The Official Forum Cartel Unemployment Thread

While I'm sure it's no consolation to those who are pounding the pavement looking for work, in my previous career at IBM I had the misfortune to have to lay off half my team in the bust of the early 1990's (when 340,000 people went to 175,000 in a matter of months). Every one of them came back to me later and said that it was the best thing that ever happened to them, some went to other IT Industry jobs, some started boutiques, but they all felt liberated from their corporate identities and made moves that they would never have made on their own volition. The sad thing is that in the current economy there is just no place to go...the opportunities don't exist now that existed then. I hope for everyones sake that things improve quickly and lives can go on.

The actual unemployment rate is probably close to double that figure. Billy Boy made some accounting changes when he was in office so that things wouldn't look quite so bad. The last numbers I saw that counted everyone actually out of work had it running at around 14% and those numbers were from last fall.

I just got laid off 2 days ago after 20+ years with the same architectural firm. It's a very small company and all this time we'd been able to weather many downturns succesfully - until now. I'd been on 3 days a week for over a year - had been 2 for a year prior because of the financial situation of the firm (was full time for 18 years). I had agreed to this reduced schedule because my soon-to-be ex made decent money and my reduced income wasn't killing us. However, I'm no longer with him, and this reduction has taken it's toll to say the least. Now with unemployment looming, I'm very concerned.

Oh and no severence pay - we have no money to give it to me I'm the bookkeeper, I know. Company may be folding when all is said in done.

As many know, I live with Ghosty in RL. He had moved in with me about 6 months ago, moved here from another state and was having a rough time finding work until last week. He started his new job the same day I got my notice. Good timing at least, so one of us will be pulling in an income. But that just shows how difficult it has been finding work. In all that time, prior to this job he only managed to land one interview. One.

Big hugs, Elora. Architecture and construction are really taking it in the shorts right now.

And construction was supposed to be getting this huge boost from the spendulus bill. So much for shovel ready projects.

Kinda hard to stimulate the economy when you don't spend 60% of the money until 2 years after the recession starts.

I'm doing OK myself right now, but several friends and members of my SL household have lost their jobs recently, with no replacement in sight. One lost his job and had his car stolen on the same weekend! (Insurance is paying off on the stolen car, though I doubt at full replacement cost.)

Thanks Bodhi. It's very true. Several of our clients and engineers have had to dramatically reduce staff also in recent weeks, and many of the jobs have stopped construction dead in the tracks. Really disheartening to see.

The guy I work for has been systematically running the company I work for into the ground. We are currently working 4 days a week on one week and 3 days on the next week. Doubt the place will survive.

So my partner and me started our own company and currently have most of the in town customers that refuse to do business with him. So when we pick up some more out of town customers, we should be prepared for when this place finally closes.

For what it's worth my company looking to hire two more people. We are looking for a mechanical designer and a mechanical engineer, both need to have 5 to 10 years experience. We are located in Houston Texas. If you know someone that might be interested let me know here or in world and I can give you a few more details.

I'm coming up on the end of my 1 year of self imposed unemployment, so I'll be hitting the pavement soon. I'll be going into a totally different direction for sure, I just don't know where, yet. I do know that I have vowed never to work in any corporate or government capacity again, so that will narrow my field considerably. So I guess it will be "Hello Service Industry".

English: "Would you like fries with that?" or "Knock, knock, housekeeping."

Spanish: ¿Desea papas fritas con eso? or
[left]Knock, knock, limpieza[/left]
Arabic: هل ترغب في فرايز مع ذلك؟ or طرق ، وطرق ، والتدبير المنزلي

Chinese: [left]你想薯条吗？ or
[left]敲，敲，内务


Tried to cover a few of the nationalities that I know are in the area there.


[/left]
[/left]

That sounds really hard Brenda.

Brenda should apply with Fat Tony. She could take her love of baseball and apply it to the exciting world of unregulated consumer loans.

Just picture it:
Brenda slaps her palm with the bat. "YOU got Fat Tony's money?"

It's a hard field nowadays. I was a report typist for a construction materials testing and inspection firm. They're struggling and I also don't know if they'll survive the downturn.

FWIW, I really hated the job. Tedious work for little recognition (no one had gotten raises there for years, and advancement wasn't possible from my position). That said, it helped financially, while I pursued my more artistic RL stuff.

Actually I'm looking more toward "How many in your party? Please have a seat at the bar, we'll call you when your table is ready".

The only drawback is keeping the blood off my shoes.

You can always use it as a tax write off.

Nah. It will suit what I am looking for. No set routine, flexible hours, not stuck in a cubicle looking at a computer, actually interacting with real people, and most importantly, staying outside of "The System" as much as possible.

Uhm..if I worked for Tony, I wouldn't have to pay taxes.

Oh, okay:

Spanish:
"¿Cuántas de tu grupo? Por favor, tenga un asiento en el bar, le llame a usted cuando su mesa está lista".

Chinese:
“有多少在您的党？请拥有席位的酒吧，我们会打电话给您时，您的表格已准备好” 。

Arabic:
"كم في حزبكم؟ يرجى أن يكون لها مقعد في حانة ، we'll الكلمة الجدول الخاص بك عندما كنت على استعداد".


Not sure what other languages might be good for your area.

UK English: "Sit wherever you like. Your waitress will be with you as soon as she has finished the latest module of her "Service-Orientated English for Polish PhDs" language course"

Pep (Watches as the Pound inexorably strengthens against the Euro, and waits for the same to happen against the US Dollar)

Two of our people got fired within the last week, and the rest of us got cut by 10 hours/week, so I'm down to around 30 hours. Things are tight, very tight. I've shut off my cell phone, canceled Netflix, and next to go will be cable TV (I'm holding onto internet as long as I can!) Trout's biz is just as slow - there aren't a whole lot of people needing real estate lawyers these days. We're basically vegetarians now... eating a lot of lentils and eggs and rice. There's no money for the gas-guzzling truck, so we're both riding our motorcycles rain or shine. Haircuts, movies, and eating out have all become a thing of the past.

Let's all cross our fingers, gang. Hopefully we can all ride this out, sanity intact.

Or perhaps I can use that to be a Motivational Speaker

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73EPp81C97M&feature=PlayList&p=68EB0A00F264DAAB&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=23

Raises her hand. Partner closed our store July 08, made that decision on her own. It was 1300 miles away so I couldnt save it. No clue what I am going to do.

I work for "Initech", though surprisingly I still have a job. They did recently lay 80 people off in their manufacturing division. In Michigan, everything tied to the automotive industry is dying a slow and painful hellfiery death. I'm glad I don't have anything to do with that industry anymore. Health Care and high tech is about the only thing that's still going strong (even though they're not doing as well as before).