Ya know, Getting laid off really sucks

[6'9"Witha69]

Especially when your wife gets it on the same day as you.

We refuse to sell the car, but damn I hope the ship turns around before then.

I really wish Senators with more pull than brains would shut up in the future.

Not likely.



Wish us luck.

[dropit69]

holy crap that really blows..hopefully you can make it till something else comes up..good luck..what field are you in?

[Smock67]

Damn dude sorry to hear about your misfortune. Something will come up and you'll make it through this, just keep your head up and think positive. My best wishes will be going your way.

[buickfunnycar.com]

Wow...double-whammy!:hand:
Good thoughts heading your way from the left coast...

[CarlC]

NOOO! That is rough Nick. I hope that you find something soon.

[Rick Dorion]

I feel your pain as I was in that spot too. My best wishes to you and your wife for a quick rebound.

[1969CamaroRS]

Wow that is a spot of tough luck. I had some similar happen to me about 7 years ago. We had just bought our house and the week after my wife found out she is going to lose her job and within the month I lose mine. This is right near 9/11, so getting new jobs was really hard...

But it worked out for us, and it will work out for you as well too! Good luck and keep your spirits up!

[TonyHuntimer]

That sucks! What line of work are you and your wife in? Get the ax today? I got laid off of high-tech on a Monday. That blew. Go to work on the comuter train like every other day... By 9am I got the ax and had to get all my stuff out within 30 minutes. I had to get my wife to drive 45 minutes to pick me up with all my stuff. Not Good Times.

I'm guessing you both worked at the same company? If so, that's why my dad always told me not to "fish in the company pond". :)

Sorry to hear your misfortune.

Tony Huntimer
RaceHome.com

[Vegas69]

I lost a position when I first moved to Las Vegas. It was the best thing that ever happened to me. Hope it works out for the best.

[Motown 454]

I feel for you it sucks, I hope you find something soon for both of you. Keep the faith!
Wayne

[WS6]

best of luck to you two Nick

[Mathius]

That sucks.

I don't mean to make light of your situation, because by all means mine (which I'm about to describe) wasn't that bad, but I too experienced a layoff this year.

I'm just an apprentice tinner. I started the new trade back in Sept. so I will soon be through my first year.

The first company I was assigned to was a specialty shop. While 65% of the industry does HVAC, my shop did all SORTS of things, mostly industrial. I got to visit some cool plants (like Lincoln Electric, BF Goodrich's landing gear facility, etc.) and learn all sorts of different jobs. I had the crap jobs of course, but I also got to help with the real work. I was often alone with just one other journeyman, but I got to know all the guys in the field.

Then in May, I all the sudden got laid off. In the middle of the week no less. It's unheard of for 1st year apprentices to get laid off without pissing somebody off, but in the middle of the week? Nuts. With no explanation either. I was working full shifts the first two days, and then whammy.

Now I'm just an apprentice, and the union tries to protect that. So when I put my name on the unemployment list around 9 am in the morning, I already got a call about 3pm stating that I had a new employer. All in all, I missed a total of 4 days of work, one because of the holiday.

But I hate my new company. As an apprentice, you don't have a choice where you go. My union doesn't rotate you to different shops either. We're renovating a school, and that's all I've helped do since I got there.

Whereas my last job, the longest place we did a job was 5 weeks, this one takes on jobs that are 6 months to two years. And all they do is ductwork. When they had to do some black iron duct, it was like a major project. They actually sent a MIG welder into the field!(which is highly irregular for those who don't know. It's a lot easier to get an arc lead somewhere than it is to try and get a mig welder to a high area)

And I get almost nothing BUT crap work at this company. As an apprentice you expect to get the crap jobs, but that's all I do. Maybe once every two weeks I get to actually help put in duct.

I'm very depressed about the whole situation and I've actually considered quitting more than once, despite the fact that when I get through the program I'll be making a respectable $32/hour, and the guys who are retiring right now are making more money off our pensions than they did while they were working. Talk about great retirement! When I retire, if Social Security is still there, I'll have a total of 4 pensions. The National, the Local, annuities, and social security.

But in the meantime, I hate my job. I mean I literally hate it. The only thing I have to look forward to, is after my 5 year apprenticeship is up, I can go whereever I want. Maybe I can find a shop more like my old one.

