Let me backtrack a few steps: I’m a licensed Veterinary Technician who graduated in 2009. I got not one, but two new jobs at the same time. One was for my local humane society which, unfortunately did not have an opening for a vet tech. So I took an adoption counselor job, which I still have so obviously I’m doing something right. The other was a vet tech (part-time) at a small, and I mean hole-in-the-wall, vet clinic. It was a bit overwhelming between both jobs, learning new skills at two different positions. It’s tough enough starting one new job, let alone two.

Fired & Replaced by Neice of Boss's Golf Buddy!

Fast forward five and a half months. I’d been slowly getting into the groove, trying to carve a niche for myself as a useful (albeit inexperienced) technician. I’d gotten used to the routine and though I still needed practice with a lot of things, I felt that over time I would get it bit by bit. Not so fast! One Friday afternoon (note that you should not let go employees on a Friday, when they now have all weekend to do nothing but scheme about ways to exact their revenge), I was called upstairs by the doctor. Uh-oh; by now I’ve learned it’s never a good sign that the doctor wants to speak privately. Guess I was right. I sat there as he told me I was being dismissed, hardly able to keep myself from bursting into tears. The only thing I could do was to agree with everything he said. He was right after all: I did need more training (and if his staff had been willing to do it we wouldn’t have needed to have that discussion). All I could think about as I left that day was the mountain of bills I’d been slowly chipping away at over the past few months, and how I’d surely be maxing out all my available avenues of credit yet again. Luckily I was still employed at the humane society so I had a bit of a safety net there.

Fast forward about a year. Right around the beginning of the summer I ran into one of my former workmates, a highly trained, experienced technician who, you guessed it, was let go from the same place I was. She informed me that as soon as I left, I was replaced with a person who knew the good doctor. How’s that for favoritism?

Fast forward (I know, AGAIN?) another two months and lo and behold, I meet the girl who took my job. WOW. How’s that for fate? She showed up at the adoption shelter where I work and when I saw her place of employment listed on her application she was only too happy to talk about it. Of course she had no clue I was pumping her for information. Turns out she is the niece of the good doctor’s golf buddy. She graduated at exactly the same time I did and spent the first year afterward down at Disney World. That’s right: DISNEY WORLD. She interned (translation- worked for free) at the vet hospital in Animal Kingdom. Here’s the best part – they didn’t even let her do anything technician related. She got to be an assistant, that’s it. So she had no more technical experience than me. In fact, I even had MORE because I’d actually been working as a tech for six months.

I guess now I don’t feel so bad but I still managed to lose out because after all, I am the one who got canned.

This post was submitted by Jenn.

I worked as an art director for a very small 4-person advertising agency. My boss, the owner, had many personal issues – His short stature, Huge ego, raging coke addiction, wife who we nicknamed Maris (from Frasier TV show). She was never seen in the office, but always commented to our boss/troll on our work/ideas.

This was a horrible gig, but a good stepping stone as I was able to create some good work. We were housed in a industrial complex in a desert city in Southern California and while the front office looked great (we marketed real estate and Maris was a “interior designer”) the studio was in the back, with poor AC, and a industrial heater that could remove hair at 10 feet.

After a 2-3 weeks of daily post-its from Maris trying to tweak my designs (and always changing her mind) I’d had enough. The coked-out troll didn’t that the balls to make the final decision and Maris avoided day-light and human interaction so I was forced to deal with her via plethora of festive colored post-its, or a phone message that always started with her nasal exhaling from a cigarette and the words – “Markie, darling”. Just typing that makes my sphincter tighten. Anyways, I digress.

I was soon hired by our #1 competitor and when I gave two weeks notice, he countered he wanted me gone as soon as I finished my last project which was due July 3rd. He & Maris were going to a chi-chi spa (I’m betting a swingers thing) the next week so he was shutting the office down after the 4th and for the next week (unpaid for the staff – thanks boss!).

I decided on the 3rd to come in early to clean my desk out and I bought a nice big fish at the 24-hour supermarket on my way in. Before anyone arrived, I placed “Bert the bass” in a aluminium roasting pan and placed him above the false ceiling in the troll’s office.
I’m sure when they all arrived back after 12 days, that it smelled like that job did.

This post was submitted by Markie.

