The "Fabulous One" is not so fabulous any longer. At least financially.

[PeteRock]

Moments ago the fabulous PeteRock was laid off by my current company.  I guess I can take comfort in the fact that our vice president was fairly upset about being forced to let me go and that my release is based entirely on economics and has nothing to do with performance, but that sort of peace of mind doesn't pay for manicures or regular spa visits.

My wife took the news far better than I seem to be, and like any good spouse she let me know that "it will be okay" and "we'll get by".  She also threw in that soon I'll have to start deciding between a six pack of beer or putting gas in my car, but then she laughed and said that with nowhere to go she figures the choice might be easier than she initially considered.  My wife knows me so well.   

And so begins the embarassing right of passage involving the packing of all personal belongings and transport to my vehicle. 

Even fabulousness is not immune to the current economic climate.  But, while I may be currently unemployed, at least I do so with flair and flamboyance.  At least I have a 12-pack of beer waiting in the fridge for when I return home.

Fuck. 

[McNutt]

She's right.  You will get by and you will find another job.  Still, it does suck.  Sorry, Pete.

[Jimmy the Fish]

Dude, that blows. Sorry to hear it. Hope you find something better suited to your fabulous lifestyle.

[Daehawk]

Thought about taking up massage therapy? 

[Odin]

Sorry to hear it Pete. Good luck and stay positive! Things have a way of working out.

[Teggy]

At least you get a 3 day weekend! Oh...wait.

Bad news, but I'm sure you will land on your feet. Best of luck...

[WinoMcCougarstein]

Sorry to hear that.  It's been too common of a thread on this forum lately

[Eightball]

You were thinking about going back to school before...maybe this is your hint ?

[msteelers]

Sorry to hear that Pete. I'm sure everything will work out in the end though.

[Gratch]

Damn, sorry to hear that Pete.  Just do a search for "Minister of Fabulousness" on Monster, I'm sure you'll be the most qualified.

[Moliere]

Looks like there is more time to hang out at my house working on your pool shots. If we practice enough we can go pro.    Welcome to the world of the unemployed. I'm sure it won't last long given your resume and industry contacts.

[PR_GMR]

Awww, crap, man. Sorry to hear. I'm sure you'll find another job soon.. though I shudder to think how long your posts will be with all this sudden free time. 

[Isgrimnur]

Damn, Pete.  I'm sorry to hear that.  Good thing you're not rated PG yet, as I'm sure you have some R-rated statements to voice about the situation. 

Now go find a job that doesn't revolve around asbestos abatement.

[lildrgn]

Lame.

They do say that misery loves company, though. Welcome to the club (yes, I am a member too).

Then again, think of all the books you can catch up on.

[CeeKay]

Ouch. Maybe we can get you a show on a cable network, Rock's House of Fab. It could be like The Osbournes.

[PeteRock]

Ouch. Maybe we can get you a show on a cable network, Rock's House of Fab. It could be like The Osbournes.

But it would have way more drinking. 

[PeteRock]

Looks like there is more time to hang out at my house working on your pool shots. If we practice enough we can go pro.    

Pool will be one of the vices I won't be giving up.  Ever.  Perhaps the heavy drinking associated with it will be cut back a bit, but the pool itself will live on.  But you're right, we may be playing at your place more often than we have in the past. 

[PeteRock]

You know, it's nice to make an office your "own" with personal items and such.  That is, until it's time to pack it all up.   

At least they've been accomodating in that I don't have to be finished today and can return to the office throughout all of next week.  They've also offered to allow me to continue to use my company cell phone on their dime until I purchase a replacement and retrieve all of the contact information stored in my current phone.  I guess in light of the situation that was kind of them.  It's at least better than no "severance package". 

[Razgon]

Damn, sorry to hear so, Pete. But, from your description, its one of the better laid offs..eh, layoffs.

Hang in there - they cant stop the Signal of the faboulous!

[Moliere]

It's at least better than no "severance package". 

You didn't get any severance? Not even some kind of token 2 weeks pay? 

[hepcat]

I don't know why you didn't use one of my tried and true methods for avoiding termination from my book "Avoiding Job Loss The Hepcat Way".  Hell, in chapter 2 I relate an anecdote that would have worked perfectly for you!

