Coping with a Layoff: POST STICKIED SO PLEASE CONTRIBUTE.

[guitarguy423]

I am in NO WAY making any money endorsing this, but I highly recommend
http://www.ed2go.com
They offer 6 week online courses for $99 a pop, and I've taken Html, Java, intro to Dreamweaver
and intro to Flash. They offer many many courses, and most community colleges are
affiliated with them and offer credit certificates. Well worth the $$$. Classes start every 6 weeks,
and are great 'cuz the scheduling is very flexible, allowing you to do your thing 24/7, whenever
it's convenient for you.... and if you're unemployed, you got no excuses. 

[mtlouie]

I am in NO WAY making any money endorsing this, but I highly recommend
http://www.ed2go.com
They offer 6 week online courses for $99 a pop, and I've taken Html, Java, intro to Dreamweaver
and intro to Flash. They offer many many courses, and most community colleges are
affiliated with them and offer credit certificates. Well worth the $$$. Classes start every 6 weeks,
and are great 'cuz the scheduling is very flexible, allowing you to do your thing 24/7, whenever
it's convenient for you.... and if you're unemployed, you got no excuses. 

Except money. 

[wiccawench]

Oh Iceland i would love it if you could elaborate.......

there is also the idea of barter....... you have time......

[SouthLeftCoast]

Great suggestions! A couple more:

Adult ed classes are often free, and a place to meet folks.
I like the original (albeit outdated) version of What Color is Your Parachute? It helps catagorize your skills and will illustrate how transferable they can be. The later versions don't seem to have this lengthy worksheet.
Assume (yep!) you will be layed off, so always be scouting for job opportunities, and always live beneath your means.
Rid yourself of plastic pumpkins while you still have a functioning car and folks have $ to buy.

[guitarguy423]

Here's something I came across that I wanted to share, in a career-seeking
book What Color Is Your Parachute, By Richard Nelson Bolles. Hope someone
can get something out of it......

"There are all different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds
of work, and the problem is to find out which is the voice of God rather
than that of society, say, or the superego, or self-interest. By and large
a good rule for finding out is this: the kind of work God usually calls you
to is the kind of work (a) that you need most to do and (b) the world most
needs to have done. If you really get a kick out of your work, you've
presumably met requirement (a), but if your work is writing TV deodorant
commercials, the chances are you've missed requirement (b). On the
other hand, if your work is being a doctor in a leper colony, you have
probably met (b), but if most of the time you're bored and depressed by
it, the chances are you haven't only bypassed (a) but probably aren't
helping your patients much either. Neither the hair shirt nor the soft birth
will do. The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness
and the world's deep hunger meet."
- Fred Buechner
Wishful Thinking --- A Theological ABC

[Slumlord]

If you get laid off you simply have a new job that pays much less.  Your new job is to find a new job.  Turn off the T.V., cancel the Netflix and pick yourself up because you'll be working hard.  Begin each morning at 8:00am and work until 5:00pm. 

Always remember that 85% of all jobs available are NOT advertised.  Walk into businesses (small to medium sized) and ask a few questions.  Maybe you'll find a new career you never thought you'd fall into.  Its an opportunity, take it.

[jtollison78]

I am in NO WAY making any money endorsing this, but I highly recommend
http://www.ed2go.com
They offer 6 week online courses for $99 a pop, and I've taken Html, Java, intro to Dreamweaver
and intro to Flash. They offer many many courses, and most community colleges are
affiliated with them and offer credit certificates. Well worth the $$$. Classes start every 6 weeks,
and are great 'cuz the scheduling is very flexible, allowing you to do your thing 24/7, whenever
it's convenient for you.... and if you're unemployed, you got no excuses. 

Except money. 

You make over 37 posts here per day.  I'm sure you could find some way to make money on the internet with the time spent here.

http://www.pokerstars.com/

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/36/stt-strategy/

Granted, Bushes recent scorched lame duck earth policy has put online poker on a time table, new bank regs are scheduled to go into effect Dec 1, '09, even though I think banks are still saying that they are impossible to implement.

[Mollinator]

Try not to fall into the "identifying with the job" crap.  Remember, "When you are what you do, when you don't, then you aren't".

[Barter4Booze]

If you wait until you are laid off, fired, made-redundant, out-sourced, etc., chances are you are not ready for unemployment.

