Time out

First it was Casual Fridays (which I take very seriously; don't drop by here on that day if you expect to see someone who looks professional). That was followed by Lazy Fridays, the trend from Australia in which workers take off for the pubs at 3 p.m. Now we have the logical extension, Furlough Fridays:

Less a month after ending unpaid days off for more than 200,000 state workers, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is bringing back a scaled-down version of the policy that will take effect on Sunday.

[. . .]

Like the furlough policy that ended June 30, the new plan laid out in Executive Order S-12-10 requires employees to take three unpaid days off per month. There's no termination date: Furloughs will end when lawmakers pass a 2010-11 budget. That could be weeks or months after the Legislature reconvenes next week.

Let's start a campaign to get the federal level to adopt Furlough Friday. Throw in Takeoff Tuesday, and we might start to get a handle on government growth.