Anyways, the point is, I feel your pain with the whole layoff issue, and as an apprentice, I'm not making squat whether I'm working or not.

Mathius

[Chad-1stGen]

Nooooooo Nick! That really sucks man. Good luck on finding an even better job!

[Steve1968LS2]

Sorry to hear man.. what was it you did?

And I have to ask, what was the meaning of the "senator" remark?

Anyways, I was laid off after 14 years, now look at me. Thinks will work out. :)

[6'9"Witha69]

Sorry to hear man.. what was it you did?

And I have to ask, what was the meaning of the "senator" remark?

Anyways, I was laid off after 14 years, now look at me. Thinks will work out. :)After 10 years of working for the bank, some Senator from NY opens his mouth about how much "distress" we are in. BS!! Anyway, based on his word alone there is a $100MM run on the bank in 1.5 days never mind the following week. This turned a "Well Cpitalized" mortgage bank into distress in just over a week. Jacka$$ tried to back pedal the next week but the damage had been done. ~1/2 the company got it today. Many people got it due to some idiots comments which were out of line. Called by many "grossly irresponsible" and "boneheaded".

BTW, good ol Charles Schumers' campaigns have been heavily funded by CitiGroup. This is the same guy who focused in on Countrywide last year. Not to say they were without any responsibility, but still . . .

Oh well, I have 10 years of exp. in mortgages, financial analysis, reporting, and IT project management. I have a few options.

[thedugan]

I hate Chuck

[Tony_SS]

Good luck Nick - make it into something better.

[SaturnVUEguy]

Last year I got fired just after moving into a new rental townhouse and getting married, after being off work for 3 weeks due to illness. Said one stupid thing a couple days after getting back to work, my words get twisted, and I get fired. Got denied unemployment too. NOT a good way to start a marriage!

Best of luck to you!

[MrQuick]

Sorry to hear about that Nick, hope you guys catch a break. This economic farse is nailing alot of people out there. 24,000+ layoffs in June.

[BA.]

sorry to hear of the misfortune man, I hope you both find something new and better......soon!


On an upbeat note, I walked away from my large corporate employer of 19 years and have landed in a job that is BETTER than I was at previously!!

I hope you have the same luck!

[formula]

The silver lining:

Both you and your wife now have nothing to do except each other!


Hope things get better soon!

[trapin]

Sorry to hear about that Nick. Keep your head up. It just means something better is going to come along.

[ty1295]

I got a call in sept 2006 while on vacation from my boss. They just announced the plant was shutting down while I was gone.

My response to him was something along the lines of great i will have more vacation time after they close.

In my mind though I was really wondering about the future. Spent 3 months just finding myself, collecting unemployement, etc. Found a job and drove 50 miles one way, better pay by about 6k a year, but I hated it. It did pay the bills for the 3 months I worked there until I found my current job. Now making even more than that job, laid back environment, great people better benefits. Looking back getting laid off was the best thing that could have happened. It would have taken me 10 years of 4% pay raises, and I would still not be happy to get where I am now.

You and your wife will get through it and look back and appreciate the change, experience at some point. Maybe not next week or month but at some point.

[andrewb70]

Whatever happens always happens for the best. I live by those words. Good luck to you and your family. Please keep us posted.

Andrew

[BonzoHansen]

I've gotten laid off, it sucks. But somehow I always landed on higher ground. I wish nothing but the best to you & your wife.

Schumer is an idiot. Always has been.

[Steve1968LS2]

A little story that applies to this thread.. Sad that Shummer had to open his big trap.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/laland/2008/07/feds-cite-schum.html

[BonzoHansen]

While he likely has a point about the reasons the bank is in the shape it is, he seemingly exasperated the situation going public – the run he started dropped their capital to troubled levels. This crushed any hope of a capital infusion.

People tend to ignore general comments, but if they hear the name of their bank all bets are off. I do not think it was a simple case of poor judgment by Schumer. I am sure if he was truly concerned there are private ways to deal with it – that seems to be how Washington works. Things stay very quiet until someone has an interest in making something public. He appears to have chosen to make this very public. I wonder how deep BoA’s hands are in his pockets…

Schumer Deflects Blame To IndyMac, Regulator
By SARAH LUECK July 14, 2008; Page A13 WSJ

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Charles Schumer, hit with criticism from a federal regulator that he contributed to the failure of IndyMac Bank, said he may have caused some depositors to withdraw their money but said he wasn't responsible for the bank's downfall.

