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Oh, good Lord. Please pray. DH was laid off this am.........

Joanne

By Joanne,
in General Education Discussion Board

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Joanne

Joanne

Posted
Posted

Please pray:

 

1) He gets a job commiserate with his experience.

 

2) He feels God's peace and love.

 

3) He is relieved from feeling like less of a man and insecure in my respect.

 

4) That we survive this month and can have some kind of Christmas.

 

We were going to do another Fireworks Stand anyway this season, but we are not considering not having our homeless friend stay at the stand overnight, and having Adrian do so instead. That makes us uncomfortable and sad in a few ways.

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Melinda in VT

Melinda in VT

Posted
Posted

:grouphug: for you, Joanne.

 

For those who have asked about why companies lay people off at Christmas, I think often it has to do with their fiscal year ending on 12/31. At many companies, the week after Christmas is a dead zone with lots of people taking vacation days, so they need to handle layoffs before the holidays.

 

That doesn't make it any easier to face, of course, but I don't think most companies are sadistic about lay offs. There are often legitimate reasons not to wait until after the new year.

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Guest Virginia Dawn

Guest Virginia Dawn

Posted
Posted

Ugh! Will definitely pray.

 

In light of the other poster's comment, I wonder how many employer will be doing the same thing before the holidays. That stinks.

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Renee in NC

Renee in NC

Posted
Posted
:grouphug: for you, Joanne.

 

For those who have asked about why companies lay people off at Christmas, I think often it has to do with their fiscal year ending on 12/31. At many companies, the week after Christmas is a dead zone with lots of people taking vacation days, so they need to handle layoffs before the holidays.

 

That doesn't make it any easier to face, of course, but I don't think most companies are sadistic about lay offs. There are often legitimate reasons not to wait until after the new year.

 

We laid our guys off at Christmas last year. We didn't have a choice - we were trying to hang on but the landlord said he had a new tenant ready to move in, but we had to be out. We did it to mitigate the amount due on the lease. (Too bad the landlord was full of it and didn't have anyone move in until April and then tried to sue us for January-March.:glare:)

 

If we could have waited, we would have.

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lovemyboys

lovemyboys

Posted
Posted
Praying - so sorry. We just heard that the dh of a very close friend was RIF'd the week before Thanksgiving.:grouphug:

 

My brother's boss wanted him to have a nice holiday with family so the boss didn't tell him that he was laid off til the day after New Year's last year. My brother, who really respected and liked his boss, felt badly that this man (the boss) had carried that burden through the holidays himself, knowing that his own workload was about to double.

 

It's a tough time. Sorry your family has to deal with this now.

 

Fortunately, you can have a lot to do with the 3rd one, helping him feel strong and whole despite the setback.

 

Take care.

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Audrey

Audrey

Posted
Posted
:grouphug: for you, Joanne.

 

For those who have asked about why companies lay people off at Christmas, I think often it has to do with their fiscal year ending on 12/31. At many companies, the week after Christmas is a dead zone with lots of people taking vacation days, so they need to handle layoffs before the holidays.

 

That doesn't make it any easier to face, of course, but I don't think most companies are sadistic about lay offs. There are often legitimate reasons not to wait until after the new year.

 

 

True. Also, I used to have a client company who said that they laid off before xmas so that people would be prepared not to run up big holiday bills. When they had laid off after xmas, people had done that and then been faced with bills they couldn't pay.

 

I'm not saying I agree with this reasoning, but it is another perspective on the issue of lay-off timing.

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sheryl

sheryl

Posted
Posted
Please pray:

 

1) He gets a job commiserate with his experience.

 

2) He feels God's peace and love.

 

3) He is relieved from feeling like less of a man and insecure in my respect.

 

4) That we survive this month and can have some kind of Christmas.

 

We were going to do another Fireworks Stand anyway this season, but we are not considering not having our homeless friend stay at the stand overnight, and having Adrian do so instead. That makes us uncomfortable and sad in a few ways.

 

Oh Joanne, I'll pray for you sister! Our pastor just wove this into his sermon again this past Sunday. He said that the Israelite's were delivered in a day, but spent 40 years in the wilderness. See the comparison of 1 day to 40 years.

 

Your dh will not be out of work that long, but it's just the analogy of it.

 

Please keep us posted WHEN he gets a job. Will he/you both consider relocating? Or, do you need to stay put?

 

:grouphug: Sheryl

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Denisemomof4

Denisemomof4

Posted
Posted
Oh, the unkindness of employers at Christmas time. Breaks my heart. Praying for you all. :grouphug:

:iagree:

 

I'm so very sorry! I pray God bless your dh with a better job than he had before, for your family to have a blessed Christmas anyway, and for peace, hope and joy in spite of your current circumstances!!!

:grouphug:

 

 

Looking forward to your praise report!

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Kate in VA

Kate in VA

Posted
Posted

Praying for you but i wanted to also give a little encouragement.

