The swordfish is looking a little peaked -- definitely unwell

I've fallen back on the swordfish metaphor lately in referring to this project. The fish is wearing down. We worked Friday, but it was on the two-hour (actually four-hour) delay, so with the early closing recently imposed for Fridays, we only got in a max of seven hours. It sucked, but at least they were all overtime hours for me, having loaded the front end of the week with max hours, knowing the snow was coming.

But the real news Friday was that the paralegals -- also temps, as they got rid of any firm-employed paralegals as soon as the sale closed on our original client company -- got cut to 40 hours a week right after the sale closed. Nobody knew this before -- except the paralegals, of course. Since they won't  want the attorneys working without paralegal support, I think this pretty much guarantees that we'll be cut to 40 hours soon. Probably not next week, because the President's Day holiday cuts our hours anyway, but almost certainly the week after. I hope to be wrong, since the market sucks and I'm not sure I can even find an overtime project elsewhere, anyway. There just aren't that many of them these days. Leaves me wondering: how long before 40 hours pushes me into bankruptcy? The over-under is 6 months. Exit strategy is in the works.