Doom and gloom

All has been pretty quiet at work really save for the occasional rumour about whose for the chop. Well all that changed on 18th December when we got an email saying there are going to be 72 job losses at our site after Christmas. The unions are starting talks on 5th December and then we find out. We have heard a rumour that 67 are shop floor workers and 5 professional staff. I know it sounds terrible and I feel guilty for thinking it - but I hope that's right. And I hope I'm not one of the five. Hubby is worried sick about it and its so frustrating that I can't make that better for him :(

On saying all that my heart goes out to all those who have been affected by the credit crunch and those who will be. I wonder what kind of Christmas there having this year *grabs tissues*.

Dreading going to work

Its Sunday evening and I'm dreading going to work tomorrow. I don't know how my employer will tell us that were being let go - it might be an email or a letter or maybe via a manager or something. The previous bad news came in an email. So needless to say I am wary of reading email now. I just want to go bury my head in the sand.

I feel like I'm going to my doom.

Worried

I just spoke to my mum on the phone. I emailed her yesterday and explained what had happened at work. I just couldn't tell her on the phone because I didn't want her to know how much I was panicking. Obviously she's not daft and she saw right through me. *rolls eyes*. She said they wouldn't see us hungry without a roof over our heads. I knew that already but still its reassuring to hear. Still feel sick with worry though.

The crunch has HIT right at home

Well yesterday we received some extremely worrying news. The company have announced 500 job losses worldwide within our company. An estimate is an average of 3.5% of professional grade employees at each site. The thing is we know that's just an average and that in reality there will be a disproportionate amount from our site (see earlier post about our group being hit hardest). We find out by 18th December (as we leave for Christmas shut down) and employment terminated on 31st December. We don't yet know exactly how they will do it and who will go as the management team were still in talks yesterday afternoon when we left. As I've mentioned before both me and my husband work for the same company so technically we could BOTH be unemployed in 2 weeks time.

Christmas is officially cancelled.

The crunch is hitting closer to home

Today we received an email from one of the big wigs explaining about the low sales in the company and explaining that our group has been hit the hardest in the whole company. It mentioned looking into project and people costs. That's worrying.

Union

I decided that it might be a good time to join the union at work as the credit crunch is forcing changes to our working conditions that I'm not overly happy with. Or more to the point I'm worried where things might lead. Anyway the rep had no forms so I couldn't join today. I'll have to see if there's any forms next week.

Insuring against the inevitable?

Today we insured ourselves against the inevitable. We bought some unemployment insurance that will pay the mortgage if we loose Andy's income. We no we can survive with my loss of income but Andy's loss of income would make it impossible. The policy has an exclusion period though and won't cover us if we find out about our job loss until February 2009. So we hope and pray that we don't.