 

My dh was laid off in Sept. However the job market was not moving at all in MD for him... However we felt God was telling us it was time for something new... So my dh looked in the richmond area and found something almost right away. We had to move in a week but it has worked out so well... We have a nicer house in a gated lake community and people are nice here! (shocking to me)the owner of the house even gratuated from the same school as my husband and they know lots of the same friends... weird huh... They invitied us to church the weekend we were looking for the house and it was awesome.... God's blessing are sometimes hard to see... We will pray for you but keep your eyes peeled for his direction... Reasure your dh that things will turn around and that you know he's trying. Times are tough now and its hard on everyone.... I hope things turn around soon and will be keeping your family in my prayers!

:grouphug:

Kate

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hillfarm

hillfarm

Posted
Posted

Here is an exerpt from my cousin's blog that I though you might want to share with your dh...

 

Laid Off: the New Identity Crisis

 

 

 

There's been a lot of talk in my small, rural community here lately about layoffs. Many of the factory jobs that used to be a mainstay of our community are going or gone. Layoffs abound. Companies are closing. People are out of work with few prospects for employment elsewhere.

I have discussed these events with K often. He tells me he can totally understand how the workers who have been laid off suffer from feeling like they have lost their very identity, not just their jobs. In some small way, I have had to work through some of these feelings. A few short years ago, we were farming much more actively than we are now. I was selling produce and fiber weekly at the local farmers market. Due to a number of circumstances, we made the decision to cut back for a period of time to take care of some other priorities. I am no longer a homeschooling sheep farmer. And while it is normal that I mourned the loss of those activities which I loved, my identity is not lost.

 

It appears that it is common for a person to take much of their identity from the work they do. Many years ago, we lived in a big city and I had a very high profile job. Truly, when I told someone what I did for a living, heads would turn and everyone wanted to know more. That was quite flattering and I did begin to derive some of my identity from all that public approval. K was working in an equally high profile job in media at the time. We both to some extent defined ourselves by what kind of work we did.

 

But then we moved back home to rural Ohio after K's father passed away. And we soon discovered that few people in our new home were defined by their work. One neighbor grows corn, soybeans, and wheat in season, plows driveways in winter, and sells firewood. Another raises cattle and works part time at a department store. Yet another farms most of the time and also figures taxes on the side. These people work hard but are not defined by their work. For them, employment is a patchwork of activities all with the common goal of bringing in money to sustain their families. Until recently, K worked in media at a local university and also farmed here part time. This past year we dropped many of the farming activities to focus on getting some other parts of our lives streamlined. We will resume farming more actively when we have more time to devote to it. He is still the same man I married, the same man I farmed with two years ago. We are just doing something different together for now.

The point here is that a person is definitely not totally defined by what they do for employment. Even in my community, those who lost the manufacturing jobs still have their identity. They are residents of our community, sons, fathers, brothers, uncles, cousins. They are members of our churches and our civic organizations. They are neighbors and volunteers. They are still very important to a lot of people and we need them. It troubles me to think that they might be feeling like their lives are over just because their current job is.

 

Each of us is defined by the sum total of our lives, not by just the one factor of employment at a particular time. We are so much more. I hope I can think of ways to help our friends who have been laid off to know that their value has not changed at all in my eyes. I have to admit that other than being a bit envious of their large salaries, I never did define them by their jobs. I focused on criteria such as kindness, wisdom, sense of humor, integrity, friendliness, values, and beliefs. At a distance, it is easier to see the whole package rather than laser in on any one attribute such as what they did at work. Perhaps it is hard to see the forest when you are a tree.

 

These economically troubled times will bring out the creativity in all of us. Workers who are laid off will have to dig down deep to discover new ways to find work within their area of skills and training. They may have to get creative about applying their skills to a different type of work, bringing to the fore abilities they have not previously polished and used. Some might even have to learn new skills to enable them to take advantage of unique opportunities available. But through it all, their identity will still be intact. I would still be the same person whether I am raising sheep or writing magazine articles. I may even end up doing both at the same time. But regardless of my work for income, N still needs me to be her mother. K still needs me to be his wife. My mother and mother-in-law still need me in the same ways as always. My church needs me, my community needs me, my 4-H club needs me. Regardless of my employment, (in the immortal words of PopEye the Sailor), I am who I am. I am important to a number of people, as are any of you readers who have recently lost your jobs or been laid off.

 

Now is a time when we will need to learn to think in different ways, because the world is different now than ever before. We will need to work our creativity and flexibility muscles until they ache. But because our work doesn't define us, it doesn't diminish us if it changes or goes away. Certainly it changes us, but change is inevitable. Change would have happened whether the economic crisis had happened or not.

Life is not easy. Being unemployed or laid off stinks. I for one, pray for everyone in this situation every single day. And I am sure that thousands of others do too. I sincerely hope that we can all use this time to discover more of who we really are. Perhaps we were limited in our self-view before by thinking of ourselves only in relationship to our work. There is a whole world out there and I believe we define ourselves by how we relate to every aspect of it, not any one facet.

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