Went to work and found out it was my last day....

[Alameda]

Went to work last Friday and found out it was my last day. In fact, it was the last day for all of us. We expected to be moving to a new office, but instead the company is under new ownership and none of us are needed any longer. We had time to pack our things and say good by to each other. I have been told we were lucky, most the time you are only able to get your things and leave.

A few sales people will stay and go to the new office as independent contractors. That means no benefits, no health insurance, no sick days, no vacation, no...no...no...no...They will sell off the remaining assets...then what?

I'm in pretty good shape, for the time being, but I worry about my co-workers. One had an anxiety attack and had to be taken to the emergency room. He is from another country, he married recently, brought his wife and stepson to this country just a month ago. He has a mortgage to pay, car payments to make....and no job. Another of my co-workers recently married, had a baby right away. He just signed up to buy a new home with nice new mortgage payments to make. No job to make the payments, a stay at home wife and 6 month old baby waiting to come to this country....no job to sponsor them.....This is the type of thing people commit suicide over.

Another co-worker's wife just was treated for breast cancer....now only COBRA...until when? So many tragedies.....

[sharesunited]

1. Like an asteroid has hit the earth. Which industry?

[Alameda]

4. High tech.....

made it through the dot bomb...been in business since 98....

[XOKCowboy]

2. So many people protesting right now don't know the same could happen to them tomorrow

Yet they still defend the insurance companies and say we've got "the best healthcare in the world".

[Stardust]

3. I'm so sorry, Alameda. There just are no words... :^(

We live in shitty times. I live in dread that any day may be my last day of work.

[Alameda]

5. I am so glad I didn't opt to buy a new car..........&.......

I'm lucky I didn't qualify for a klunker...and I had vacation time built up...glad I had not taken the vacation planned. At least I was able to cash in on my time. As I said, I'm lucky compared to some of the others.

Save as much as you can. If you can, grow a garden, do. If you don't have the space, do guerrilla gardening. Throw some useful seeds around. It sounds drastic, but learn what things in the empty lots are edible. Learn to make sprouts....they are nutritious and tasty.

[Stardust]

7. Thanks for the tips! Guerilla gardening sounded intriguing so I Googled it.

Seems that most GG involves ornamental rather than edible plants, but I'll keep researching. We had a community garden plot back in Virginia and it was prolific and very rewarding. With times like these, I don't imagine much would be "safe." That's an uncomfortable situation when you grow stuff because you're trying to save, someone comes along and takes it, and you feel like a Republican for resenting them...

I have a patio that's chock full of ornamental plants...I should probably graduate to edibles (or smokables) :)

I drive a 13 y/o car that gives me no major problems, but every once in a while I get a wild hair and start wanting something newer, prettier, more gadgets. Luckily, I've been able to resist that siren song. And there's a part of me that wants to look "cute" with cute clothes, cute hair, etc. I fight the urge to go shopping and end up wearing the same old stuff day in, day out, while my coworkers come in cute. :grr: But there's that other part of me that doesn't want to be down and out with nothing but cute clothes and cute hair.

I'm pretty frugal but can't escape the L.A. rent situation.

Are your job prospects encouraging? I hope so...you seem like a kind soul.

[Alameda]

11. Many edibles are attractive plants. I have scarlett runner beans.

They have pretty red flowers, and grow up. Another bonus is they attract hummingbirds! You can train them to grow in a small space. I think of the most nutrition for the space & water. Parsley has a lot of vitamins and is pretty easy to grow, so are carrots and radish. In fact radish grows wild all over CA. It get quite large and has edible beans that taste just like radish. It is not an attractive plant for a garden, but if you learn to identify it you can harvest it.

As for guerrilla gardening, you can't expect it all for yourself. If you do enough of it, some will be available for you too. Just take care to plant none invasive plants, and try to learn about native edible species. I've never understood what people have against dandelions & burdock. They both have both nutritional and medicinal value, and are abundant. Stinging nettle is another.

