I managed to miss every lunch outing, but I still want to meet everyone…unfortunately the last attempt (which IIRC ended up with only TWO participants?) seemed to sound the death knell for the LCLB.
Anyone up for trying it again? I know I am probably the limiting factor, because I will only have T,W, Th off for the next two weeks (that’s Sep 16-18 and Sep 23-25 for you techno types).
If that doesn’t work, I will have every day after Oct 1st available. Putting my username together with my location should give you the reason for my extended vacation!
Anyway, did this die out or is it just not sustainable on a weekly basis? Could we do it on a monthly basis if everyone knew what day to plan for?
Thanks in advance DFW dopers, and e-mail me if you have ideas (I’ll soon have LOTS of time!)
The LCLB was suspended IIRC, pending greater participation. I don’t think anyone is adverse to starting up again, but scheduling is a nightmare. There are lots of nice places in the area, and the get-togethers are fun, just seems that a fair number of us have pretty demanding jobs at the moment I can’t usually make a Friday commitment before Thursday with any kind of certainty.
Is your comment about having lots of time a hint that you will be unemployed after Oct 1? I know the airlines are having a lot of problems, but I hadn’t heard about any layoffs, especially of pilots. We could use some more DFW Dopefests though. It’s been too long. Moxmaiden and I have been trying to plan something on the Magic: the Gathering front(which I know interests a couple of our DFW dopers), and we may be interested in a more general-interest gathering as well. The kids tend to be the deciding factor in a lot of these things. But we’ve got a couple of DFW doper couples expecting babies and Moxmaiden was talking the other day about how we should have a get together to celebrate the imminent arrivals.
That sucks Does the idea of Furlough instead of layoff mean that if the market picks back up that they’ll bring you back on? The “jobless recovery” has hit a lot of people and some of our DFW dopers have been in that position recently as well. Heck, I had a meeting with my group and our VP this afternoon where he was discussing the company’s plans to outsource a bunch of work and telling us that he couldn’t know if it would impact us or not.
Thanks for the concern. As of now my direct management said they don’t think it will impact our group. Some other people who roll up to that VP may be affected, but my specific group, not as likely. Not a whole lot of confidence in that quite frankly. Re-orgs happen fairly frequently and the whole company is being “transformed” and the industry(telecom) is hemmoraging pretty badly.
So you get to sit on your butt until they recall you? What if you get another job in the meantime? Do you have any obligation to come when they call? Do you recieve any benefits or pay while on furlough? This furlough thing is interesting.
No worries about the hijack - thanks for YOUR concern!
Our pay is kind of weird - we get paid on a “Retro” system, meaning that my paycheck in Sep is for work I did in August. So when I stop work on 1 Oct, I’ll still get a normal paycheck that month. I also get 1 month of furlough pay, and I have one month of unused vacation that they’ll pay me for. So even though I stop work on 1 Oct I’ll get pretty much standard paychecks through the end of the year. After that, nada.
We get one month of healthcare, after that it’s COBRA or whatever you can find. We get travel benefits for 18 months.
I can do whatever I want in the meantime - when they call back I can defer it in six-month increments up to a total of two years. After that, I either need to come back or lose my recall rights.
Overall it’s lousy to stop working, but as long as the company is still in business I’ll have a job to come back to. In the meantime, I get to travel, visit friends and explore other opportunities. I’m looking at things outside of flying just so I’m not so dependent on this industry.
I can’t usually make a Friday commitment before Thursday with any kind of certainty.