Beware of the Furlough
As I mentioned previously, the University System of Maryland's budget has been severely slashed, leading to pay cuts across the board for faculty and staff.
However, they don't call them pay cuts. They call them "furloughs."
The announcement of "furloughs" led me to think that I didn't understand what the word meant.
fur·lough n. 1. (a) A leave of absence or vacation, especially one granted to a member of the armed forces. (b) A usually temporary layoff from work.
(c) A leave of absence from prison granted to a prisoner. 2. The papers or documents authorizing a leave: The soldiers had their furloughs in their breast pockets.
Dude ... when's vacation? Unfortunately, they named official vacation days (spring break) as furlough days. Even if we wanted to "work" then, we couldn't.
Now you might think that I don't really deserve to be paid for days I'm not lecturing -- and perhaps that was part of what the administration meant by calling it a furlough. But as a research professor, I am doing research when I'm not teaching (you know, publish or perish).
More importantly, even though most professors only teach for 9 months, they choose to spread out their salary over 12 months to have a steady stream of income throughout the year. So we receive income during the summer, even though we are not lecturing. Our incomes are really lump sums spread out over the year by choice.
So what was labelled a "furlough" was really a pay cut. And I have no problem with pay cuts per se. After all, it was a serious budget crisis, I didn't go into academia for the money, and it's better than seeing numerous staff laid off -- although I'd like to know the administration's share of the burden.
But to call what is essentially a pay cut a "furlough" is just another example of the Newspeak that is transforming our discourse. Body bags are now "transfer tubes," the dismantling of coal industry regulations is labelled a "Clear Skies" initiative, and pay cuts are now "furloughs."
[But if we can just get those slot machines, at least I'll have something to do on my furlough days.]
11:34:03 PM 
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