What do you do...

[{TNP}Dukie]

When the place you've worked at for the last 25 years shuts down?  Half my life down the drain...

[haunted]

try to get your foot in the door somewhere, send out dozens and dozens of applications. Crazier things have happened. My dad was self-employed for 38 years as a commercial fisherman and is in his 60s. After a hurricane that ruined the fishing industry here(from fishing mecca in the atlantic to... a fraction of what it was) he finally got work through a union and now captains a crewboat with great lakes dredging company. Sure, these are fortunate circumstances for him but as I've said... crazier things have happened(he makes twice as much as his VERY best year commercial fishing, each year now).

[Waffle Whiffer]

It happened to me twice. Each time I was out of work for about 6 months, then got a job better then the last. Kick back, send out the resumes and enjoy the unemployment checks. It'll work out. I never had to go to my backup plan (marry a rich widow / divorcee). My wife never liked that plan anyway. 

[Sgt. Dick]

Sorry to hear that Dukie.

Like others have said get those applications out everywhere you can.  I'm sure someone will need someone with 25 years of experience.

Good luck man.

[peewee_RotA]

Hang in there, keep trying. No matter how much you love your work or your product, it can't love you back. Don't let your work define you, define your work by trying to be the best. Be one who produces (not only one who consumes) so that you can be proud of what you produced. And remember that no matter how much you like your job, you're still just in it for the money.


Yes they are pretty bumper-sticker-esque, but I pretty much live by those. The others are: "NEVER care about office politics", "NEVER let your job become CYA", and "No matter what happens, you still have to be able to work with that person tomorrow."

[|iR|Focalor]

When the place you've worked at for the last 25 years shuts down?  Half my life down the drain...

That can't be true though, the democrats told us the economy is improving.

As others have said, yeah, get your resume out there and fill out applications and meet people face to face to so they can see that you WANT a job. Everyone else will say, "Don't worry, something else will come along." I won't. PLAN FOR NOTHING ELSE TO COME ALONG, because there are lot of people who had faith that something else would come along and then they foreclosed and filed for bankruptcy. Go ahead and find a relative or friend who can offer you a place to live if the worst happens.

I wouldn't recommend it to EVERYONE, but I can usually make a decent bit of extra cash from sports betting and gambling. You need a large amount to start out with in case you lose so you can double up on the following bets to recoup anything you lose. You need to know the sport and current events of it pretty well in order to make the smartest bets. There are various places to do it online, but you can usually get better odds with a private bookie. If you're going to do casino style gambling, craps and roulette are your best options with the best odds if you play smart. Like I said, you need a sizable chunk of cash to start. When you lose, the idea is to bet double your previous bet to recoup what you just lost. So if you lose 5 times in a row after an initial bet of 100 dollars, you'll need 3,200 dollars for the 6th bet... and you still might lose, but that's why they call it gambling, and THAT'S why I don't recommend it to everyone.

[QuakeDuke]

When the place you've worked at for the last 25 years shuts down?  Half my life down the drain...

Ack! Hate to hear that..... been there - NOT fun...

QD

[Th0m@s29]

Sink into the underground life of CRIME!

[|iR|Focalor]

Sink into the underground life of CRIME!

Sure, you do that. Lodging and meals are free in prison.

[The Dreaming Dragon]

Interestingly enough I am about to find out myself...

I have worked in a supermarket chain called Pathmark for 28 years come February...and about a year ago one of our competitors bought the company called A and P(short for the Atlantic and Pacific Tea company). They have a number of other chains under their sway but with the laughable premise that they are all "independant" from each other,avoiding whatever monopoly constraints the government would impose on them. However they are used to low volume situations:run the stores with as low labour as they can so whatever profit they make will seem larger compared to the costs...but Pathmark does far more in salesand requires more labour to keep the shelves stocked,so they made many bad decisions trying to figure out how to run us...and even more questionable ones involving operations that left the comon worker like me amazed at the stupidity...but Now things are clear:

They bought us...to destroy us.

They did their best to discourage shoppers from frequenting our stores,by only having so many sale items on hand and running out too soon,by making the end displays smaller and holding less,and by chopping labour so much they insisted on having only 4 cashiers running at peak times even though we hjave 20 registers available for people to buy what they need. And they looked for ways to waste money too:we had a coffeeshop instore,and they decided to buy a whole new set of furniture for it,10 sets of tables and chairs...and threw it all out the next week! And they couldn't figure out the worst way of inconveniencing the shelf stockers like me with how we access the "dead stock" leftovers of previous nights. It was all calculated for us to lose sales and customers.And now we hear they haven't been paying major vendors for months to the tune of millions of dollars...All making a huge debt.

So they announced they had to close stores.People laid off,managers fired outright,the people with senority shuffled about to the furthest places to discourage them staying on because they couldn't commute so far. More store closings due in February. And 2 weeks ago they declared bankruptsy! Mind you,they sold some of those stores for 89million,but noone knows what happened to that money.Christmas bonuses of course.Golden parachutes. But they had enough cash to hire a PR firm that is already blaming "the heavily unionized workforce" for the downturn,and with a governer in New jersey known for breaking unions,things look grim. And I just had to take a 50K loan out to convert my co op into a condo and pay off the garage reconstruction needed for that to happen(another story...and I don't own a car!).

Fun Fun Fun.

I expect my job to go bye bye around June.and definately by october when the contract is up with the union.Thankfully I have few expenses and have the rare oppertunity of using any unemployment time(IF I get it...nothing surprises me now) to try starting an art career I have neglected for years...I'll try for a year...then worry afterwards.