HP and Gateway are giving some of their employees holiday furloughs from December 24 to December 31 in order to save some cash and make the fourth quarter results look better. Of course that probably comes as small consolation to the people who are losing a week’s pay during the holiday season when they’ve probably already overspent. I certainly hope that these employees didn’t find out this week that they’re going to lose a week’s pay at the end of the month. One thing the article doesn’t report is what the compensation packages are for Carly Fiorina and Ted Waitt. Waitt is the company’s chairman and holds a big chunk of Gateway stock, so he probably gets less compensation than Fiorina, but either way, I find it unsurprising that executives are screwing employees to gloss up the numbers a bit rather than picking their own pockets.