Mei Flower notes that it is during times like these that teaching can seem like a fortuitous career choice:
One perk of being paid so poorly is that I haven't really lost money in our dying economy. One advantage of having a job that comes with so little status is that I get to keep it, since no one else wants it. And one benefit of working my tail off for eleven months out of the year is that I get one full month in which I don't have to work.
I certainly haven’t heard anyone else talking about planning a two-week trip to Italy this summer.