The work day started with a sobering meeting. Our grim-faced bosses told their employees — court reporters, courtroom clerks, office support staff, courtroom assistants — that the economy, as we had known, has been the worst it’s been for a long time… and there is no visible light at the end of the tunnel. We’ve had mandatory furloughs the third Wednesday of every month for awhile now, saving the court system more than $10 million a year, but that is just a drop in the bucket given our state deficit. Layoffs have been staved off as long as the Courts were able to, and letters terminating service will begin arriving next week.

Expected number of layoffs next week: 329
Expected number of layoffs in September: 500
Expected number of layoffs next Fall: 530

This is about 1/3 of the work force in the Los Angeles Superior Courts. Layoffs will be determined by seniority, not job performance or any other factor. There will be courtroom closures. There may even be courthouse closures. Cascading (demotions) is expected. Because the Courts is funded 85% by the State and 15% by the County since consolidation (I KNEW I was against consolidation of the municipal and superior court systems), as opposed to the other way around before consolidation, the State’s problems, our district supervisor explained, are now the Courts’ problems. California has a problem — it actually has $20 BILLION little green problems annually through 2015, as projected by the California Legislative Analyst’s Office. The state budget passed in July 2009 created “an unprecedented annual shortfall of nearly $400 million” for the California trial courts, executive officer/clerk John A. Clarke wrote in a stark but informative 4-page email sent to all of us last Friday.

I think back to when I was first stepping into this job, 11 years ago. The boss of my then-current job had said to me, when I’d announced that I would be taking the written test for this position, “You’re not gonna get it. When the County hires, they’ve got their own people in mind.” I knew then that even if he and his condescending laugh were right-on, I would be quitting, thank-you-very-much. I passed the written test, took and passed the typing test (I think the requirement was only 35 wpm at the time), and my interview was scheduled. Meanwhile, I took my most recent trip to Taiwan. My dad’s army buddy, whom we’d stayed with for a few days, said to me in Chinese, “A County job is good! It’s a steel rice bowl!” Today, that rice bowl seems transformed to rice paper.

I’m not sure if 11 years is enough seniority. Just in this courthouse alone, I’m on the bottom of the totem pole, competing with others in my position that had been with the Courts since the 1960s. If I’m not laid off, it’s going to get much, much busier at work, with 1/3 of the work force missing and with the workload unchanged, if not dramatically increased due to economic hardship. Recession typically doesn’t drop crime rates, divorce rates, unlawful detainer numbers, lawsuit numbers. Part of the reason these lawsuits in our courtroom have been so inane could be partly because people are suing on a whim for just the chance at money, not because they’ve really been wronged. If I were laid off, though, I’d see this as an opportunity to do something I really want to do — this was supposed to be a 3-year job anyway. As much as that sounds like sour grapes, it could really be a blessing in disguise. I have other talents aside from file-stamping divorce judgments. Besides, the quality of life at work has gone down pretty dramatically since…well, since. People who know me know.

I flashback again to 1999, when I’d laid on my bed in my parents’ house, waiting for The Call, begging the forces that be, “please please please please pleeeease!” I look at all the people lamenting their workweeks and their jobs, and I think, “Didn’t you ever have a day like mine, when you waited for the phone to ring with good news, thinking ‘please please please please please?’ What happened to that person, who really really wanted what you’re complaining about now?”

In other fronts, looks like baby plans may be put on hold for at least 2 years, which just seems uncomfortably too long to not know.