O/T layoff at work

[makkelsay]

I also agree that this is not happening by accident...not even remotely. If we are crippled and on our knees, we are that much easier to control and that's what it's all about...control.

im moving to canada:p

[Plymouthy Adams]

makkelsay...NO I was not serious...just yanking a chain or two...trying to put a bit of fun where there is not a place to joke to begin with..losing a job, lain off or even having those throughts ride in the back of your mind while trying to work is evough to drive one crazy...I feel for anyone in this position..

[Norm's Coupe]

Well, again pflaming is right on with his remarks about selling the skid load of fruit.

If someone tries hard enough they can ink out a very good living selling very cheap items. Example: Recently I saw a report on the news or a news type show on TV about some guy 70 or 75 years old selling "hand type can openers" on a street corner in New York City for only $5.00 each. Evidently, that's been his profession all his working life and is still doing it. He would buy and store his can openers in his apartment, then roll them to the same street corner every day to sell. Then roll what he didn't sell back home each day. Always dressed in a suit and tie too. Now, you would think someone doing that would not make much money doing it. But..........his apartment was in the heart of Manhattan and was really a nice one, and large. Apartments in Manhattan are not cheap. The guy has done quite well for his self all these years selling those $5 can openers every day. So........this just shows what one can do no matter how much education/training one may have if they have enough guts to just do it.

[Don Coatney]

There are still some true entrepreneurs in this world. One is Famous Wayne the shoeshine man who works the streets of San Francisco. Every day he drags his booth (it is huge and mounted on air filled tires) to the same location at the end of Market Street. He dresses in a different multicolored tuxedo daily. He gets 8-10 bucks per shine (it is worth it) and he will talk your ear off while you are in the chair. I have never seen a customer leave who was not satisfied. In the first picture the building in the background is the Federal Reserve Bank where I work when I go to San Francisco.

And yes he does do ladies shoes. He charges them based on the length of there skirt:D

[Fireball]

I'm still employed as we speak, been within the same public company for nearly 14 years but you never know the next day. I personally volunteer to choke the one with my own hands whoever is the founder of "Quartal Economy".

There's just way too much "Mickey Mouse money", layoff decisions based on market expectations instead of real life and such yada yada determining the future of everyday people. For example, the markets "expect" this company has 12% growth next quartal. They only get like 9% and the CEO says the next one is even worse. It's quaranteed that company will dive in NYSE and the workers will suffer, nobody gives a s...t that the company still made some 16 billion profit. They didn't "meet the market expectations" so at least they have to start cutting the cost and giving boot to masses, just to show "The markets" that actions are taken. No matter how healthy the core business actually is compared to others.

That is so sick. My friends father is an true oldtimer. He made his career in papermill/pulp/wood industry, and was laughing some weeks ago that during his 40 year career they made profit in one year. Still no-one was never laidoff. It's only accounting. But todays situation is so much related to the fact that big companies are owned by some other interest parties than the people working there. All kind of Pension trusts etc whos only interest is making earnings per share, no matter the cost on the human or longitivity side.

I'm not sure I like to see how the world turns when my sons are adults

[Captain Neon]

I saw the writing on the wall at my last job. They have had two large lay-offs at the Butterball plant in Longmont CO since late August over half their employees. While Butterball won't admit it, it is likely that Smithfiled (parent company) will close that plant. At this point, they are little more than a co-packer for Sigma Alimentarus of Mexico until their plants in Mexico can handle the volume.

[JIPJOBXX]

Well I think I did the right thing when my twins were in school as I steared one toward being a Register Nurse and the other a lawyer. Now the first one started out at 28 dollars and hour and the second who knows what but I know he will do good as he was rated number two in his Law School last year. Now what does this mean? well my wife was a stay at home wife with the kids and spent many hours with them getting them prepared for the big world outside our doors. Sure I could have used a second pay check but I think we did right and now the proft will be in the pudding. As for myself god gave me the right job and now I have a retirement check and live in a double wide mobil home but its paid for.

