A hunting we will go…
I probably will have to be looking for a job very soon. My company is having voluntary layoffs. They are looking for 14 people (25% of staff) to take a voluntary layoff and if they don’t have the volunteers then they will start eliminating people.
I work in the mortgage industry and as many people know the mortgage industry has been in the toilet for many months and the powers that be don’t see an end in sight any time soon. The company needs to act accordingly by adjusting staff to match the volume of loans we are producing.
I had a discussion with my boss about the layoffs and how it was going to affect our department (which only has 3 people). At least one person from our department has to leave. Now it doesn’t take a rocket scientist (thank god…because I am not a rocket scientist) to figure out that the “chosen one” will be me. Both of the other people in my department have been here for many years and have cross trained in many other departments where as I haven’t. This is one piece of the criteria they are using to sift through people.
By no means do I want to volunteer for a layoff however they have given everyone until Friday to decide and if you choose the layoff then you will get an additional 5 weeks of severance pay. If you don’t volunteer and you get laid off anyway then you will lose the additional severance pay. I would be stupid not to volunteer since the odds are stacked completely against me and I don’t want to lose the additional severance. I am in the process of gathering information to update my resume and am going to wait until Friday to give them an answer.
It’s not looking so good on the job front for me but I have to try and keep a positive attitude. Maybe I will find a job that I like better or that pays better. Maybe I will get some time off in the interim…that would be nice.
Just keep waiting, waiting, waiting. Then start hunting, hunting, hunting.