My psychologist sister Susan is going to start an advice column, telling people to get their own psychological house in order and stop blaming others for their troubles.

I'm trying to help her with subheads. One I rejected:

"It won't be your asshole boss in your deathbed."

Which reminds me of a counselor who once told me, "Wish in one hand and shit in the other, and see which one fills up faster."

And my mother's pithy line, whose origin I don't know but that I use with Scout four times a day: "Tough gazzots."

Got any favorite hard-assed advice? Let's have it!

With an election coming up in the Chicago suburb whose politics I have chronicled, I checked in with the place. And in my latest Huffy Post, I let the mayor know I was disappointed to see how little had changed.

The Chicago Tribune reports today that many companies are avoiding or delaying layoffs by issuing temporary, across-the-board pay cuts. For instance, the local office-products supplier Acco Brands is cutting all 2,000 employees' pay 47% over six weeks beginning Feb. 23. The company will "provide short-term financial
assistance to employees put in the 'most extreme circumstances' by
allowing them to borrow from future earnings."

A Watson Wyatt executive was quoted as saying pay cuts and salary and pension freezes are last resorts for many companies. "I remember talking to companies, and we'd go down the list of options
and we'd say temporary pay cuts, and they'd say, 'Can we do that?'"

They can, but they usually don't want to.

"Usually, companies say they prefer layoffs to pay cuts," said Yale
economics professor Truman Bewley. "It gets the misery out the door."

Especially at a moment of such universal economic trouble, I generally like the idea of everyone sacrificing together, as opposed to splitting society into two groups: profound victims and scared survivors.

Do you?

And more to the point here: Have you ever had to communicate a temporary pay cut? What do you say and how do you say it?