A big round of layoffs in my company ....

[TheCoxwain]

I survived ...but among those let go were single moms - one of whom has slogged her backside off for the company for 12 frigging years ...


I am increasingly failing to understand the American way .....Why should so many individuals be forced to take on so much risk in their lives when they would rather not.. ... and its not as if most of have any option ..

we dont have access to a public transport ... so we are forced to buy cars and expensive insurance policies to cover the risk to/by the car - when I would happily take a bus/train ....


I just feel the American dream puts too much risk on the individual .. we need a bit more of a safety net. I think I am entitled to decent sleep without having my stomach churn with being worried about my job.


It fucking unfair....


:rant:

[AndyA]

1. I'm sorry to hear about the layoffs.

Thank goodness your job was spared, but it will be very strange for you going to work with so many others gone.

I only hope the people responsible for this mess will eventually spend the rest of their lives paying for it. (In jail.)

[murielm99]

2. I'm sorry to hear this.

What kind of work do you do?

[CoffeeCat]

3. I checked the state you are in...

...because your story sounded similar to a layoff situation that happened in my area this week.

A few hundred in one company let go--and this was their third round of lay offs.

It's so sad and distressing. Even for the ones left behind--it is stressful. You wonder what happens next.

My husband's company has had three rounds of layoffs and a sucky paycut.

Lives are on hold across this country...

[lifesbeautifulmagic]

4. I am happy to hear you made it thru the lay offs

Hubby was laid off back July, and I was laid off in January this year, and I wouldn't with this fear and stress on anybody. Keep the faith, it has GOT to get better.

[jody]

5. Abraham Lincoln said "This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it.

Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember it or overthrow it."

Later John F. Kennedy said “If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.”

Senator JFK spoke at my graduation.

[Greyhound]

6. Forget a safety net, we must build a societal foundation below which

nobody can be allowed to sink.

Food & water, shelter, clothing, education, health care, and access to equal justice.

Can we agree on those?

ETA; & water just to cover it.

[killbotfactory]

8. This is really the only solution

unfortunately it would mean that powerful people wouldn't be able to squeeze the underclass for profit as easily.

No one is free if they can have the means of life taken from them or are denied education. It's as simple as that.

[Greyhound]

10. FDR said it 70+ years ago, "necessitous men are not free". n/t

:kick:

[Marksbrother]

7. It's inevitable, but it won't happen until at least another

generation or two. Progress comes slowly, by degrees.

"we need a bit more of a safety net"

[mnmoderatedem]

9. want to hear something to REALLY make your blood boil?

I was laid off in mid February (still looking for work). About a year and a half earlier to two years earlier, the SEC announced they were investigating executives at my company. The CEO promptly resigned, to the "surprise" of nearly everyone in the company (nobody around me seemd to follow the big picture there much). Anyway, nearly two years pass, a new CEO is named, etc. In January, the company posts third quarter results which are pretty good, beat estimates soundly. But that same day comes word the the SEC is not satisfied with the internal investigation by the company and intends to take "stricter action". So instead of the company share proce driving upward 15 to 20 %, it falls 5% due to the SEC announcement (apparantly execs had been backdating their stock options since 1997).

About a month later, many of us get our jobs cut.

I asked my boss if this was about the economy, or was it about the SEC hot water, and he assured me it was about the economy and we were losing clients left and right, and jobs need to be cut, etc.

Fourth quarter results came in last week, and revenues look just fine, beat estimates by .16 cents a share.

So in effect, the hard working rank and file were let go to appease the (rightly) angered shareholders, due to executive shenanigans.

Where have we heard this before?


Grrr....