It would be a courageous fool who said months in advance, "This enterprise is a waste of my time; it's snafu-ed, I'm outta here." That approach would be possible in a world where that employee had no debt, mucho $aving$, and shelter that's paid for.  But most people aren't like that. 

In my experience, many, many people are living check to check, hand to mouth, where the rent payable on the 1st of the month is nothing more than a 30 day reprieve from the street.

I know a guy who, at the age of 18, had every reason to be a huge success in life.  His Dad was rich, set him up in construction with a truck, with tools, contacts and a trade.  This guy was even in a position to take over the family wholesale business.  Did he?  No.  This guy had pretentions; because he'd been sucking off the full teat his whole life, he figured that the world owed HIM!  He tricked himself into thinking that he was too good to work his trade. He told his Old Man to go F.H. He figured that he should simply be the BIG Kahuna and that people should kow-tow to him.  He's spent the last 30 years telling other people to F.O. and now he's isoloated and alone.  Worse.  He's in huge debt, owns nothing, and is heading out of the biggest unnatural boom we've ever experienced into the unknown.  Worse than that.  He'll never retire.  At 50, he's at an age when a lot of people want and need to slow down a bit.  He can't.  Unless Big Daddy 'rescues'  him, or 'bails him out' (inheritance), he's screwed.

I know another guy who's the opposite of the first guy.  The irony is -- they're friends.  This second guy left his home in the East and went travelling across the U.S. in the mid-1970's.  In Riverside, California, he and his brother were hitch-hiking and were picked up by a car full of guys who said, 'put your backpacks in the truck and hop in!' Once they put their packs into the trunk, the car floored it leaving the two of them standing there in their sandals and cutoffs with nothing really other than their wallets.  Between them, they had enough money to buy two bus-tickets to Blaine, Washington, where they got off and walked across the border, back into Canada.  "Asked by the Customs Officer", "Anything to declare?", the guys said, palms open, 'You're looking at it!'  They walked into White Rock to the nearest Welfare Office and applied for a 'rescue' cheque, a 'bailout'. (which they received).  35 years later, this second guy is married, with two adult daughters, has a modest house that is paid for, a few man-toys, microwave oven, color TV, etc., and he works his trade in a supervisory capacity, ordering and directing the work of others, making about CA$100,000.00/p.a.  The thing is, he knows it can't last.  He's very P.O. aware and we talk about it.  He's talked about what he's going to do when he can't drive anymore.  He'll do local jobs only, for cash or barter.  He'll do just fine because he's come up from nothing.  Like me, he tends to say, "Bring it on!"

    What's the point?  The point is that if you can't afford to buy 2 of these things for cash, you probably can't afford to own 1.  The smartest and most difficult thing a person can do is to down-size and rationalize before the S really HTF.  Can I do it?  Move to a smaller house that's paid for instead of this bigger house that's still got 40% to pay-off over the next 9 years?  Nope.  Trade my Silverado in for a Ford Focus?  Nope.

     Don't own one unless you can afford two; sell or give away everything you do not need.  If you've been fired, lost everything, gone bankrupt, -- don't be so sure that it's the end; chances are it could be the beginning.

      One under-acknowledged strength of our economic system is the way that it provides release for people who have failed and encourages them to come back and try again.

[houseoftang]

I've never been layed off (nor has it been possible to lay me off, being self-employed since I got out of college), but I might have a few things to offer when I have a chance to write some.

One thing I'll say is this:  folks who've been employed as employees, especially those who've had relatively few, long-term jobs rather than a bunch of short-term ones, tend to think of a job as something that is "given" to them.  And something that can be "taken" from them.  They took our jobs!  Nobody will give me a job. . .

My own "career" path has never let me truly understand that mentality, but I can say this--it's untrue.  A job is something you make.  You find a way to apply your energy to the world in such a way as it generates the means of support for yourself and those under your care.  You are not a cog in the machine, tossed aside and awaiting another place where a cog such as you is needed.  You are an intelligent, adaptable human being (these two being the strengths of human beings), which species has risen to the top of the food chain by its ability to find ways of eking out a living almost anywhere on the planet.  The key is to think outside the box.  Maybe, in the worst case, you can't find a job for money (I suspect many of us will be in that situation).  Perhaps you can do this and that for some people, who'll give you food.  Plenty of folks on this forum do work for farmers in exchange for food.

