"Simply A Business Decision" 1.0

I'm here to vent. I vent about plenty of other stuff: politics, government, ergonomics - well, that's pretty much it.

I got laid off yesterday. I didn't know if I was fired or laid off, until I got a call from my former employer about an hour after I was let go. She wasn't there when her husband went ahead and let me go, because she was getting her hair done, and he had an appointment to go to. She told me that she wanted to be there, bless her heart.

She also told me that this was "simply a business decision." She and her husband, one of the salespeople, had been looking at the business over the last few weeks, and that this decision just makes sense. She told me that I am a good employee and that I do great work. And she wished me luck. So probably fortunate for me, my "separation from employment" status really was "laid off." (I love government speak. It's doubleplus ungood).


I had a feeling something like this was coming, because my former employer made a point a couple weeks ago of telling me that the two of them had been crunching some numbers. But when the layoff talk comes it's always a punch in the gut. And it was a nice touch when her husband told me he didn't want me to touch the computer when I was collecting my things from my office.

It seems quite easy to blame my most recent layoff on the reelection of President Obama. Hell, he got reelected 3 DAYS BEFORE they let me go. I could also blame the economy. I can just see and hear the words coming out of my former employer's husband's mouth after Romney conceded: "Well, Obama just got reelected. Time for plan B. We've gotta trim the fat. I know you want to do our own stuff, but we can send it out; it's cheaper. If they don't do it the way we want it, then we can just send it back; get 'em to fix it."

It is ironic, because my employer was not an Obama supporter. On the one hand, she knows better than an Obama supporter that things are going to get rough for small businesses, but on the other hand she knows that things are going to get rough for employees (They might get benefits cut if they have any. Hidden inflation might make their pay worth less. They might be laid off. D'oh!). 

To hell with all that, because I can wallow in an it's them not me game 'til I'm covered in shit. In the end,  I will never know what really triggered my layoff.

First steps for the newly separated-from-employment subject: (1) I made my unemployment claim. Wait! Is that a claim, or do I apply for it - is it really insurance? (2) What next? (3) What is next.

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