Yep, just heard it from one of the owners. I get to finish out the week and then I’m done. Claiming that they won’t be able to afford me over the summer, and personal difficulties with said owner, I am history as of Monday night.
I have $300 cash and nothing in the bank.
Oh, and my roomate is not renewing his lease, so I have until Jul 1st to find a new apt.
On the plus side, they(my soon to be ex-employers) did offer to pay for a U-Haul if I want to move back upstate.
Nice of them, as I moved down here just for them.
I’ve never been fired before, I guess I’m in a state of shock. I have no idea what I’m going to do next, other than that I am being taken out by some of my co-workers for a lot of drinks tonight.
Been there, done that. Very similar - I was officially “laid off” but they were hiring at the same time, and I’d had run ins with one of the owners. My boss had run ins with the owners as well. They “laid off” him and pretty much everyone who worked for him.
I had more than $300 in the bank, but had recently bought a house with a BIG mortgage, plus was going through a divorce. I had serious doubts about my ability to pay the mortgage, much less do things like buy a car - in the divorce, we had decided that my ex got the one and only car we owned. Kinda hard to go to job interviews without a means of transportation.
My advice - don’t take it too seriously. Unless you’re completely without a personality, you’ll occassionally meet people you just don’t get along with. When one of those people happens to be your boss you have a good chance of being fired. It really isn’t a reflection of you or the work you do. It simply means that you and he didn’t get along, and he’s the top dog on the chain, so you’re history.
In my case, I ended up finding another job that paid WAY more and was way better experience than the first job. I still have friends in the old company, and in the 4 years or so since I was “laid off” the company has:
1 - fired many, many people, most of them pretty good.
2 - got a court order to take $$ out of one employee’s paycheck for child support payments. They took the money out, but never paid it to the child support agency. He found this out when the police came to his door and arrested him for non-payment.
3 - on several occasions, didn’t bother to pay the premiums for the employee’s health insurance
4 - has recently cut everyone’s pay by 10%, citing financial problems
5 - when I was hired, everyone got 3 weeks vacation. At some point, they decided that was too much, so cut everyone’s vacation to 2 weeks with no additional compensation.
The list goes on and on… you oughta come up with a list of your own, it’ll make you feel better.
Sorry to hear about your situation, ryan. As Athena said, don’t take it personally – just worry about getting your financial afairs in order, then hit the bricks for a new position.
I got laid off myself about a month ago – no preamble, just got called into the office, told I was laid off immediately, and asked to clear out my desk and split. By the time I got back to my desk, my computer account was already deactivated, so I left before lunch.
Fortunately, I have a lot of money in the bank, so I wasn’t worried financially. I also got two weeks’ severance pay, and cashing out my unused vacation days was good for another two weeks’ worth, so I haven’t been hurt. The bad news is that the missus and I are in the midst of buying a home, so I want to get a new job before the escrow closes (having a job means lower interest rates). Fortunately, I think something’s going to come in this week, which would solve those worries.
But again, hang in there, don’t take it personally, and remember that life goes on.
Don’t sweat it too much. You’ll feel violated, angry, dejected and more. And all sorts of combinations in between. That’s normal. Sucks, but normal. It’ll hurt for a while.
Tomorrow: Head down the unemployment office. Apply. If you’ve not got much scratch in the bank, it’ll come in very handy, regardless of your views of the dole.
Take one or two days off. Hang out. Walk downtown. Go to the library.
Here’s a good tip: try and maintain a schedule. Don’t get into the 'sleep ‘til noon, up till 3am’ routine. It makes everything much more difficult.
And somewhere along the line, I heard that one should always maintain 5-6 months worth of payments (rent/mortgage, bills, etc.) in case of situations like this. When I got laid off, I had zippo. I’ve currently got 4, working on more. You never know.
I agree with what the others have said about not taking it personally (tough to do), and looking for another job right away, etc. (I’d be tempted to take a few days to relax and veg out before I even started looking, but it sounds like you can’t financially afford to do that.
Good luck in your job search and I hope you find another job soon!
Congratulations! (I’m serious). You are now free of a bad situation and can set out on a new path. I have never been fired without subsequently finding a much better job for more money.
