Laid Off

[Ash]

Last night, I got an e-mail from my boss asking me to come in at 9am this morning.
In almost 4 years of working there, my boss has never asked me to do that.
So right then I knew something was up.

I saw it coming...

Last month, we were informed that the company I work for filed for bankruptcy and was closing three other centers down.
They swore up & down that our center would stay open.  And it did.
What they didn't tell us was that they were planning to slash over 150 positions!

In my department alone, they let go of ten of us.
But what really ticks me off is that they wouldn't let any of us finish out the week. 
You'd think that if you're laid off on a Tuesday, they'd let you work the rest of the week until Friday but no, they wouldn't.

The good thing is that they promised us that they would not contest any unemployment insurance claims.
So I bet you can guess what I'm going to do first thing in the morning.
That's right...I'm going to my local workforce center and filing for unemployment.
I don't want to do that, but at this point I don't really have a choice.
It's all I'm gonna have until I can find another job.   

I still can't believe it.  After almost four years of loyal servce, they just dump us out on the street.

Well, at least I've got my resume out there to several business so hopefully I won't have to be on unemployment for long.

How about you?
Ever been laid off from a job?

[asimpson2006]

Sorry to hear that Ash.  Hopefully you find another job soon.  I was close to losing my job at my previous employer before.  Once they asked me to stay late until it wasn't busy.  Well the end of my normal shift came and it wasn't busy so I left at my normal time.  A few days later my boss calls me in to the office and tells me that I basically "committed to work, then abandoned" which under normal circumstances would have cost me my job, but this time I didn't.  Then he tried to make me feel bad by telling me that we got busy after I left, and lost some sales to this.

I'm sorry, it wasn't busy, so I left then it got busy after I left.  I have no control on the horde of people know as customers and when they decide to come in and shop.

   

[trekgeezer]

Sorry you got cut Ash, hope you don't have to be jobless for too long.

I haven't ever been exactly laid off, but I have been screwed before.  I worked for Wang Laboratories (a MA computer company) for almost 15 years.  The company started having rough times around 1990 and in 1992 they went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy. They immediately broke the leases on all their small offices which included me and one other guy who had worked together for almost ten years.  He got laid off.

It really sucked the way they did it to him. We were field engineers and worked on all sorts of computers. That day he had been working with hospital all day getting them a new power supply flown in for their mini-computer.  He was wrapping up for the day and had just walked out of the building when the customer comes running out and tells him there is a call for him. I was our district manager telling him he'd been laid-off, right there in the customer's office.  The manager got canned that night too, because I got a call from another manager telling me I was assigned to him.

I worked out of my house for the next 1.5 years, then the hammer fell.  They wanted me to become a contract employee whereby I would get 30% of all the contract and billable work I did for them.  When I met with my manager and he laid out the deal for me I asked him what if I said no. This was on a Tuesday and he said I would be laid off at the end of the week.   

I checked around and found someone in Mobile who was doing this and he said don't do it because it was actually putting him into debt.  So I told my boss no.

Well, they hadn't planned on that and didn't have anyone lined up to service my territory.  So they just let me hang until I found a new job, basically screwing me out my two months severance I had coming.

I really felt screwed because it had been such a great place to work and I had looked forward to staying there until I retired.  It really does put you in the dumps and kind  of makes you mistrustful when you do get another job.


My partner who got laid off had gotten a job at Compaq in Houston, so he circulated my resume and got on there in tech support.  Compaq is a nightmare for another time though.


I sincerely hope your job hunting is quickly fruitful my friend.

[Mofo Rising]

Sounds terrible, Ash. Hope you find a new job soon.

[AnubisVonMojo]

I haven't ever been exactly laid off, but I have been screwed before.  I worked for Wang Laboratories (a MA computer company) for almost 15 years.

So you got got screwed by Wang? Sounds painful Trek. 

Sorry to hear about the job loss Ash. Unemployment can be fun though, especially if you've got a lot of movies to catch up on. I was in a similar situation a few years ago. I was working for a Best Buy warehouse on a seasonal contract. We were told that we would have guaranteed work up until the week before Christmas. One day some dickweed didn't secure a pallet of DVD players properly, so when the forklift came along to collect, the damn pile toppled onto me. Generally I was fine, but it was insisted that I go to the hospital to be checked out. 3 hours and a bottle of Vicodin later, I returned via car service. Everybody else from my shift had already left, so I went to the front office to pick up my paycheck and sign out for the day. The woman who gave me my paycheck informed me that all of the temps had been let go. This happened on December 4th. I remember because it was also my anniversary (dating, not marriage)... To top things off, I'd actually met a few cool people on the job too, but never got their contact info, so they'd all been let go while I was at the hospital and I was never able to get back in touch with them again.

On the lighter side of layoffs though, when IBM let me and the other college student employees at the time go, we were given two weeks notice and a nice party to send us off with. Every other job I've had involved me walking off the site and never returning. I'm not one for big outburst type quitting, nor for two weeks notice. The end of my last job was weird though. I told my boss I was sick of being a shipping manager with 2 years experience while my just-hired assistant was making the same amount of money I was. He quite and I demanded more money. I was let go the same day, but the weird part was that my boss wasn't angry or anything. They gave me $1200 for severance, kept an eye on me as I packed up my stuff, and gave me a handshake as I left... Maybe that was the karma for the Best Buy incident years earlier. 