Sen. Schumer, a New York Democrat and member of the Senate Banking Committee, said IndyMac's lending practices and lax federal regulation are to blame for the failure of the thrift on Friday.

He said he wrote letters to federal agencies in June, and then made them public, in order to increase pressure on the Office of Thrift Supervision and the Federal Housing Finance Board to conduct more aggressive oversight of IndyMac.

"I regret that depositors and investors lost money. But the blame falls with, first, IndyMac and, second, OTS," Sen. Schumer said in an interview. "Everything I wrote in my letter was publicly available. There was no new information there. It is what legislators are supposed to do."

The saga started in late June, when Sen. Schumer's letters to the FHFB, OTS and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. rang alarms that IndyMac "could face failure if prescriptive measures are not taken quickly." He noted the thrift's falling stock price, climbing delinquency rate and recent downgrading by analysts.

Sen. Schumer's office publicized the letter June 27, providing it to The Wall Street Journal and other publications. A June 28 story in IndyMac's hometown newspaper, the Pasadena Star-News, had a "very inflammatory headline," Sen. Schumer said. It read: "IndyMac appears close to collapse."

The story in the California newspaper mentioned Sen. Schumer's letters, as well as a shareholder lawsuit and other signs of trouble at IndyMac. The newspaper didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

IndyMac on July 1, a Tuesday, said Mr. Schumer's statements caused "elevated customer inquiries and withdrawals" on June 27 and June 28, and that about $100 million had been withdrawn.

Traffic remained "somewhat elevated" on July 1, the bank reported, but was "substantially lower" than on June 28. Sen. Schumer pointed to that statement as evidence that withdrawals eventually calmed down, even after his letters. Then, on July 8, IndyMac announced it would cut staff and write far fewer loans.

But the Office of Thrift Supervision has been critical of Sen. Schumer for alarming IndyMac depositors, saying that in the 11 days following release of the letter, depositors withdrew more than $1.3 billion. OTS Director John Reich said Friday that Mr. Schumer sparked a deposit run that "pushed IndyMac over the edge." Publicizing the June 26 letters was "an unprecedented act," Mr. Reich told reporters Friday. He said Sen. Schumer should have privately addressed his concerns with regulators.

Sen. Schumer rejected that, saying that, while banking regulators do their work in private, lawmakers typically do theirs in public. Sen. Schumer, the head of Senate Democrats' re-election effort, threw in a political jab as well. "Clearly what was happened here was the OTS, having the second-biggest bank failure on their watch, sought to blame the messenger. In sum, it's sort of classically what this administration does. Blame the fire on the guy who called 911."

Sen. Schumer said he is planning to write to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to say "now is the time" for the OTS to be folded into another agency, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Mr. Paulson already proposed such a change as part of a recent plan to overhaul financial regulation. The OTS declined to comment.

Sen. Schumer also wrote to Senate Banking Chairman Chris Dodd (D., Conn.) to request a hearing on IndyMac and the regulatory issues the bank's failure raises.

Sen. Schumer, the chairman of the Joint Economic Committee and a member of several other panels, produces a drumbeat of news releases, letters and reports. He has urged the FDIC to "crack down" on brokered deposits, called it "dumb" that a new environmental rule would require small-boat owners to pay pollution fees and urged that a national pony-jumping contest be moved from Kentucky to New York.

Sen. Schumer has also been one of the most vocal critics of bond rating firms, which gave triple-A ratings on thousands of mortgage-related investments before cutting ratings in 2007 and early 2008, spurring hundreds of billions of dollars of write-downs. At a recent hearing of the Senate Banking committee, he complained that Moody's Corp. and McGraw-Hill Cos.'s Standard & Poor's didn't send executives to testify who were more senior.