Go rent a copy of “The Producers” with Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder, and learn that it is better to be a brilliant failure than a mediocre success. Fail your way right to the top!
IMMEDIATELY head for the local unemployment office to claim your unemployment benefits. There is no shame, this isn’t welfare, it is insurance that YOU paid for while working at your job. Go there NOW, as it takes a few days to get it set up. It will do wonderful things for your outlook on life, to have a check coming every week that can tide you over and keep you from depleting your bank account.
The only thing bad that could happen is that your former employer might claim that you quit, or were terminated for embezzling, or some such lie. You were obviously laid off for economic reasons, but they might make a case that they terminated you for cause. It isn’t hard to get your benefits in a circumstance like this, they see it all the time and it’s easy to tell when the employer is lying. I had an employer do this to me once, just to get petty revenge on me, and he lost. I got my unemployment insurance checks, and after about 6 months when my benefits were about to run out, they extended the benefits by 6 months, boy was I happy about that, it was the depth of the recession at the time and I’d never been unemployed that long before. Then I found a job, the company went bankrupt after 3 months, but that was long enough to reestablish eligibility, so I got ANOTHER 6 months of unemployment checks. Free money, yeah!
When I was younger, and even stupider than I am now, the subject of unemployment came up and I ranted and raved about how I would never take a dime of unemployment, that it was leeching off the system, etc, etc.
To which a colleague responded:
“Well, you’re being pretty stupid then, considering you’re paying for it.”
:eek:
(In fairness to myself, I think I was confusing “unemployment” with “welfare”.)
I used my unemployment funds to pay for paralegal school and to help tide me over when I was looking for my paralegal job.
Good luck again, and I hope you’ll tell us, soon, that you landed a MUCH BETTER job.
Definitely go to the unemployment office. Pay attention to what you have to do to qualify – make x number of calls per week or send x number of resumes.
Decide that you really like generic products, decide which foodstuffs you actually need. The first time I got laid off, my grocery list was a loaf of bread, eggs, and generic cigarettes.
Try to figure out which expenditures can be put off. Try not to put off car insurance – an accident now with expired insurance would just be piling on. Routine car maintenance, however, can wait.
Yeah, that sucks. I’ve been there too, Feb 2000. But now I’m making more money with less stress.
When I mentioned that I was terminated during my first few interviews, I felt as if the interviewer hadn’t heard me – as if I should have been immediately ejected. But no one cared all that much, particularly after I’d gotten a few temp jobs to tide me over and provide a current assessment of my abilities.
One suggestion from numerous books - do NOT burn any bridges, tempting as it might be to tell off your old employers. Do consider whether they would make good references - if not consider other people in the work place, supervisors or even co-workers.
I’m sorry dude. But hey, you could look at it from the “blessing in disguise” position. Hopefully there are bigger and better things for you to conquer. Best of luck man.
p.s. I just quit my job the other day. What a serious load off of my back.
Thanks everyone.
I really appreciate the kind words.
I wish I could file for Unemployment, but my job was “off the books” so I have no proof of employment.
I spent some time yesterday polishing my resume and will be posting it on every job search site I can find tonight.
I spoke to a couple of prospective employers last night, and I picked up a shift covering for someone tomorrow night. Hopefully this will lead to something more permanant.
The other owner said he’d probably need me Sunday nights and will get back to me.
My sister is urging me to chuck everything and move back upstate.
We’ll see what happens.
Oh yeah, big-time. I left one job because the salary below market average; the benefits rocked, but didn’t fill the gap. When I realized how much my new job sucked, I went back to my old company - at one extra level of seniority and a 20% pay boost. They’d changed the compensation policy in my absence, to remain competitive. (Good thing, too - I love this job.)
Keep in contact with the least offensive people at the old job. They could end up moving to a new company, or starting one of their own.
Tell you what–if you’d care to e-mail it to me, I’d happily proofread it for you. No guarantees that I’d catch everything, but I’m a pretty decent proofreader. (My firm uses me to proofread alot.)
Ha ha. I make joke. “A lot.” (The offer is serious, though.)
Good luck in your job search and keep us posted! Glad to see you aren’t too down about this.