I would say if I was young I would go into a service job like my one son is in and your almost bullet prooft as far as employment. Jon

[Bingster]

I'm very sorry to hear that some of you are being laid off or worse yet terminated. I've done a lot in my 55 years. Was in the music business as a younger man. Struggled to make it but finally chose to get out when I found a girl I wanted to settle down with. She's still with me through a lot of hard times.

I wrote two books, have been on radio and TV promoting them, and still had to get jobs at an Ace Hardware and a local restaraunt when I first moved here to Iowa nine years ago. I went around the country speaking at churches for four years, and when that ended I took up the old paint brush and roller and began painting houses here in Iowa. Gradually added sheet rock and plastering and after a few years my reputation around allows us to get by okay, but it's month to month.

I've spent the past four years developing an item of high end Art Deco furniture to hopefully get me off into a new line of work. I am aiming for the rich, who are the primary buyers of Art Deco furniture and antiques. I am betting that my items will hit the right market in the right place with the right goods. Ordinarily I'd say that it should work. However, with the recession I really cannot say if the rich are going to still be buying these types of items as before. But having a member of my family who is rather well off, I'd have to say that if a person has money, they spend it. Look at how the wealthy spent money during the Depression. They might not buy new cars, boats, planes or large scale items like those, but they are addicted to their toys just as we like to scan ebay for items for our cars. We are, of course, on a much smaller scale, happy to get a NOS brake pedal where a wealthy person might just buy a new piece of furniture that catches their eye.

On the other side of the coin, I have another family member who is out of work and doesn't particularly want to get a job doing something he doesn't like. I agree with those of you who have said that if a person hustles and gets out there and looks, there is always something. I wasn't thrilled working at Ace Hardware or as a waiter. But you have to do what you have to do to feed the family.

It's very difficult trying to get something new going alongside having to work to pay the bills. It gets downright discouraging at times and it seems you'll never reach the light at the end of the tunnel.

But I have learned from writing books and working on peoples' houses that if you keep putting one foot in front of the other, the job will get done. It's those people who give up who will never realize their goals.

Our capitalist society isn't perfect by any means, but what's better? Look around the world. What's better? At least we do have the opportunity to work hard and make something of our ideas. It's always a risk. Whether a song or a new idea for a piece of furniture, you never know if it's gonna be a hit or miss. But I firmly believe that to a certain extent a person makes their own luck. There is an unknown element to every plan that does not unfold until a plan is put into motion. From there, things happen that you could never anticipate or plan out.

I'm rambling on but I too, am in an uncertain space. I don't know if the market here for home improvement will go soft, and I don't know if my furniture business will succeed in this economic climate.

But I do know that I cannot be carrying sheets of drywall for too much longer. I have to make a change, and the only way is to use my creativity to come up with something new.

You know, some of you could hire out your cars for weddings and anniversarys. Buy a chauffers hat and charge $200-$300 a day to ferry a couple between the church and the reception, hotel, etc.

Or how about a classic car taxi service? We have a casino near here, and I have often wondered if it would go over having a black classic Desoto "limo" to drive gamblers around.

Our classic cars stick out like a sore thumb. Make that work for you if you're out of work. Think about the ways that it is good to stick out like a sore thumb, and who would pay for that.

Okay. Enough. Hang in there. Take care and God Bless.

[JerseyHarold]

Bingster,

Very clever idea about hiring out old cars as cabs and limos. Plenty of Plymouths and other Chrysler products were cabs when they were new.

You would probably need a taxi license in most areas and a commercial insurance policy for sure, but it's a business that could be started fairly easily. A big 'plus' is that any repairs or restoration becomes a business expense and thus a tax deduction.

[JohnS48plm]

Post Cereals , the plant that I retired from 2 years ago is hiring 50 new employees. This is something you don't see these days in this economy. JohnS

[Dennis_MN]

I worked for Sperry Univac when Burroughs aquired us to become Unisys.

It was like being nibbled to death by a duck for the next ten years with the almost annual layoffs and down sizing. I think the combined company had 42 manufacturing plants and figured that they could use 12. In reality I think by 2000 they were down to three. So much for mainframe manufacturing.

