage employees to save for their own retirement. It was a good idea, because management sure didn't give a hoot.

Well, kiddies, the world has changed since those ancient times — maybe six months ago. Now, if there's a percentage in your paycheck it doesn't represent a perk. The way the math works today is companies are asking employees to take a pay cut - 3 percent, 4 percent, 5 percent, 6 percent or 15 percent. The only match involved is the match you use to set fire your retirement plans. As for that 401(k), it just might pay for bus fare to your one-bedroom condo at Boca del Vista, assuming it hasn't been foreclosed, or converted into a kennel.

The reason companies use when asking employees to whack a percentage off their salaries is truly insidious. You have to lose a little so your co-workers don't lose everything. Management could fire 100 percent of 6 percent of the staff, or 100 percent of the staff could take a 6 percent pay cut, thus generating sufficient savings to keep the teenier-tinier paychecks flowing.

Presented this way, how can you say no? Could you ever live with yourself if one of the generous and always helpful IT nerds lost their job because of your need for a 60-inch plasma television with Sensaround Sound? And how could you sleep at night — or, more importantly, in the afternoon — knowing that your selfish desire to buy groceries for your family resulted in the decimation of your crackerjack HR department, the lively, fun-loving folks who organize those wonderful team-building events, like the time you had to fall backward into the arms of your co-workers to demonstrate your mutual trust and respect. (So they dropped you on the pavement of the parking lot. It wasn't their fault that no one had used the proper form explaining their duties, or submitted it in triplicate before the close of the business day.)

Not every company is using the communal pay cut to cut costs and save jobs. Another popular sign of the bad times is the forced leave of absence, a mandatory "vacation without pay" that could last a day, a week, or even a month in which you do not work, do not pass go, and do not collect a paycheck.

Frankly, in your case, this cost-cutting move holds a lot more risk that an across-the-board reduction. Once management sees how well the business runs without your presence, it will only be a matter of not much time before your temporary time off becomes permanent.

But let's not mire ourselves in a pity party. Here are two productive, pro-active responses that you can make to keep your head — and your paycheck — while others are losing theirs.

1. Prove your worth by countering a reduction in pay with an equal reduction in productivity.

As little work as you currently do, you could do less. Yes, it will take hard work to work less, but it's worth it to prove just how essential you really are. So, if it's your policy to never return phone calls, it's time to step up your game and stop answering the phone altogether. (This technique is especially effective if you have a job in customer service.)

If you routinely come in late, come in later. If you always leave early, leave earlier. Trust me — if business is bad, this technique will make it badder, proving to management that they can't monkey with your fundamental right to get 100 percent of pay for 50 percent of effort.

2. Use mandatory furloughs to demonstrate your resourcefulness.

Don't go meekly into vacation mode when forced to stay out of work. If you want to take time to play computer games or Twitter with your Facebook friends, do it in the appropriate location — at work. Instead, spend your forced furlough constructively. You could set up a tent in the company parking lot and move in with your family. Think how creative you will appear to management as you and the kids live off the land, skinning squirrels, and barbecuing the lug nuts off the boss' Jaguar.

Yes, with a little ingenuity you can make management understand the place for a seriously deranged and totally lazy employee like yourself is in your cubical. And if a few HR nerds or IT dinks have to lose their jobs, so be it. Trust me — there are plenty of Jaguar lug nuts to go around.

Bob Goldman has been an advertising executive at a Fortune 500 company in the San Francisco Bay Area. He offers a virtual shoulder to cry on at bob@funnybusiness.com.