Laid Off for the Holidays

9.32K

Sheila

11/19/08 05:37PM

Filed to: Layoff horror stories

So the Dow closed, terribly, under 8,000 for the first time in five years, Time Inc's chopping more heads, and we're still looking for your layoff stories! (Send them to tips@gawker.com.) Oh, and? Remember the sad layoff story we you told you about earlier—it was a "post-9/11 husband-and-wife double-whammy"? There's more woe:

"So, I just got laid off again! Right before the holidays. Nothing really interesting about the layoff though, except that it sucks."

Good luck, comrade. Srsly.

The following replies are approved. To see additional replies that are pending approval, click Show Pending. Warning: These may contain graphic material.

zaropa Sheila 11/19/08 05:46PM

This is all well and good but on the CNN home page there is an in depth interview with the the author John Hodgman, under the headline "PC explains everything for you," and to the side and on the top of the page is one of those Apple ads with Hodgman in PC mode. So someone is doing very well in two spheres at once. And lest we forget, the Hodge started out as a humble magazine writer, after starting out as a humble literary agent.

City_Dater zaropa 11/19/08 05:57PM

@zaropa:

So you're advocating all the laid-off magazine writers should explore opportunities in the entertainment industry, where we nearly always average around 85%-95% unemployment, recession or not?

Think again!

zaropa City_Dater 11/19/08 06:10PM

@City_Dater: Okay, I'll think again. Literal people are so fun!

VirginUrgin zaropa 11/19/08 06:16PM

@zaropa: isn't he handicapped?

zaropa VirginUrgin 11/19/08 06:17PM

@VirginUrgin: Not, how you say, obviously.

it takes a lot to laugh Sheila 11/19/08 05:45PM

Arise, you prisoners of starvation!

Arise, you wretched of the earth!

For justice thunders condemnation:

A better world's in birth!

No more tradition's chains shall bind us,

Arise you slaves, no more in thrall!

The earth shall rise on new foundations:

We have been nought, we shall be all!

'Tis the final conflict,

Let each stand in his place.

The international soviet

Shall be the human race

'Tis the final conflict,

Let each stand in his place.

The international working class

Shall be the human race

SultanaEleusis it takes a lot to laugh 11/19/08 05:49PM

@it takes a lot to laugh: That's a pretty catchy song. Was it by Irving Berlin?

someofmybest it takes a lot to laugh 11/19/08 05:55PM

@it takes a lot to laugh:

Half a league half a league,

Half a league onward,

All in the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred:

'Forward, the Light Brigade!

Charge for the guns' he said:

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

'Forward, the Light Brigade!'

Was there a man dismay'd ?

Not tho' the soldier knew

Some one had blunder'd:

Theirs not to make reply,

Theirs not to reason why,

Theirs but to do & die,

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon in front of them

Volley'd & thunder'd;

Storm'd at with shot and shell,

Boldly they rode and well,

Into the jaws of Death,

Into the mouth of Hell

Rode the six hundred.

Flash'd all their sabres bare,

Flash'd as they turn'd in air

Sabring the gunners there,

Charging an army while

All the world wonder'd:

Plunged in the battery-smoke

Right thro' the line they broke;

Cossack & Russian

Reel'd from the sabre-stroke,

Shatter'd & sunder'd.

Then they rode back, but not

Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon behind them

Volley'd and thunder'd;

Storm'd at with shot and shell,

While horse & hero fell,

They that had fought so well

Came thro' the jaws of Death,

Back from the mouth of Hell,

All that was left of them,

Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?

O the wild charge they made!

All the world wonder'd.

Honour the charge they made!

Honour the Light Brigade,

Noble six hundred!

No?

someofmybest someofmybest 11/19/08 06:06PM

@Vivien Smith-Smythe-Smith: (Sorry, I just thought it sounded sufficiently sinister).

VirginUrgin it takes a lot to laugh 11/19/08 06:15PM

@it takes a lot to laugh:

Man in a silk suit hurries by

catches the poor old lady's eye

Just for fun he says, "get a job".

That's just the way it is.

Some things'll never change

That's just the way it is

Oh, but don't you believe them...

Hey_mikey Sheila 11/19/08 06:09PM

Well, alls I can say is that I am sooooo happy that, thanks to welfare reform we won't be tempted to get too lazy on welfare. Also, thanks to our far-sighted Senate, we won't have any further extensions of unemployment insurance. Most of all, I'm relieved that all the laid off peeps will, most likely, lose their health insurance since we don't have single payer. The last thing laid off workers need in a depression is a safety net that might damage our incentive to find new work or health insurance that might remove the terror necessary to finding said job.

Poodle_Heart Hey_mikey 11/19/08 06:18PM

@Hey_mikey: and they can always go back to school and become a dental hygienist and make something of themselves

/snark

also: right the fuck on dude

Hey_mikey Poodle_Heart 11/19/08 06:22PM

@if_i_only_had_a_heart: But, with no health insurance, who's hiring dental hygienists! Reality defeats snark for the win!

re: right on? Sigh. But thanks.

VirginUrgin Hey_mikey 11/19/08 06:44PM

@Hey_mikey: dental assistants, more likely. And pretty soon the dental assistants will be doing the work the dentists do on the poor patients who can't pay.

"Doctor? Do I fry the tooth nerve or just remove it altogether?"

ljnd2 VirginUrgin 11/19/08 08:47PM

@VirginUrgin: Oh, God, I was just at the dentist's today. With my Freelancer's Union insurance. Which is pretty good, actually. I got laid off at this time two years ago. Sucked, but now I work for me. I just hope I don't have to lay myself off in the coming months.

RinTinSin Sheila 11/19/08 05:50PM

As my other half looks precariously close to unemployment...I am so fucking glad I don't have 1) kids 2) a mortgage 3) investments of any kind.

VirginUrgin RinTinSin 11/19/08 06:42PM

@SinisterRouge: yes but do you have health insurance? Uninsured health care costs are the number one reason people declare bankruptcy.

Shamoononon drives like a farmer RinTinSin 11/19/08 07:37PM

@SinisterRouge: GOOOOD for you. *shakes fist and walks away*

freedc RinTinSin 11/19/08 08:07PM

@SinisterRouge: I've thought the same thing a lot lately, just a feeling of empathy for others who have even more pressure on them. But really, I've had that thought often even before this economic nightmare, I always thought if I am barely getting by, how do people do it with families?

VirginUrgin freedc 11/20/08 12:42AM

@freedc: We're drinking heavily, selling drugs, turning tricks, and the kids are eating lots of mac and cheese. Oh, and we got rid of the now cable-less TV for "educational purposes. Before long, we'll be sleeping in the same bed as the grandparents and the kids will be coming home from work, clutching a chocolate bar that just might have a Golden ticket wrapped 'round it.

Oh, and we've started practicing Eastern Medicine —herbs and shit, if you know what I mean. A lavender bandage CAN sure a broken wrist!