I set up a meeting with my boss earlier that fateful day.  During the course of our discussion I casually mentioned that I knew I was about to be fired for filling the water cooler with Mountain Dew and hanging a sign over it that said "Fresh Pee!".  When he said his hands were tied, I simply replied, "Are you SURE about that?".  When he explained again that he had no choice because Lester in accounting was about to file charges after everyone started harrassing him for finishing 6 cups before finding out it was soda, I tore open my shirt and threw open my office door, stumbling out into the hallway while screaming, "RAPE!".

...in hindsight, I probably should have done this face to face instead of via a conference call.

But you get my drift. 

(seriously though, let me know if there's anything I can do to cheer you up)

[rickfc]

I'm sorry to hear that, Pete.  I went through this same thing back at the beginning of February and was out of a job for 2 months.  Hustle.  I hadn't worked as hard in close to 10 years as I did for those 2 months.  Good luck to you, friend.

[Pyperkub]

Sorry to hear that PR.  File for the unemployment as soon as you can, as they are probably getting swamped.  I don't know what's going to happen out here (I work for the CSU), but the word I'm getting from the Dean is that they'll announce layoffs and maybe negotiate (down?) to salary reductions.

The last  time I was laid off it turned out pretty well, though things were really tough for a while.  One thing I did was to do volunteer work to keep busy and avoid that gaping resume hole.

Good Luck, and polish off your backlog!

[warning]

That's a crap thing to have happen.  Sorry to hear that Pete.

[Devil]

Good luck, Petesy-Pie. I'm sure you'll end up better off in the end.

[Creepy_Smell]

Sorry to hear about it but good luck.

Happened to me in Apr but luckily got a new job this month (Actually off exactly a month but had been sending out resumes a month earlier since we got a head's up). My old work was good and gave a good warning of the lay off and I got decent severance compared to previous layoffs.

Why not just go be a pool hustler? 

[Ironrod]

What is it you do? (Did?) I'd think just being PeteRock should be enough.

Hope this works out in your favor. At least the economy seems to be bottoming out. We are holding up pretty well going into our 5th month of unemployment. We have two more months before the COBRA subsidy wears out.

Be sure to get the COBRA subsidy.

[PeteRock]

You didn't get any severance? Not even some kind of token 2 weeks pay? 

Pay for this week and my stored-up vacation time.  That's it.   

What is it you do? (Did?) I'd think just being PeteRock should be enough.

Being fabulous doesn't pay the bills, it creates them.   

I was the industrial hygiene division manager for an environmental consulting company and also that company's southwest regional expert in asbestos (NESHAP, AHERA, OSHA, etc).  I ran the division responsible for asbestos/lead/mold/indoor air quality consulting, project oversight, investigations, project clearances, regulatory compliance, etc. 

Be sure to get the COBRA subsidy.

I have health insurance through my wife's plan, not through my own company.  It was cheaper and better coverage to go with my wife's plan. 

Tonight we went out to dinner to celebrate my brother-in-law's birthday at Red Lobster.  Jaime's brother is for some reason a HUGE fan of Red Lobster, so we had a drink before dinner (a double Manhattan helped to take a bit of the edge off), and Pap was kind enough to pick up the tab.

Tomorrow we're taking Pap and Jaime's brother on the Verde Canyon Railroad in Clarkdale, Arizona and are then staying at the Jerome Grand Hotel with dinner at the Asylum restaurant.  It'll be a nice break and things will be waiting for me when I get home.

Still sucks, though.  Sure, losing your job is unpleasant, but it's even worse when you actually like where you work and the people you work with.  I think a nice pool session with Moliere next week will help.

[Ironrod]

I was the industrial hygiene division manager for an environmental consulting company

OK, so you kept the urinal cakes fresh? Or did you advise other companies on how to do that? Either way, we can build on that.

[PeteRock]

I was the industrial hygiene division manager for an environmental consulting company

OK, so you kept the urinal cakes fresh? Or did you advise other companies on how to do that? Either way, we can build on that.

