Many of you have noted, that you’ve worked for a company for 5 – 7 years. I worked for Bank One (now JPMorgan Chase) from being a temp hire 10/2005 to permanent hire 1/2006. Of course, all of the rules were followed: don’t call in sick unless you are dying; don’t use phone for personal purpose; don’t use your breaks for smoking; etc.

I only started with Bank One to feed my then 1 year old daughter. I was hired through the “Mormon Network” so to speak. The Bank One call center was close, the pay above average, and management was phenomenal.

I was promoted via my manager’s transfer, or through an internal customer manager until the end of my tenure there. Unfortunately, my ex-husband had caused me problems and thus I had to leave work often. However, I was still within the top 2 performing personnel despite having to leave work early, etc. This is out of an average of 15 other representatives. I would say that’s pretty darn good!

In addition to my ex-husband going to prison and ruining our community property, my youngest daughter was diagnosed with Autism. Now please keep in mind folks, that Bank One/JPMorgan Chase is supposed to be one of the greatest places to work for single women with children….right?

WRONG! Once Chase took over, my annual rating of 3.5 – 4.0 on a scale of 0 – 5 (and we all know a 5 is impossible) went to a 1! All of my years of hard work and making up for the time I had to unavoidably miss due to these issues did not matter at all. At the end of my career there, I had to have surgery that was unavoidable. This contributed significantly to my demise.

I had a co-worker who was also on FMLA leave having her child when she too heard the news that she was being laid off in addition to me. CAN YOU IMAGINE????? Having your baby in your arms and getting that call???

It seems that most of these high and mighty companies did the same thing: they laid off the most expensive employees. The ones that actually used their health insurance, used their short term disability, used their allotted time off….

I still don’t understand how they repeatedly get named “Women’s Corporation of the Year” or “Best Place for Single Parents to Work” in awards placed by supposedly won via awards presented by Forbes, etc.

You get my meaning….

If I am able to maintain an above average skill set as established by my employer and unfortunately am required to use my …. FMLA …. then why am I the one who gets laid off?

SIMPLE ANSWER FOLKS!
1. I used time off which is inefficient per internal company standards.

2. I used FMLA time which, let’s face it, goes back to #1.

3. Was there for over 10 years…therefore my pension was @ 5% of my salary. Hmmmm…..

I believe all of you are aware of what I’m saying. I believe all of you know of a person in the SAME situation as I have been.

So, when it comes to being laid off, make sure you count in the benefits that are not really made for your benefit, but are made “for your benefit”.

Jessica in Arizona

This post was submitted by Jessica.

Well, where do i begin…when you think and are made to think that your are safe, YOU ARE NOT! that is what happened to me at a well known law firm that does personnal injury. I gave them my all, sometimes staying late and coming in on holidays. The girls there were very contradicting and gossipers. I was the total opposite. They talked about everyone in the building, but themselves, as if they were a gift to that lawfirm. They were engulfed in their work and expected that from everyone else. The job was full of stress and deadlines, but i liked the suspense, the manager and I got along well, so i thought i was safe. Little did I know that one of the girls had enough power to get me fired. One month before I got fired, they were purposely finding things to accuse me with, that had no merit, but careless me went ahead and signed a lease to a new house TWO weeks before those heartless people threw me out, mind you they knew I just signed a lease so that my son and I can get out of my mothers tight home.

Don’t ever get comfortable in a place and always keep your resume up to date because people never warn you, and they don’t care.

This post was submitted by Ana.

I lost my job in November 2008. For about a month before I was laid off, the company had informed us during meetings that they might “potentially” lay off a few people in the next few weeks. I continued to work, not even considering that I would be one to be laid off since I was the only person who completed all of my tasks on a daily basis so I ended up being the one who had the sole responsibility of filing the 100’s of invoices that piled up and were ignored by everyone else. Of which, I also finished most days before it was the end of my shift.

I was very friendly with all of my co-workers, including my immediate supervisor (who I had previously worked with at another company as well, she brought me in to work there while I was still at the company her and I had worked before). Her and I are weren’t just co-workers, we were friends outside of work. Happy to report, we still are. On top of that I was very friendly as well with our Terminal Manager, who has been my favorite person to work for during my entire employment. He was compassionate and efficient, had a sense of humor, and was loved by all of us.

The meetings continued and the news did not change for the better. About two weeks later, they informed us they would be laying off several people from the warehouse and call center (where I worked as a dispatcher/customer service agent/file slave) for CERTAIN. They said they would be laying off people who were less productive and/or whose position was less of a necessity. Most of my co-workers during the meetings didn’t seem nervous and exclaimed loudly, “oh well, I will just go on unemployment”. I was 23 at the time and never been on unemployment in my life and was not relied on that whatsoever, I didn’t think it would even be an option for me. So safe to say, I was extremely nervous. I really enjoyed the work, the atmosphere, my co-workers, I did not want to leave and did not think it would be me. I have to note, since I had been working there I had to train 2 other dispatchers who were new hires. Not really sure why they would bring in 3 new people just to let go of people 2-4 months later? But I guess you can tell the business strategy that went on there from the powers above.