My first response after embarrassingly being escorted out the building was a strange state of acceptance. But as that day kept going I kept getting what could only be described as an instant pop bubble appear over my head that read, “You don’t have a job anymore.” Now, as the weekend comes to an end and I begin to realize I have nothing to wake up to on Monday. I remain very upset with the situation, as well anyone in this situation should be.

The marketing company I worked for gave me a few wonderful experiences I am grateful for which only makes the lay-off that much worse. After everything I’ve done, after all that’s been set up for me in the future… this is how it ends? This past summer I actually volunteered to work overseas for 3 months in a new client services role, different from my role back here in the states. The experience was amazing. The exposure within the company was overwhelming and I’ll always remember that amazing time I had.

When I returned I was placed back into my previous position but with the work my superiors were pleased I accomplished they had their eyes on me for something bigger once the moment came available. I was eventually approached about a special projects role I’d be filling when the time came but in the meantime my original role remained.

Month after month passed. No change. I’d ask, “Any updates on the new team getting started?” “No updates yet,” my future boss would say. As time went on I became a little humiliated each time my peers would ask me, “So when are they moving you over to something else?” Everyone expected me to move on from my original department and clearly noticed how nothing was changing. I remained content because some role is better than no role at all.

Then comes a Friday like any other. My future boss calls me as soon as I sit at my desk. As I walked upstairs I wondered if the time had finally come where I’d be deployed off to a special assignment. “Have a seat. We’re just waiting for ______ ,” he said. That’s where I got scared. This person worked in HR and could only mean Death was about to come walking in.

“The company is reducing staff right now and you’re position is being eliminated.”

“Okay?” I mean, what else could I really say?

All of the paperwork was then handed to me. The letter from the president, the separation agreement and a lot of other copy that you really wish you’d never have to see. I asked if I could sit somewhere and actually read it all since everything said to me was just mush due to my head saying a hundred things to myself. Cut back to me being escorted out of the building – As I said goodbye to my would’ve-been boss we shake hands and say our goodbyes. I saw in his eyes he genuinely felt bad about having to do this but either way the damage was done.

What ultimately sucks is trying to figure out the “why me?” answer on your own. In my case, the only explanation was since I was in a transitional role into a position that would inevitably be eliminated in a time of crisis they did away with it. It didn’t matter who filled that role at the time. I was placed in a role that would further my career only to fall victim to that role being eliminated. The infuriating fact of this problem is I didn’t ask to be placed in this transitional role. I could’ve easily been told due to the staff reduction we’re killing the new role and will be in my original/current position for the indefinite future. But did it matter? No. The damage was done therefore any bargaining was unnecessary. The department I was in had 3 new employees that were still in their 90 probation period. But what do they do? Get rid of the person that travelled to the other side of the world for them only to be done away with 5 months later. It’s not a question of laying off people that were less valuable than me but it is a question of me not having control of the fact that I was in a transitional role BECAUSE of them. If there were a term for this it would only be described as Corporate Entrapment – Being promoted to a role that did not yet exist but because it was expendable during hard times the person in said role is with whom they do away. Awesome.

I was looking forward to special projects, being deployed to other offices throughout the country to accomplish short-term missions. This wasn’t the deployment I was hoping for.

Just remember that after being laid off and you ask yourself “Why me?” you are rarely ever a name or a person. You are a position that a committee has decided they can do away with for the time being. And as much as that sucks the best thing you can do is take the experience you got while there and show it off elsewhere. Someone out there will see your value.

Because at this point, your career can only go uphill.

This post was submitted by Andy.

Since my layoff, I’ve learned to look at this time as an opportunity…to volunteer, to become an eBay seller, to be an extra in a movie, to get on the ESPYs red carpet and to write an ebook. Recently published, “FUNemployed: Finding the Upside in the Downturn” offers tips and humorous stories to help the unemployed find a silver lining in a bleak situation. Reviewers call it witty and informative so I think I’ve found my new career. It can be found at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, iBookstore, Kobo, Sony, Diesel and Smashwords.

This post was submitted by Kerry.

I went to speak with my HR person around this time and admitted I was worried this may happen to me. I’ve been trying to start my family with my new wife and we had just settled on a house losing my job was not something I took lightly. I also wanted to let them know I would do anything to stay as I loved it there. Every day I walked into work I was proud of the company i was helping grow. I (foolishly) saw myself continuing to work hard and stay for years. I also was not so unskilled that I couldn’t be moved around as my skills were of use across the company and within my dept. Sadly not soon after…my day came.