Also, nothing is hard.  Any job is do-able if you take the time to learn how, and it's not that hard to learn how.  I'm the first to admit that I'd have a VERY hard time learning to do a job which requires artistic ability or flexibility beyond what my body is capable of.  But for the vast majorities of the potential jobs out there (including the ones you can create), a little time and effort are all that's needed to do them.  That and CARING about what you're doing.  Even if the entirety of your career up to this point has been pulling a lever at a factory, you can, and if you're minded to, will, learn how to do even relatively complicated jobs like carpentry or auto mechanics if you put your mind to it.  The mentality that you need years of apprenticeship or school for something, and then decades of experience and a license, is bunk.  It's designed to keep those who are currently doing a job, and those they choose to admit, in a position of control and ease inside those jobs.  Otherwise you'd have dozens of people competing to do it.

[nomore]

Okay having been in this position before I'll add a bit

6) Look on this as the biggest gift of time for yourself you've ever gotten and may ever receive in your life. The people who are still job holders have greater time demands upon themselves than you do, they have the hang-ups that go with the chronically time-pressed (they have to juggle work demands, family demands, friend demands, community demands and self demands) and in that way you are richer and freeer than they are.

7) Use the gift of time given to you to your advantage...think long and hard about what you were doing for a living and whether you want to go back to doing something very similar or whether it's time to rebalance how you spend your time. A lot of times you'll find that the old job isn't so attractive once you've had time to reflect upon it and that's your cue that now you can change things to better suit you.

Take a small portion of your time and do something strictly for yourself with it. It could be reading a book you've always wanted to read (and that's cheaper if you borrow the book from a library or a friend than just buying it), reorganizing some aspect of your life (like say cleaning out a closet that you've never had time to clean out and possibly selling some of the stuff or donating it for a tax write-off), getting in touch with a friend (friends are great mental support and are often cheaper and more effective than drugs or therapy), maybe learning a new skill or hobby (which doesn't have to be a pricey one). Brainstorm on this before you choose how to spend the time on yourself because not only do you need to figure out what it is you *really* want to do, but you may have to be more creative about how you go about doing it (especially if it takes some kind of payment to accomplish it...you may have to find another way to secure it than with cash or a credit card).

[river king]

It can help to know you're not alone, and this is worldwide.

For people in the tech sector, this site keeps track of layoffs around the world:

http://www.techcrunch.com/layoffs/

I was laid off three years ago.  The economy had not yet gone to hell, and I had enough savings that I wasn't yet worried about my future.  I envisioned exactly what I wanted in my new job (what hours I wanted to work, what I wanted to earn, how far I was willing to commute, what kind of work I wanted to be involved in.)  By the time I finalized my plan, I got a call from a friend who needed... exactly what I was looking for.  So I didn't have to job hunt-- hallelujah.

This time around it's going to be different, but I believe if you're very, very clear in what you want and stay focused, it can be amazing sometimes that you really can get it.

[Sierra]

Nomore has the right attitude .It truly is a gift of time .Look into your life. Remember all the things you love and what you loved as a child. Look for what is is that you want to do . Take a walk . Write letters...and clean that damn clost and basement !

[Sierra]

Sell at flea markets while you are not working. Sometimes you can approach people who are selling something you want and then suggest barter.

[jock]

Well it looks like I may gain firsthand experience come monday, got a one on one meeting with the big boss to "discuss options".

Plus side.

Mortgage paid up free and clear.

Have several smaller income streams, pc repair, small scale antique pm business on ebay, pretty good motorcycle mechanic with a local reputation of being very good at what I do and not a rip off merchant.

Large allotment garden establishing into its second year.

No debt all cards payed and carrying 0 balance.


Minus side

Loss of main job = 40/50% of income which will hurt.

The wife might see a lot more of me which carries the risk of my suffering serious physical injury if I piss her off enough .



I'm thinking of becoming a provident loan agent on a self employed basis, this is basically making loans to the poor at higher than normal interest rates due to the high risk of default. Not the most moral of jobs but I think it will be a serious growth area. You get paid a percentage of monies collected rather than a salary. So adds another income stream to partially replace the lost one.

At least I got some sort of plan.