Layoffs - Another opportunity awaits.
Monday, November 24th, 2008
That’s right! The wifey has now been bitten by the layoff bug. Her entire department is no longer with us. I came home for lunch to play Call of Duty 4 on the XBox 360. While I was in the middle of spreading my wrath on some inferior victims I got a phone call from the wifey. She informed me that she’d been let go.
Right away I knew she was serious but for some reason I didn’t even feel an, “awe damn” moment. Truth is, I’ve been telling her for the longest that she needs to find another job. She was comfortable so she stuck with them. Now they forced her hand and she’s currently unemployed.
Now we have to find a way to get health insurance since we were using her health benefits. It doesn’t help that we found out a couple of weeks ago that we’re expecting our 5th child (July 5th ‘09). Meanwhile, I’ve been researching some health insurance possibilities. Besides the expensive COBRA option ($775/ per month) to continue our same benefit coverage, I’ve been using ehealthinsurance.com to get some much more affordable quotes.
All in all, it’s not ALL BAD. For starters, she gets a severance package of 14 weeks pay (2 weeks for the 7 years she’s been there), 1 week of profit sharing as well as her 21 days of vacation pay. To top it all off, she still gets $423/week in unemployment benefits. So once again, our layoff situation may have us coming out smelling like a rose.
It’s feels GREAT to not have worry about a job loss. But at the same time, this is the 3rd big event to happen to us this year in the negative column. 3/21, I Lost my job (quickly found another one). 9/23, I lost my grandfather (he passed away without suffering or anything). Now this.
Notice the trend? Despite the hurdles, we’ve managed to take things in stride and be ok. I feel like everything is changing as I feel that the bad comes in threes. Our luck is finally turning and I’m optimistic about the next couple of months.
For starters, I’m in the middle of opening up a second business (tattooing). I hinted on it earlier in the year and it’s finally coming to fruition. MOdify Tattooing, LLC will be up and operational by the first of the year.
Well here’s to a GREAT ‘09. First round’s on me!