Actually, in order to sound more credible you need to learn the industry lingo.  While "urinal cakes" might be the more common term, industry folks call them "piss cakes."  And no, I didn't personally handle piss cake replacement, I merely handled oversight of replacement and ensured regulatory compliance.  We provided advice and consultation on piss cake refreshment and replacement, but separately-contracted contractors handled the actual replacement and refreshment of the piss cakes.  We were over-glorified piss-cake maintenance baby-sitters.

But it paid well.  And who doesn't love a fresh urinal.  As divison manager I had the freshest urinal of the bunch.  But recent advancements such as ice in place of piss cakes have started to render my career path obsolete.

[Harkonis]

bah, damnit pete, I'm sorry to hear this.

I'm approaching my 5th month and don't know how I'm going to get past the next 30 days.  I hope you can find something soon man.

[ROTC1983]

bah, damnit pete, I'm sorry to hear this.

I'm approaching my 5th month and don't know how I'm going to get past the next 30 days.  I hope you can find something soon man.

Good luck to both of you...I really wish you the best!

[MonkeyFinger]

You know, it's nice to make an office your "own" with personal items and such.  That is, until it's time to pack it all up.   

At least they've been accommodating in that I don't have to be finished today and can return to the office throughout all of next week.  They've also offered to allow me to continue to use my company cell phone on their dime until I purchase a replacement and retrieve all of the contact information stored in my current phone.  I guess in light of the situation that was kind of them.  It's at least better than no "severance package". 

That whole "accommodating" part is certainly not the norm from what I've seen, you got pretty lucky there. I used to be in the same camp with lots of personal crap in my office/cube but no longer. I've seen too many people basically walked out the day they are let go with little time to pack up their shit. And once with zero time, due to an alleged (bullshit) infraction he was gone before we realized it. It was like an alien abduction - everything still there, coffee warm in the cup... but he was gone. We eventually got to pack his stuff up for him... under supervision. Which seems to be fairly common as well, the 'under supervision' part. So now I keep my personal stuff to a bare minimum... I think just a mug at the moment. Besides, I'd rather just leave like it was a normal day rather than walking out with boxes of crap and a tree under my arm.

And I hear more and more horror stories about people having their laptop and cell phone immediately taken, for fear of them doing something evil, I guess. The 'horror' comes in when people have been complacent and accumulated personal stuff on their laptop and now those emails, photos or videos you had nowhere else are gone forever. Or something as simple as phone numbers, who needs to memorize them any more when the phone does that for you? But without them backed up, recorded or synced elsewhere, a phone loss of any kind can suddenly mean you can't call most of the people you know because you have no fricking idea what their number is. 

I was out of work for the first time in my life for three months earlier this year. While I enjoyed it at first - vacations were few and far between - it quickly started to suck. Keep your chin up and network like crazy... that's where the next position typically comes from, not the newpaper ad or randomly spamming companies, but from the people you know or the people they know or whom they reach out to on your behalf. That's where my new gig came from.

Best of luck! 

[pr0ner]

 

Best of luck, Pete.

[Goldchamp]

Being a victim of a layoff in March I know how you feel. But the company I worked for for 8 years decided to put me in the field "temporarily" til stuff picked up. 3 weeks later i found out that was a pretty simple tactic to fuck me out of three weeks of vacation and 2 weeks of sick time. But everything seems to happen for a reason, when I signed up for unemployment they told me if i wanted they would pay for me to goto school and pay my unemployment while going. The choices are slim on what they will pay for but I am now being paid the max benifit til my 2 year program is over as long as i pass. I start next tuesday

[USMC Kato]

I'm sorry to hear this.......... everyone in this community knows that someone as intelligent as you will land on your feet like a graceful fabulous gymnast.

[ATB]

Sorry, Pedro. 

[Clanwolfer]

Dude.  Sucks.  A whole lot.

You'll get by though.  Even a sucker-punch like this can be recovered from.

[Kev199]

My brother was laid off this week also and I'm currently interning (i.e. not paid) for the summer.  I'm trying to do some marketing consulting work for some living expense money, but in the mean time i'm eating up some of my savings.  Yuck economy.

[Purge]

That's a whole lot of suck, man.