Well I went to work one day, finished my work, stacked up my files in a organized matter so I could file them the following day and went home as my shift ended. I came home, went into the kitchen to grab a slice of cake I had been drooling over all day and as I went to take my second bite – the phone rang! Cue the suspenseful music!

It was my terminal manager and he nervously told me that I was one of the people they decided to lay off. I cried softly and he assured me that I did a great job during my time and would be very missed by all. He said he would love to bring me back in a month in a different position doing routing. I asked, grabbing onto any shred of hope, if I would at least have another week to work for a paycheck and he said “No, today was your last day. I’m so sorry”. Defeated, I said okay and that was it.

Many of my co-workers who were still there called me within the following week telling me how much they missed me and how much they disagreed with the decision. After crying in the parking lot while my boyfriend held my hand, I composed myself and went in to collect my last paycheck. My co-workers all greeted me warmly and seemed very excited to see me. They also informed me that within the last two weeks my Terminal Manager had been let go and of the other poor souls who were also laid off in the warehouse/call center.

Within a few weeks, my supervisor/friend informed me she had been laid off as well. As well as one of my other co-workers I was friends with.

At this point, I still talk to three of my co-workers from this company and only one is still employed there. He also informed me that besides him and 2 other people, everyone that was there when I was there is now gone.

About a month after being laid off my boyfriend convinced me to take a shot at filing for unemployment, if I didn’t qualify, oh well. Well I did and was on it without any problems until June 2009. I have been on 6 or so job interviews and applied to countless number of jobs since then. The only positions that seem to be available for full time work are too far away (in traffic and commute. I live in the DC metro area and could not even consider moving closer, simply cannot afford it). All the others, I didn’t seem to be a right fit in the job because of my age. I still have to provide for myself, pay rent, pay my insurance? But people my parents/grandparents age don’t want to work with a 24 year old at these places apparently.

Well in June 2009 I filed for EUC benefits, basically just an extension of unemployment and was accepted but three weeks later they announced I was under investigation for not being “able, available, or actively looking for work”. Although I have pages and pages of work contacts I have made.

I am now being denied my benefits and have to appear in court in September to fight my appeal. I doubt it will go in my favor and I am now completely broke. I have $8 to my name and if I get denied my appeal will owe somewhere between $1500 to $1900 to the government to be paid on MINIMUM monthly installments.

I continue to search for work, applying to anything and everything I can. I never thought this would happen to me. I’ve caught a lot of heat for being on unemployment from former friends who seem to forget the fact that I was laid off, unexpectedly.

I will continue to look for work and continue to hope for the best but I feel like I’ve been kicked down by everyone imaginable.

This post was submitted by Rachel.

I was based out of Colorado and asked to move to London to help open a new branch of our company. I spent 6 months living and working in London on the US Dollar (at the time the exchange rate was huge).

FOUR days before I was scheduled to fly back to the Colorado office I was told I had been let go due to the economy. I had no idea while I was in London the company had let go of half of its staff. Luckily the company had already paid for my flight because they refused to pay for my taxi ride to the airport which was over 200$ USD.

I had to move in with my parents in Florida because I had no place to live in Colorado and no job to go back to…and with 4 days notice it would be hard to find either!

I had to ship my car back to Florida on my own dime and get used to the fact that I had come back to a different USA then what I had left. It was quite a shock after being gone half a year…I had no idea how bad things were stateside.

I will never forget that LONG flight from London back to Fl.. just sitting on a plane not knowing what was going to happen next and not being able to do anything about it.

I have been out of work for 7 months now, I used to have a resume that would land me any job I applied for…I have applied for almost 400 jobs and still have nothing.

This post was submitted by Mary.

I had been working for a non-profit agency for over 8-years and NEVER had a bad evaluation. My 5th year on the job, I received a generous promotion, where I would be working out of 2 offices and was deemed a “trailblazer” for being the first in the association to be doing this.

Evaluation time came at the end of year 8 and I was expecting the normal evaluation with some areas of improvement and detailing my accomplishmens the previous year. Much to my surprise, i was hot with a “Needs Improvement” or “Unsatisfactory” in almost all areas. My supervisor, who did not write my evaluation, stressed to me that she did not agree with the evaluation and thought it was unfair. I was pretty upset and angry, but took it with a grain of salt and made the changes as indicated.

6-months later, all of the staff were scheduled for a budget review with the executive director. Mine was scheduled for the afternoon and I was feeling a little uneasy about it, but had spent the few days prior getting my notes together to discuss. I sat down across from the Executive Director and was handed a letter stating that my position was being eliminated. She went on to explain that is was due to my poor performance. However, I was never written-up or given any kind of indication that my performance was poor between the evaluation and my lay-off. In the weeks leading up to the “budget meeting”, I was told that I was showing improvement and that I was doing a good job. They had to use the lie that it was for a budget meeting, but I guess they were telling me how I was not going to fit into the budget.

This post was submitted by Bob Derry.