I was part of the Plant closing in 1997 but was one of the last to leave because I got to help with the equipment auction. I used my re-education grant to learn Microsoft NT and to become a "system engineer" Never passed any of those dang tests but I didn't need to.

Fortunatly for me this Y2K stuff was coming and there was an instant market for software skills. I wasn't a software guy, I was a Manufacturing Engineer but I had skills as a User and apparently my creative use of this product enabled me to walk out the door at 8:30 AM on a friday and start as a contract employee for a software service company at 10:00AM

During the next five years I was a programmer to help fix the date problem. And yes there really was a problem with this particular product called "Mapper" in how the IF logic was used. Folks had to save space by using only two digits of the date. Funny how 00 isn't bigger than 99 but it would have fixed it self in a couple of years.

Then 9-11 happened and I was on a project for the State of Minnesota that got stopped in its tracks. I said screw it, at took early Social Security.

Now I do volunteer Tax work for AARP and help folks out. And I take care of the computers for the rest of the county for all of the rest of the volunteers. I could go to work for a tax service now, but I don't need to work, and we can get by. People always expect that I was an accountent

but no, I was a manufacturing engineer. I learned to do this.

By the way, there is a little known deal with Social Security that if you take it for the reduced rate when you are 62, you can pay back every thing when you reach the right age, like 66 3/4 in my case, opt out of the system for one day, then reapply and get the highest rate. Its an interest free loan. I didn't have enough cash to take advantage of it buy my friend did. He did it for his wife because she never worked and gets 1/2 of his now and then all of it when he kicks the bucket and she was way younger than him.

Rambling Dennis from Minnesota

[Frank Elder]

Just turned 47, and according to the new SS rules I don't qualify for benefits until the age of 67, men in my family rarely make it past early 60's so I guess the gov has a good deal going in my case.

[Flatie46]

Thanks SS info I'll pass that on.

[Young Ed]

Post Cereals , the plant that I retired from 2 years ago is hiring 50 new employees. This is something you don't see these days in this economy. JohnS

A husband of someone I work with works at a cereal place here. She said he's been working a ton of OT. Apparently when the economy is bad people eat less other stuff and way more cereal. So hence his OT and the new jobs you mentioned.

[JohnS48plm]

During the Depression the cereal factorys here in Battle Creek kept going. My dad always said people still could afford cereal when they couldn't afford steak. I worked at Post Cereals for 32 years and always had plenty of work. JohnS

[Normspeed]

Just turned 47, and according to the new SS rules I don't qualify for benefits until the age of 67, men in my family rarely make it past early 60's so I guess the gov has a good deal going in my case.

I think you'll find that you quaify for benefits way before age 67, but the longer you wait, the higher the monthly benefit. I'm in the age 66 bracket but I could be drawing a check now at age 61 if I ask for it.

[Norm's Coupe]

I think you'll find that you quaify for benefits way before age 67, but the longer you wait, the higher the monthly benefit. I'm in the age 66 bracket but I could be drawing a check now at age 61 if I ask for it.

Norm, minimum age is 62 for Social Security at reduced rates, unless you are disabled. Then the amount of the check is a percentage higher for each year you wait to draw. If you retire below your "Full" retirement age you cannot earn as much as you want without repaying 1 dollar for every 2 you earn over a certain amount. If you wait until "Full" retirement age (66 in my case) you can draw a larger amount, plus earn as much as you want without paying any money back. However, if you wait until age 70, your check will be even bigger each month.

[demingrickjames]

I was working at a copper mine for 1 1/2 years when they decided to shut the entire mine down and lay everyone off.

In my opinion it all boils down to one thing, GREED.

Every person from the laborer to the C.E.O. is driven by one goal; to make more money this year than last year. When this drive gets to the corporate level it means that if profit isn't increasing yearly they'll find a way to make it increase, i.e., lay off the little guy and ship jobs overseas to increase the bottom line.