Last week, after the SEC came out with a report criticizing practices at rating firms, Sen. Schumer said the agency "should look at enforcement measures" to respond to the "searing abuse" found. In May, he also said that Moody's president, Brian Clarkson, was correct to resign over the crisis of confidence in ratings: "When Mr. Clarkson told me that Moody's had done nothing wrong throughout the mortgage crisis" last September, "it was obvious they needed a change in leadership."

--Damian Paletta and Aaron Lucchetti contributed to this article

[Jim Nilsen]

There is a strategy going on here.

I had someone put this in front of me and whether it is right or wrong it sure makes you think about what it going on.

Don't fry me I am only just passing it on to let you form your own opinion. You will have either stronger or weaker ones but to have them stay the same will make your head spin. Most of the info about what is happening in the banking industry about 2/3rd's of the way in if I remember right?


http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com

[BonzoHansen]

Opion snippet in today's WSJ:

The $4 Billion Senator
July 15, 2008; Page A18 WSJ

The federal takeover of IndyMac Bank over the weekend could cost the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. between $4 billion and $8 billion. But Senator Chuck Schumer, who helped to precipitate the collapse by publicizing a letter to the bank's regulator last month, has no remorse.

He was, he says, just doing his job in telling regulators that the bank "could face a collapse," a prophecy that quickly proved to be self-fulfilling. "It's what legislators are supposed to do," the New York Democrat told the Journal. Depositors who spent Monday trying to recover some of their money might beg to differ.

The Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS), whose job it actually was to regulate IndyMac, took a different view. "The immediate cause of the closing," the OTS wrote in a press release, "was a deposit run that began and continued after the public release of a June 26 letter to the OTS and the FDIC from Senator Charles Schumer of New York." The OTS added: "In the following 11 business days, depositors withdrew more than $1.3 billion from their accounts."

Mr. Schumer now argues that OTS was asleep at the switch, and that blaming him is like blaming "the fire on the guy who called 911." In fact, it's blaming the guy who poured on the gasoline. Very few banks, if any, would remain standing for long in the current tense financial environment after a Senator, in effect, told its depositors to run for the exits. In the 1930s, such tipsters were derided as rumormongers and often faced indictment for encouraging depositors to stampede banks.

Only last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced an investigation into the role of rumor-peddlers in the run on Bear Stearns. We somehow doubt that Mr. Schumer will receive similar SEC scrutiny for his very similar role in bringing about a liquidity crisis at IndyMac. But he may be more deserving.

Last week, Mr. Schumer's Senate colleague Chris Dodd took the spotlight to insist that everything was fine, just fine, at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. For how that turned out, see here. In its own way, Mr. Dodd's declaration was as irresponsible as Mr. Schumer's, given that its goal was to protect the companies from greater regulatory scrutiny of the kind long proposed by the Bush Administration.

Of course, it is much easier to talk a bank out of existence, as Mr. Schumer has now done, than to talk Fannie and Freddie into solvency. And no one is pretending that IndyMac was untroubled before Mr. Schumer wrote his letter. The bank had suffered heavy losses in its mortgage portfolio and was openly seeking new private capital to shore up its balance sheet.

But Mr. Schumer was not content merely to share his profound concern with regulators. He also leaked the June 26 letter to the press – which is more like shouting "fire" in a crowded bank than dialing 911.

[6'9"Witha69]

Yeah, by the WARN act I am retained for 60 days. I am passing my time answering phones and dealing with people in the bank branches. Not a happy group. I understand why, but wish they were more educated regarding conservatorship. Closing accounts only makes things worse overall.

[Jim Nilsen]

Yeah, by the WARN act I am retained for 60 days. I am passing my time answering phones and dealing with people in the bank branches. Not a happy group. I understand why, but wish they were more educated regarding conservatorship. Closing accounts only makes things worse overall.

I know it doesn't Help to take the money out and just keep it. I hope that many of the scared people who have actually lost and are spitefull invest in them selves to be more energy self reliant with that money. If what they believe is true , then spending it all now is the smart thing to do. We all know that they are on fight and flight and we shouldn't blame them ,only guide them if we can. But reinvesting that money in the economy in the right place would really put a curve ball on the big hit.

[6'9"Witha69]

Yeah, I spent the second half of the day at a terminal (FYI, never been a teller before). That was REALLY interesting.

[Damn True]

Schumer is an example of everything that is wrong with the legislative branch of Government.