Whittling down…

This morning I received word that yet another of my co-workers is leaving. To date this month 5 of my co-workers have given notice that they are leaving the office. Some of these were expected because the people are retiring but the rest came as a surprise. I am really happy that people are moving on for their own needs but I am bummed because what it means in our office. Because of where I work we are currently under a hiring freeze. The budget situation in our nation means that there is a trickle down effect throughout agencies that are somehow associated with the government. The hiring freeze means that the vacated positions will likely not be filled any time soon or possibly at all. It means that we will have to do the same staggering amount of work with fewer people handling it. I have no idea how we will ever take care of the needs of the people we are charged to care for with a possible doubling of our work load. This is when things fall through the cracks and people ask later “how it could have happened”.