Who Here Has Been Laid Off?

[Tiberius Jim]

I got laid off during the first set of Circuit City store closures. We found out we were getting closed in October and had a liquidation sale up until a few days before Christmas...and then that was it. It was basically a "Merry Christmas, you have no job!" from the company. A month later, the people who transferred to the remaining stores are now in the same position as now the entire company has gone under. I worked there for 4 years (my anniversary would have been in 2 weeks) so it was pretty shocking to see it go under.

I was unemployed until about 2 weeks ago, and I now have a much better position at RadioShack (one company to check out if you do need a job, they're actually *opening* stores) and will stay there until I'm done with school and can get a design job.

 

[Amaris]

Companies are dropping employees like flies around here.
Distribution centers, warehouses, factories, mills & plants, retail stores, we're just bleeding jobs. I have to be honest, it's more than a bit scary.

J.

 

[btflash]

my wife was recently laid off. i'm a contractor and while i havent been laid off , i havent had any work for over a month! damm economy........

You know that's what pisses me off: Some folks dont' get it.

I was talking to someone the other day about how hard it is for me to drum up contracts right now (freelance writing and website construction) and they said "Well, you can always swing a hammer".

Well (1) My health is too far gone for that, I'd end up either having a heart-attack, or killing someone when I had a heart-attack on the job. (2) Dumbass, contractors are feeling it just as bad, if not worse, as the rest of us. Just up the road, about a mile, a contractor and his crew are in a legal fight cause the owner of the house they were building said "Fuck it, I don't want it anymore" and stopped payment on the checks and refuses to pay anymore money for the work already done, and isn't answering his phone.

yeah your absolutly right. that kind of thing happens all the time.fact of the matter is contractors are the first to feel a recession . i knew this thing was coming for over a year.
i go to a coffee shop every morning and a year ago i would be waiting on line for 15 minutes because of all the other contractors in front of me. now when i go there im the only person in the store. the owner told me no contractors are coming in any more as no one has any work.its scarry.

 

[Holdfast]

I'm pretty lucky that I have a job that's not often affected by lay offs (Security) I have a degree in communications, and am still going to school. I knew finding a job in this economy in PR would be hard, so I just stuck to volunteering to do promotional work for a local theatre, to build up my resume for when the economy comes back.

Long time no see round these parts!

 

[indianatrekker26]

I've been at my job for 4 years now. Its a small engineering firm. And we are doing outstanding. I've been on overtime since october. We are overloaded with work, and learning new software. My friends cant believe how busy we are. Last week i actually worked 22 hours straight. So, just know that there are some businesses out there that are doing good.

 

[Praetor]

That's a positive story for a change.

 

[btflash]

I've been at my job for 4 years now. Its a small engineering firm. And we are doing outstanding. I've been on overtime since october. We are overloaded with work, and learning new software. My friends cant believe how busy we are. Last week i actually worked 22 hours straight. So, just know that there are some businesses out there that are doing good.

wow. good for you , my friend. regretably your company is the exception not the rule these days.

 

[Garrett]

I was laid off about 2 weeks ago. That job lasted a little over a year, and I managed to make it through several minor panics about the budget, so it wasn't all terrible. They ended up slashing my department by about 80%, though.

Everyone in my family here locally is either worried about getting laid off, or has been laid off recently. Normally, I don't let the layoffs phase me too much, but the job market is pretty crappy here right now, overall. Most of the major employers here locally have had a number of job cutbacks already, or are getting there.

Might be time to move.

 

[PKTrekGirl]

^ Not sure if that would improve your situation much, unless you happen to live in Detroit, where the auto manufacturers have taken a real beating.

Otherwise, I think some areas are doing slightly better than others, but not by much.

Basically, it's pretty terrible all over. It's just degrees of terrible.

So I don't know if footing a moving bill would be worth the outlay.

 

[Hoser]

^ Not sure if that would improve your situation much, unless you happen to live in Detroit, where the auto manufacturers have taken a real beating.

*sigh*

 

[FPAlpha]

I work in a logistics company and people in our warehouse are getting fired or let go left and right.. rarely a week passes by now that doesn't see someone go (usually one of the temp workers).

I've come close to getting fired some weeks ago when our boss had a talk with our department. We knew that our department office was overstaffed for our current work volume (about 50% of what it should be) and i was the newest member.

He told us that one of us has to change departments or i will have to be let go (and he looked directly at me.. not a nice feeling). Since none of us who were in the run to change the office liked to go finally it was "decided" that i should change over.. i'm not very enthusiastic about it but still way better than getting fired.

My job is "secure" till September when my contract is up for renewal so i'm either hoping that the worst has passed by then or they decide to tough it out and keep me since i get positive reviews so they don't have to take the risk and hire someone new who might turn out to be a moron who doesn't get along with the people.

