Layoffs

R

runner

Guest
Just found out our company will be laying off 16 people in our 100 employee company.  Wondering if I should go ahead and place my Warmoth order.  Pros - If I get laid off it'll have lots of free time on my hands to play my new guitar.  Cons - I might need to money for food!

How are other people doing out there with job security?

--
Andy
 
I'm doin okeedokee.  Monthly bonuses have been ok, and I've exceeded last years sales and service numbers.  Since what I do for my company is considered a loss - customer service - I may just "break even" this year and not cost them anything.  That said - I'm doing better than the other three guys.

Stuff I got for sale is "makin room, clearing clutter" not for the $$.    Probably gonna ditch the old lady in '09, so just lightening up the load.

 
My company has laid off 15,000 and is continuing , but as of now .. I'm safe  so I continued with the project.

As long as you have 3 months of savings to cover .. then forge on
 
I don't make a mint doing what I do, but I have to admit that I'm really glad I've got the safest job in America employment-wise--I'm a computer specialist for a hospital in a city where the main two industries are meat processing and toilet paper manufacturing.

My thoughts go out to the folks and families who've lost their jobs due to the economic grief going on. I know a friend of my dad's who is getting laid off after putting in 26 years at the GM plant in Janesville, WI. In a town where a decent percentage of the folks are employed by GM, that closing is truly felt all over that area.
 
I got laid off earlier this year but got rehired by the same company 3 months late.. different position though, and less money, which really sucks..
anyway, it's still a job and hopefully I will be safe for a while.
 
I wouldn't be sitting here enjoying the forum if the job situation in my area was up to par.  I live in Western Penna and it's real bad here.  I used to be an independent delivery contractor for Wallie World and to make a long story short, when diesel fuel started going up over $3 a gallon I asked my boss for some more money to cover the cost of fuel.  His answer was 'this just isn't working out'  This after two years of service, countless times of working on my day off, shortening my honeymoon so he could spend his anniversary with his wife, killing two delivery trucks all the dedication I gave his company, I never called off I worked sick, I sent my kid to the babysitters when he was sick, I was the model employee except that I have a big bushy beard and I listen to the Grateful Dead.  He never had one complaint about me or about my work ethic, until I asked him for some more money to cover fuel, then as Dylan would say 'one day the axe just fell' he didn't even have the sack to say something to me in person he fired me over the phone.  The worst part was I had just spent $8,000 on a new delivery truck so his business could expand a month before he canned me, so not only was I stuck without a job right before Christmas I was stuck with a truck payment that I had no use for anymore.  This happened a little over a year ago, and I have been struggling ever since.  I had a job from March to October working for an ambulance company driving their transportation vans for the handicapped and the elderly, but I got into an argument with an administrator of a nursing home and he called the company and threatened to pull their contract if they didn't fire me, so I got the axe again.  Turns out they pulled the contract anyway about a week after I got canned

I didn't have three months of savings or anything when I lost my good job.  I still have the box truck and I have two contracts now but they are small time.  I am only bringing in $30-60 a week at the moment.  Thank god my wife has a decent job she is a RN, but the hospital is laying nurses off now, so we just might be screwed.  I got my CDL permit back in oct, my dad is a truck driver and he has the ways and means to train me how to drive a big truck, but his job is seasonal, so I can't get behind the wheel of his truck till the snow melts again for the spring.  That is what I am banking on now, but it sucks we have been married for a year and a half, our son is 10 and we want to have another, but it is looking like that isn't a possibility as I don't want to knock the old lady up and be on the road that's not fair to her.  We don't want to relocate we live in a multi generation family homestead and our families and all our friends are here.  School isn't an option for me cause I can't take myself out of the workforce to go to school full time, and part time school for me is just a waste of money.  With Christmas coming up and losing another job over the course of a year things are looking pretty bleak right now.  I realize that the whole country is struggling right now and I do count my blessings and I thank the Big Man upstairs for our health and safety, I just don't know what tomorrow will bring...

So on the bright side, I started building guitars in 1993 when I was in high school and have built two for myself and have hot rodded countless insturments and repaired more than I can remember.  They say everyone has a talent, I wish I could play like I can build them.  It is my art.  I get nothing but compliments on my work and it all comes completely natural to me.  I come up with ideas in my head for guitars and they always turn out pretty good.  I wish there was a way I could build them full time and really invest some energy into my passion and my true talent.  I am a delivery driver by trade, I am good at that, but it isn't a talent, it is a practiced skill.  So I recently borrowed $360 from my mom to buy a Lefty WGD from the big W as I have an opportunity to show off some of my work at a local gallery.  I am going to make this WGD a showcase of what I can do.  I doubt there will be any real interest in my work, this area will squash the creativity right out of you, but you never know.  Hopefully I can get someone to want an instrument.  The WGD will be mine. with some abalone purfling and some walnut inlay I think it will be a work of art that I can pay some homage to Jerry and Doug Irwin and maybe who knows it might catch someone's eye that will want one for themselves.   I am not counting on ever building a guitar for anyone and making a profit, though in a perfect world that would be what I would be doing for a living.

To all you others out there in my work boots, good luck, keep looking thru the classifieds, and if you want a guitar I'd be happy to build one for you.....
 
Wow that's rough klanch. 

We're going through layoffs as well, although I'm safe for now you never know these days.

