Thursday, December 18, 2008

Getting laid-off in December—with a twist.

Two weeks ago I was laid-off on the first Friday of December 2008. I said my good-byes to co-workers in my department and I left. I felt embarrassed and my eyes were red from crying, so I left through one of the back doors of our building and didn't say good-bye to anyone else in the company.

That day, I looked back and I remembered there were lay-offs in September, then there were more lay-offs about three weeks ago. And now, the largest number of people were laid-off and I was part of it.

I had an entire weekend to think over what happened and I began to plan for how I was going to find a job in this bad economy. On Monday, I was glued to my computer the entire morning to update my resume. Edit, proof read, edit, proof read—over and over again. It was around 1 p.m. and I was satisfied with my resume. I was about to go to Kinko's to print it. However, I thought why not just show up at my work and ask them to print out several resumes? It won't cost me anything.

When I walked into work, one person came running up to me and hugged me and said she did not get a chance to say good-bye to me. She said, if anyone should have not been laid-off, it was me. As soon as she heard I was laid-off on Friday, she ran to her manager and said, "That was the worst decision for laying a person off. He's the only helpful employee in his department when I need help. All other people say they don't have time to help me."

Other people started to approach me and told me basically the same thing, this company could have laid-off almost anyone, except for you. Even though hearing this from my pears did not get my job back, it certainly made me feel better.

I was in my department area printing my resume when my boss told me that the Vice-President just called him for my cell number. My boss told the V.P. that I was here printing my resume. The V.P. said for me to come up to his office. He hired me back.

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