Personally i find it hard knowing before that someone is going to get fired and not being allowed to tell him/her. Our boss recently sent around emails to the team leaders asking to describe each persons skills, their work ethic and their willingness to do overtime and how important they are to the department, i.e. are they good and dependable.. it is a thinly veiled request to point out the people who are not that good or a bit lazy which means they are the next to go when our boss decides that he needs to cut costs again.

However we are slowly reaching bottom of the barrel.. many more firings and we'll not be able to do the current work so i hope it won't be many more.. what's also very annoying is that we have people on staff who are real morons but since they're so long with the company they can't get fired easily whereas really good temp workers have to let go because they are fired effortlessly.

 

[Amaris]

I work in a logistics company and people in our warehouse are getting fired or let go left and right.. rarely a week passes by now that doesn't see someone go (usually one of the temp workers).

I've come close to getting fired some weeks ago when our boss had a talk with our department. We knew that our department office was overstaffed for our current work volume (about 50% of what it should be) and i was the newest member.

He told us that one of us has to change departments or i will have to be let go (and he looked directly at me.. not a nice feeling). Since none of us who were in the run to change the office liked to go finally it was "decided" that i should change over.. i'm not very enthusiastic about it but still way better than getting fired.

My job is "secure" till September when my contract is up for renewal so i'm either hoping that the worst has passed by then or they decide to tough it out and keep me since i get positive reviews so they don't have to take the risk and hire someone new who might turn out to be a moron who doesn't get along with the people.

Personally i find it hard knowing before that someone is going to get fired and not being allowed to tell him/her. Our boss recently sent around emails to the team leaders asking to describe each persons skills, their work ethic and their willingness to do overtime and how important they are to the department, i.e. are they good and dependable.. it is a thinly veiled request to point out the people who are not that good or a bit lazy which means they are the next to go when our boss decides that he needs to cut costs again.

However we are slowly reaching bottom of the barrel.. many more firings and we'll not be able to do the current work so i hope it won't be many more.. what's also very annoying is that we have people on staff who are real morons but since they're so long with the company they can't get fired easily whereas really good temp workers have to let go because they are fired effortlessly.

Believe me when I tell you what you and I think of as "bottom of the barrel" and what they think of as "bottom of the barrel" are vastly different. When our 68 person crew was reduced to 45 and we still had to pull the same numbers, we thought they were pushing it. At 35, we thought they were getting close. At 23, we thought they were scraping the bottom of the barrel. At 15, they kept on scraping. At 13, they stopped.

I was 14.

Also, I was a high performer. My rating was 150% of standard. I was in the top 3 performance employees, cross trained in every area, had a great record, too. Wasn't enough to save me.

J.

 

[SeerSGB]

Some mornings is just doesn't pay to get out of bed ~sigh~

Just say on the RSS feeds, that my wife's company is now starting to sell "under performing" outlets to their major competitor. Of course, this is just a day after corp. set out of a announcement to the stores that they WEREN'T selling any stores. Of course I don't know if she knows yet-- that's going to be fun when she gets home-- and no clue if her store would meet the defintion of "Under performing" or not.

And the 1st Qtr. projections for job growth in TN. are out and the state is expecting <1% (0.06%) job growth for 1st Qtr. 2009. It's so bad now that the Unemployment office is going to do "Mass Filing" events to handle the overload.

 

[Danoz]

Not laid off... I was lucky to get hired in late August right before the recession really hit us hard. What I have encountered is a sustained freeze on all raises and cost of living adjustments. All I can do is work as hard as I can.

 

[Mallory]

All those who have been laid off and those teetering right on the brink have my sympathy. Either position (and I've been in both) certainly isn't any fun. And with so many companies laying off good workers, the labor pool is more competitive than it has been in years.

Personally, I'm in a good situation. We currently have a six month backlog of contracted work that's being added to daily so we're not looking to lay any one off. Of course we're not hiring either, we're just moving out delivery dates as the work piles up.

 

[Holdfast]

Not laid off... I was lucky to get hired in late August right before the recession really hit us hard. What I have encountered is a sustained freeze on all raises and cost of living adjustments. All I can do is work as hard as I can.

Don't you work for some government department or other? The entire point of working for the government is to work as little as you can.

 

[CaptJimboJones]

I survived three rounds of downsizing at my company last year, but we just got news that Round 4 will commence in a few weeks. So I may or may not be out of work by the end of the month.

 

[PKTrekGirl]

^ Not sure if that would improve your situation much, unless you happen to live in Detroit, where the auto manufacturers have taken a real beating.

*sigh*

I know...Sucks to be you, dude.

 

[Augustus]

I work for a small dental software company. But since we are in the business of making dental and other offices more efficient, we are still growing quite a bit right now as even dentists are looking at way to cut costs and produce more revenue.

 

[Kermett]

I hate the fact that corporate america wants to renamethe word "layoff" to "restructuring".

What does it matter?

We still end up at the unemployment office.