So here I am having to bear the guilt that my $40k salary was so demanding upon their bottom line for them to justify sending me into the worst job market since the depression. Poor Comcast can only just report a 5% increase in profit over last year (905 million dollars).

This post was submitted by Eric Davis.

In Nov 2010 I joined a medical device company as a temporary contractor. They wanted to downsize their HR workforce across the world (I can already hear the cheers!) as part of an overall scheme to ‘hack-slash the bottom line because the top line ain’t growing.’ Of course, the agency recruiter who found me for the job just told me I’d be helping the company select and install new recruiting software. (!?) After a few days, I found out two pieces of the real story: 1) my job existed to help facilitate what was, after all, an HR force reduction, and 2) the incumbent for my role voluntarily left the company after just 3 months. They said ‘he missed his old job’ but I’m pretty sure he didn’t have the stomach for what he was asked to do. I didn’t either and thought about leaving several times, but I had an upside-down mortgage and a toddler to feed…

So, for the next five months, I interviewed various members of the HR team and documented their job duties and the processes they followed. (PS – if you are ever asked to document what you do for your job, YES, it’s a bad bad sign.) If they were halfway intelligent and curious creatures and flat-out asked me why I was documenting their jobs, I was told to say, “We’re implementing a software program and the information you provide will help us configure it correctly. The new software will help reduce your administrative burdens so you can focus on the more important, value-add pieces of your job.” What a sell, right?! I also had to help find and evaluate an outsourced firm who could do HR tasks at a lower price. Of course, I was given an open cubicle smack in the middle of the soon-to-be-affected HR personnel (one of whom was 7 months pregnant) to make these phone calls and evaluations…

Things were progressing – processes and duties were documented, an outsourced HR firm was chosen – when something dawned on me. I was very unpopular. No one in HR liked me and stage whispered about me in small clusters as I walked by. Obviously, my confidential “mission” wasn’t so confidential anymore – gracias, cube farm! I hated what I did and the people who worked with me hated me too. SNAFU. I also realized that these soon-to-be-affected HR people who stared daggers at me all day honestly thought that the HR force reduction was MY idea, as if I came in as a workforce efficiency expert/business consultant and suggested the whole thing. Senior management was encouraging this, and in fact, planned for it – “yes, blame it on the temporary contractor – that…that outsider! She’s the problem!” What a perfect scapegoat I made. Never mind that the reduction had been planned 12 months before I even started…

So of course, although I was slow to smell the scent of my own blood in the air, I was abruptly told by the VP of HR that my contract was prematurely ending (the crowd needed a sacrifice! the scales of justice needed tipping!). But would I please stick around just for a few more weeks and train someone else on how to manage and oversee the outsourced HR firm? A “someone” who was otherwise on the chopping block? (See how big-hearted senior management is!!?)

Sigh. Lesson learned.

This post was submitted by HR Anonymous.

This is not my story. It is my Grandfather’s. It has come to me via my father, in one of those “You think this is bad? I’ll tell you bad..” stories.

During the early 1930′s my grandfather was working as a truck driver for Coca Cola in central Kentucky. He was married with two infant children, my dad and my uncle. The depression was not only causing a tremendous loss of jobs, it was causing something we have not seen: deflation. Manufacturers were cutting the cost of their products in a vain attempt to stimulate demand. The only way they could do this was cut wages. My grandfather had his meager wagers cut in half, to a level that could not sustain his young family. There was no second job to look for – he was lucky to have anything, and grateful to Coke that he was not let go. The one consolation was that everyone else around him was in the same boat.

In a time before unemployment assistance and >25% unemployment, how did they survive? The money was just enough to pay the rent and for food for the children. My grandmother and grandfather survived for several years on a garden my grandmother grew in a small backyard plot. She had a green thumb that not only fed them but provided enough extra that they traded vegetables for other staples they needed. My father recalls a time playing in the garden that kept them alive.

Times eventually got better and my grandfather rose in the company and eventually retired as a VP. Still, until my grandmother moved into an assisted living center in her early 90′s, she always had a garden, always canned fruits and vegetables and always saved for a rainy day.

So when I think about how bad it is now, I guess my Dad is right, it could be worse.

We can survive this Great Recession.

This post was submitted by Roger.

