Maybe you heard the piece on NPR on Wednesday about pay cuts at the High Museum of Art? Here’s my short recap: “Everyone at the museum’s getting a small, 5-7% pay cut, with the worst of it given to martyr the head of the museum. Oh, except for some people who are taking a 100% pay cut or something. Whatever.”

But I’ll admit that I’m just bitter. My wife was one of the people laid off from the museum on Monday. The story, though, will be that the High brass bravely took pay cuts. [This is where I cut some honest criticism for the sake of politeness.]

Here’s what the actual NPR piece sounded like:

“Five percent for the majority of the staff, six percent for the [department directors], and seven percent for myself.” Shapiro says five full time and 3 temporary positions will also be eliminated. The changes are effective immediately.

To be fair, I understand why an Atlanta institution is the story and not the handful of souls that got cut loose, but I want to attract a bit of attention to the faces in the statistics here. In the news, people tend to be identified by their age and their occupation. People who get laid off get shuffled into a statistical purgatory where they wait to get their faces back. When we do point a lamp at them, it’s usually to back-light a scary economy.

In our case, the jobs that drew us here and bound us to this city have given us up. The Atlanta job market being what it is, our house being devalued as it has, we’ve got to look as far and wide as we can for work now. Who knows if we’ll still live here in 40 or 60 days?

For more on the High Museum budget cuts, check out the press release after the jump:

(more…)