Anyway, sorry again Ash. You'll have another job soon anyway. Consider milking that unemployment though if you can. After all, it's the company's pocket you're taking from, not the tax payers.

[nshumate]

Thought and prayers for you.  Don't look on them so badly for not letting you finish out the week, though; too many laid-off or fired employees get vengeful and spend their remaining time trying to screw up the employer.

[Ed, Ego and Superego]

Ash,
I am sorry to hear that.  I was laid off, sort of, back in 2003.  It was a contract job where they had no intention of renewing when they hired me.  They needed a chair warmer for 6 months.  After the six mobths contract period was up, I went out the door.  I spent the rest of the year off work, and then got my pre-contract job back due to set of strange circumstances. 

It was tough on me, the hardest part is after the first few weeks, you run out of places to send job applications.  My advice is just keep moving forward.  Make sure you "do" every day.  This will pass soon enough if you keep going forward.  Its sitting in front of the TV/Game Syastem/TV being inactive that kills you.  Try taking up or increasing your exercise, or do volunteer work, or heck, knitting.  Just hang in there and keep applying to whatever comes up.

Um, I hesitate to ask but... do you have a biology/chemistry degree?  Are you willing to move to Oregon? My tech support group is hiring.  I know you can hack a call center, but you gotta be a "wet" science type. 
If so drop me a note and I'll give you the skinny.  Or if you want to talk or anything, drop a line.  Hang in there bud.
-Ed

[trekgeezer]

Ash,
Its sitting in front of the TV/Game Syastem/TV being inactive that kills you.  Try taking up or increasing your exercise, or do volunteer work, or heck, knitting.  Just hang in there and keep applying to whatever comes up.
-Ed

Good advice Ed. I quit Compaq after a year and a half. I wanted to be able to look for a job in Arkansas full time. I spent about two months sitting on the coach eating caramel corn and watching the tube.  My kids took to calling me Bum-dad.

[lester1/2jr]

ash- I've never been laid off but i've certaily been fired.


what sort of business was it, if you don't mind saying?

[Torgo]

I work for a major insurance company as a policy processor and they've started to really outsource the work I do to India this year.

They're not actually letting people go, but they're letting people move into other positions and there's also been more work coming so that's an option on down the road as well.

They said that they're going to have to keep at least 20% of the endorsement work that's being outsourced over here as a sort of contingency plan so there's a really chance I'll just be kept on that as my production #'s are through the roof compared to other people I work with on both 1st and 2nd shift (I work 2nd).

So even though I'm not actually getting laid off, there's still a lot of uncertainty at my workplace right now that's not doing anyone any good.   

EDIT: I forgot to mention that I've worked at this company for 7 years and 7 months.

[lester1/2jr]

can we outsource wall street and the beltway to india?  It'd be a lot cheaper and they can't possibly do a  worse job than these a***oles are doing

[Allhallowsday]

How about you?  Ever been laid off from a job?

Yup, three times I think and I'm about to be again.  Last time about 14 years ago, I was already interviewing for my next job which I kept for nearly 5 years (and led to my current position).  That last layoff turned out lucky for me, 'cause they gave me great severance pay.  Within 3 weeks I started my new job and used the severance to pay for my car.   

I've worked for my current employer for 8 years and they have been good years.  Our owner and president died about 18 months ago, and the family needs to depart understandably.  Sometime in the near future the company I am working for will start laying us off.  Out of the 30 or so of us, I was one of two offered virtually the same position with the new company.  Yet, I declined primarily out of uncertainty. 

I would like to offer more unsolicited advice: don't be cocky, but be confident in an interview.  This company or person is looking to hire someone to do a job.  Be sure you know what they expect from the candidate, but don't let them intimidate you.  Ask questions.  Let me tell you hiring is the toughest of all jobs, because the world is full of excusers and lamebrains and operators.  I've hired and fired people, it is not easy, but the hardest is HIRING.  It is very hard to match the person with the job.  That's where you come in.  Part of confidence is acting, but don't be phony; simply aspire to be the best person you know you are. 
  Good luck. 

[Rev. Powell]

Sorry to hear it, Ash.  I think Ed gave some very good advice.

I've never been laid off, but I did have to quit a job once when it was obvious the company was going under.  I would have been laid off if I stayed on.

[Ash]

Lester, I work...er, worked for PRC.
It's funny, nobody ever really knew what the letters PRC stood for.  Most of us joked that it stood for "Pathetic Retarded Crackheads.  
(which is what we thought of our bosses)

I did sales verifications for Wells Fargo banking and Citibank.

Not only did ten of us lose our jobs in Verifications, but two supervisors got bumped down to verifiers.  There were four supervisors, now there are only two.
I know that won't sit well with Gloria, the queen b***h of all supervisors.
Gloria made a lot of our lives miserable there as the boss and now she's been reduced to grunt work!  Ha!  I'd love to see that!

As for another job, I talked to the cemetary manager over at the cemetary where my brother is buried and he said he might have a groundskeeper position opening soon.
I've been sitting on my ass in front of a computer for years and I'd love to get outdoors and work.
I don't care if it is seasonal work, I'll take whatever I can get at this point.

[Allhallowsday]

As for another job, I talked to the cemetary manager over at the cemetary where my brother is buried and he said he might have a groundskeeper position opening soon.
I've been sitting on my ass in front of a computer for years and I'd love to get outdoors and work.
I don't care if it is seasonal work, I'll take whatever I can get at this point.

That appeals to me too.  I like the idea of working out of doors.