Way back in 1982, I saw a want ad published by a recruiter for a dental assistant for $15,000. I inquired about it and when I had the interview with the recruiter, all she talked about was a job with Loyola Federal as a mortgage processor for $6700.00. I asked what about the dental assistant job? She said, “oh, that’s not available”. So there goes my start in the mortgage business. I was only 17 at the time and still living at home, so I was not pressed to make a certain salary. Anyway, fast forwarding to 2011, I made an observation. I never lost a job the first 14 yrs in the mortgage industry. In the last 16 yrs., I have been laid off 4 times. I have now been laid off for 7 months. I am a mortgage underwriter and my 30 yrs of experience apparently is meaningless in this crappy economy.

In my most recent job, 4 out of 8 people in our MD office were laid off a week before Christmas and only 9 days after the company Christmas party. Real nice, huh? The rest of us were gone when office was shut down all together, which was no surprise. Problem that I see is that in the first 14 yrs. I never lost a job because I would leave a job before it got bad enough for offices to start closing. I would say safe zone was 2 – 3 years. So I have concluded that longevity in a job doesn’t pay. Keep on moving..

This post was submitted by Irene .

So I work for two months in the retail industry. However, the boss is very difficult. For instance, she wanted me to circulate the overall store more, but also pay specific attention to individual (white) customers in the fitting room. I was also told to watch the Hispanics and Muslims (don’t know how you can tell what religion people are by their looks) because they were prone to shoplift. Now I know what she was doing was wrong, but I kept the job because I really needed money. It did become stressful to work though. The owner kept giving me tasks and then changing her mind and holding me accountable. However, I did everything to please her.

After two months, the manager called me in after a shift and out of the blue and told me I was being let go. The reason? I wasn’t a right fit. I guess because I refused to racial profile, I did not belong. I’m glad I’m not a right fit because I’m not going to school to be a retail slave. However, I was upset to be let go. Now my boss used to hold a Cabinet position with the state so she is well published. After doing some research I found out that she didn’t pay income taxes because she often claims losses on her business. Funny how someone can cheat the system! Well I am unemployed but I guess I learned my lesson about working for horrible people.

This post was submitted by EC.

About two years ago, a new CEO came in. The organization had been known at a regional level for being an amazing place to work. The culture quickly deteriorated upon his arrival. He was known for being quite the prick, had no experience in higher ed, and was the worst fit possible for the culture. Once the regulatory environment started to get extremely hostile, our enrollment plummeted due to bad press. This was when the CEO decided it was time to “get lean.”

One morning, we came in to find an email from the CEO titled “Organizational Announcement.” We were informed that roughly 10% of the workforce would be cut over the next two weeks (yes.. you read that correctly). Instead of just doing it, they thought it would be best to drag it out.

We all sat, not caring if we looked productive or not, for the next week. Our directors and managers had been telling us for months that the company was “Very healthy. We have no debt. Blah blah blah.” Any ounce of trust we had for leadership was tossed into the trash the morning we got that email. I honestly felt I owed them nothing, given how horrible they were handling the situation. I realized my department was going to get hit hard. The writing had been on the wall the whole time, but most of us had just ignored it.

After sitting on pins and needles a little over a week, the layoffs started. Your department would get an email indicating that layoffs had begun in your area. Your manager (if they hadn’t gotten the boot themselves) would come to your desk and ‘summon’ you to follow them to a room where butcher paper (yes… you also read that correctly) had been placed on the walls for privacy. An HR rep would be waiting for you with the response, “You have been impacted by the workforce reduction.” You got your severance information, and then you were escorted back to your desk by a carefully selected member of the HR team to get your things.

After several colleagues of mine had gotten axed, my turn came. I’m happy to say I acted with dignity and didn’t tell anyone to “Go to hell.” I gathered my stuff quickly, said a few goodbyes, and hit a bar a few blocks away. I drank a lot that night and commiserated with friends, mocking the company. It made me feel better while I wondered what I was going to do.

Now, (6 months later) I don’t look at my layoff as a bad thing…. It was just the kick in the ass I needed to get out of a (frankly) bizarre workplace that was wasting my skills and was horribly untruthful with the staff. I know many people who survived, and they say that the morale stinks as bad as an outhouse in the middle of the amazon. Notices come in weekly, and directors and managers are dropping like flies. Overall, it’s best thing that’s happened to me in a long time, and I love my new job. I’m doing what I always wanted to, and life is great! There IS life after a layoff!

This post was submitted by starzyMN.