My Internal Debate: Am I Playing the Recession Right? (The New York Times)

When I prepared last year’s budget, the sales projections were based on a month or two of crisis-affected data. There was no way to know for sure whether the economy was going to get worse, stabilize, or start to improve. My approach was to cut some expenses, cut back on hours, add some furlough days, and reduce staff--all based on very little other than the knowledge that sales were evaporating and the hope that things would get better.