 
My brother got laid off two weeks ago from EDS, after 27 years. To rub salt into the wound, he had to go to India and Brazil earlier this year and train the folks who got his job.

FYI, NASA's data processing is now done in India, and Rolls Royces are built in Brazil. I can say this now that my brother's job is no longer in danger.

Oh, he would have been eligible for collecting his full pension in March 2009. Smooth move, EDS. "We can blame it on the economy!", one executive was overheard exclaiming aboard his Lear jet, with a sh*t-eating grin on his face.

Pissed? Yep.



 
I've been lucky.  Financially, this has been one of my better years.  My wife's profession of choice is in limbo.  Some of it has to do with Hurricane Ike though.  Her company's HQs are in Houston, and a lot of those jobs/accounts are on hold.
 
RLW--

They are bastards. So many of these corporate #@&%$^!% have no concept of respect, for their employees or themselves.
 
nathan a said:
RLW--

They are bastards. So many of these corporate #@&%$^!% have no concept of respect, for their employees or themselves.

which is why we shouldn't be surprised when one of their resources goes postal on their ass...

wait a minute... wrong thread. ;)
 
RLW said:
My brother got laid off two weeks ago from EDS, after 27 years.... he would have been eligible for collecting his full pension in March 2009.

You know, that sort of thing is actionable in court, don't you?  Get a good hungry lawyer, and go pin their asses to the hotseat.  Its very actionable.
 
Out here in Australia, there's a sense of 'wait and see'.

I have heard of some part time employees not working so much, the retail season this year has been very lean.

I'm full time employed as a bus driver for the Govt. run bus authority - Sydney Buses.

So my employment is kinda secure as good as it could be. In lean times, folks will catch a bus to any work they have.

But over the school vacation periods of the year, our hours of work is cut down as there aren't so many buses out on the road (no school buses of course). This cuts into the take home pay a bit, at the wrong time of the year for employees who have kids who want extra $$ for things to do on holidays.

The recession is biting in Australia, but not as much as maybe other parts of the developed world. Our Federal Govt. has had to guarantee deposits in banks and has also had to help out the motor vehicle trade by bailing out finance plans that were abandoned by global finance companies when the recession hit. There has also been a one off Christmas 'bonus' payment to Govt. pension recipients and welfare recipients, in the hope they will spend this $1000 or so and stimulate the economy a bit. I know that our mining sector has taken a decent hit as commodities prices have dropped and a couple of projects have been postponed until the price of the commodity involved rises to make the project again viable. I expect there will be layoffs in the mining industry as a result.

However, this downturn could not have happened at a worse time for me personally.

My hearing is not so good and I now use hearing aids. The heavy vehicle authority has set down health standards, and my authority to drive a bus is now conditional due to my poor hearing without hearing aids. I now have to wear them whilst driving (which I prefer anyway) and am on an annual review with an Ear Nose and Throat Specialist.  I am looking at going through one last medical next November then looking for other work. Then this financial doom and gloom happens.

I will still be looking for other work come next November, hopefully the economy will be back up on the rise by then and more jobs available elsewhere.

Am desperately trying hard not to panic. Obviously my job is now on an annual basis and the thought of being unable to work in my current job without a fall back scares the bejesus out of me. I have no family to go 'home' to, a mortgage and credit card to pay by myself (no partner), and if I lose my job the whole lot crumbles, domino style.
 
I'm in healthcare IT, which is pretty much recession-proof.  Profits are still going to be down, of course...  So far nobody's gotten laid off as far as I know.

So I'm pretty lucky.  I know a lot of people around here have lost their jobs.
 
dbw said:
I'm in healthcare IT, which is pretty much recession-proof.  Profits are still going to be down, of course...  So far nobody's gotten laid off as far as I know.

So I'm pretty lucky.  I know a lot of people around here have lost their jobs.

Sadly, it ain't hurricane-proof...

http://galvestondailynews.com/story.lasso?ewcd=07d0595e19368413c8545f57966c90b3
 
Computer industry for the government here, so...  So far, so good...  My wife on the other hand, her work has taken lots of hits and basically lucky she has a job at this point.
 
One of the things you learn in your high school history classes is that Roosevelt instituted "The New Deal" because he was a swell & caring guy and because rich Americans are such swell & caring people they were willing to give up some of their profits so that starving people could eat..... what you don't read about is all the labor riots, the Americans who were shooting back at the union-busters, you won't read that bank robbers were heroes specifically because bankers were the enemies, or that the Lindbergh baby kidnapping-for-money was not an isolated incident... the rich people were terrified of an armed revolution, rightfully so, so they caved.

The original (and rarely discussed) intent of the Second Amendment was that the citizenry be so well armed that they could overthrow the government, but it hasn't been that way since WWI. Gee, I wonder why, we didn't used to have a standing army till the trust-busting of 1909 & the subsequent anger of the ruling class - but it's still an open question whether soldiers recruited primarily from the poor & lower classes would fire on American citizens rioting for food for their children. Dark days ahead, kids.

(you youngsters may wanna go acoustic soon, when you turn that switch on the wall and the lights stay off it means your amp won't work either....) :icon_tongue:
 
dbw stated that he was in Healthcare IT... I did that for six years and I agree, it is about as recession proof as any career I've ever seen.  Now I'm in Education IT and "it ain't pretty."
 
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