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I knew it was coming. The writing was on the wall for a few weeks. Other people had already fallen victim before it happened to me. It was the talk of the office whenever two people interacted. “Did it happen to you yet?” “Yeah I just got the call yesterday. Really not looking forward to telling the wife.” And then silence takes over as two people sit and question why they all of a sudden have found themselves a part-time employee, surviving off of ham and cheese sandwiches until further notice. My entire office (save a few critical employees) is on full or partial furlough.
At the moment, I am still working through my feelings about this. I certainly have plenty of time to think about it seeing as there is almost zero billable hours on my schedule and I have been reduced to 32 hours each week for the time being. Why is this happening? I thought the economy was fucking booming? Oil prices are rising which means your boy should be busy. Are those fuckers in charge of Business Development not shaking enough hands or kissing enough babies? I’ve been through a couple big lulls with this company but nothing this extended or with such a lack of potential projects on the horizon. As someone who has been laid off once before, a month after getting married and starting a new life with my new bride, layoffs fucking terrify me. It’s a feeling of hopelessness that I don’t wish on anyone.
On the one hand, I have a floating day off that I can choose to take off whenever I want during the week. The courses are starting to green up a little bit, so maybe I should see this as an opportunity to work on my golf game. With an extra day off I can get some more sleep, clean the house, get my lawn in better shape, and just catch up on the things I never seem stay ahead of. Having a day off during the week is huge for personal goals and productivity. Lord knows I haven’t taken a vacation since last year, so maybe this is a blessing in disguise. And hey, at least I didn’t get laid off completely, right?
The Mrs. and I can make it work with me on 80% of my normal income, thankfully. There are going to have to be some things that get cut out. No more unlimited carwash memberships. I’ll have to cut back on splurging on the “good” beer whenever we have people over. Maybe the Mrs. and I will start carpooling more and we will definitely have to eat out less on the weekends. But what if they cut more hours? I mean, it isn’t out of the question. That would be trouble. Especially with wedding season on the horizon. How the hell can we afford the FIVE (5) weddings we have this year? Including two bachelor parties I’ve already purchased hotels and airfare for. What is a guy to do in New Orleans for 3 days? Live off of Popeye’s and continental breakfast? Great, it will be a trip New Orleans where I do nothing but gorge myself on spicy tenders that will put us behind on our mortgage. That’s perfect.
Even with the loss of income looming over my head, it is almost May and the snow is finally all gone so I can’t be that angry about having Friday’s off. It looks like your boy may be contacting your local LinkedIn recruiter with an updated resume here shortly, but I am going to keep things positive. I’m sure if I was deadweight these guys would have dropped me when things got shaky a month and a half ago but it never hurts to have a backup plan just in case. I’ll take my long weekends for now re-evaluate when I have to start buying Wonder Bread again. We all bitch about our jobs but in the end it should not be something we take for granted. It’s hard to see it when we are drowning in a task list, looming deadlines, and difficult clients, but I’ve said it before, being busy is much better than the alternative..
Respond
@207Cush
“What is a guy to do in New Orleans for 3 days? Live off of Popeye’s and continental breakfast?”
Yes.
I didn’t know there was another way to do NOLA
You know what never goes out of business? The drug trade. You’ll make so much money and be able to buy your way out of this reality. If you get killed then congrats, you just retired early. If you get put in jail, congrats again because you’ll get free food and clothes and rent for the rest of your life and guess what, the drug trade still exists in prison so also congrats again. Life is all about positive outlook and stuff, dude lol
this made me anxious about my own job
I understand what you’re going through and hope you come out on the other side better, but WHY IS THIS COMING OUT ON A FRIDAY?!?
My friend (who’s a VP of my company) said he fired a chick yesterday and she still showed up to work today. PGPM.
My getting laid off was on a Friday. It’s never a good sign when your boss asks to talk in private on a Friday afternoon.
That’s why you gotta duck out early
Can’t fire you when you’re working from home. Them’s the rules.
I have a one on one with my manager at 3:30 today. Thanks for the anxiety.
Everyone has one too, so it’s all good, right?
Update: he just told me I was killing it
Little boost into the weekend.
“Can we bump this up a bit? I’m trying to get out of here by 2:00.”
What’s the meeting titled? If it’s vague, I’d get the resume ready
Definitely relate, as I got laid off completely a couple weeks ago. I would use that time to try and jump ship if I were you. As someone who survived the first round, they’re not going to backfill positions and the extra work is going to be dumped on the remaining people with no raises.
TLDR: Start looking for another job bc you’ll be doing a ton of extra work for the same amount of money and upper management will basically tell you to still be thankful you have a job.
This gave me anxiety on top of my anxiety. Currently sitting in a job that has done this and I took the time to look elsewhere. I got lucky and found an even better job (higher pay, move upward etc) and interviewed. But I won’t find out until Monday or early next week. Meanwhile things are getting increasingly precarious at current job. If I don’t get this new job, I genuinely do not know what to do.
Do you think you’ll get a severance? In my situation, they literally gave me BS and instructions on applying for unemployment. Yet, they would’ve required me to give two weeks if I was the one quitting.
Eh I truly don’t know. Company is pretty bullshit on being up to date on HR stuff. So it’s really just an unknown shit show. Which the unknown part is what makes it so stressful. Just really hoping to get the new job.
My company was too, I was honestly more upset that they didn’t give me any notice or severance. I understand that sometimes these things are neccessary for the business to survive. However, there’s no excuse for throwing people who were once your employees out on the street.
Thats most companies. At mine they expect 2 weeks notice however terminate you on the spot when you submit it. Then they get upset because nobody submits their notice anymore.
Do they pay you out for it but just ask you not to come in?
Do you work for Kroger pharmacy? They recently knocked everyone but pharmacy managers back to 32 hours.
Name checks out
You’re in my thoughts and prayers. For real.
It’s already too late. Find a new (and better!) job ASAP. This is no way to live.
You owe this company nothing. It’s time to GTFO.