Yes, LA rents are pretty bad, but as a bonus, the weather is warm enough to grow all year long.

[Orangeone]

6. Unfortunately I know the feeling : (

The whole department where I worked got laid off three months ago. I'm sorry to hear it happened to you too...

[Omaha Steve]

8. Here is a link to the unemployment lifeline

K&R!

It sounds like your in better shape than most of your friends. Be sure to share with them.

OS

http://www.unemploymentlifeline.com /

Welcome

The figures are staggering. Unemployment at 8.9 percent. Record new unemployment claims. By one measure, unemployment and underemployment at 15.6 percent.

Hardworking families are struggling to get by, and too often, they don't know where to turn for help.

That's where the Unemployment LifeLine comes in. It's a one-stop guide that links workers to the resources in their area, from unemployment offices to veterans' services to child care. It also offers the opportunity to talk to others and share support and lessons learned.

[Alameda]

10. Wow! What a great resource, I'll be sure to share that.

Thank you.

[Earth Bound Misfit]

13. Good job by you, OS....

Looks like I'm gonna need some of those resources, I may be out of work as I type this.

K & R:kick:

[yellerpup]

9. What an awful situation

and how kind you are to think of your co-workers at such a time. Back in the 70's I worked in a sales office with forty other people. One morning when we arrived at work we discovered that the whole office had been cleaned out in the middle of the night. The company kept $500 per sales person as a reserve which none of us ever saw. We didn't get last checks, nothing accrued to vacation, sick, not even our personal belongings until one guy kicked down the door and we were able to get in to pick up our personal junk. I feel terrible for you and your co-workers. I'd love to hear a plan for how to recover from this type of failure. K&R! :kick: :kick: :kick:

[Alameda]

12. ewww...and $500 was a LOT more then than it is now!

I wonder if laws have changed now to offer better protection? It's not a good idea to leave anything you really want or need at work. One never knows, these days in particular.

[yellerpup]

15. We did engineer a retaliation.

When we reached the owners at their HQ in Idaho, they more or less said, "We go by Idaho rules. Come and make me," when it came to our getting our money out of them. After a few weeks, they had reopened under a slightly different management situation in a different part of town and were willing to hire back those of us who were resourceful enough to find them. We spread the word and got almost all our old co-workers back on the payroll. We made sales on the phone, they had a verifier who double checked to make sure they were legitimate sales, and we'd get paid in advance of collection. The verifier had a crush on one of the guys and he romanced her and talked her into okaying everyone's sales slips without checking. We all had record sales, we all got huge paychecks for a couple of weeks until the collector started finding out that the sales were not legitimate (the names on the sales slips were fictitious), but by this time we were all just bout even with what they really owed us -- including the reserves they had stolen -- and the management went ballistic and started threatening us on the phone. I put them on speaker and they were furious, i.e., "You can go to jail!", etc., but our answer was, "Come and get us!" We knew they couldn't set foot in the state without having to deal with their past fast and loose dealings and we hadn't hurt anyone except them. It was a successful and cooperative act of revenge. Sweet!

[question everything]

17. Sweet indeed

what a wonderful story

[Alameda]

14. Just found out everyone's insurance was canceled! .............

and no COBRA availability! ...because the company was dissolved! The worst part of it is nobody was informed about it. I just called the insurance brokers and asked directly about it. It seems the owner of the company did some fancy planning to eliminate as much responsibility as possible.

[SavingUFCWLocal555]

16. It's regrettable to say the least...

No one is prepared these days for an emergency. And this tops the list. There is so much information out there that some people have turned a deaf ear and a blind eye to what they should be doing. Hunkering down and living low is not just a fair warning, it is a long-term commitment. The lesson here is simple: Give yourself half of what you make to live on and save the rest. Sounds hard, doesn't it? Ask Alameda or the recent immigrant or the new father with a house what living on nothing is like.

These are sad stories with a moral tale to live well within your means if not below, understand that financial danger is lurking around every corner and being unprepared in this economy is simply not a good excuse.

Good luck to all of you.