Most lay-off take place in an accelerated timeline - you're gone on payday. You're gone tomorrow. You arrive at work and the gates are already locked. Mine is excruciatingly slow - ten months.
- Retire - I have 13 years in the system. I'm setting up a meeting to find out what this entails.
- Transfer to another position within my organization. This would be out of my career area and perhaps even at a lower pay, but I would be able to continue my retirement and health benefits, and HR has pledged to give laid-off workers some preferential treatment.
- Job hunt - look for another job in my career area. Re-enter the job market as a woman over 50.
- Complete the ten months so I get all the payroll and retirement and benefits coming to me, and go on unemployment
- Take some classes, get some new skills
- Work for myself - freelance, take on short-term projects, start my own consulting business in my career area.
- Take a low-pressure, low-responsiblity, low-stress job - not necessarily in my career area. Tend bar. Receptionist. Part-time office work. Work for another few years and then take my retirement.
- Transform myself - do something completely new. Many of you have suggested I write. Does anyone know how you get paid to do that?
For those of you who've gone through this yourself - what has your experience been? What did you learn from it? Do you think it's better to have more time? Do you take the first job you're offered, or wait?
I appreciate your suggestions - you can give them in comments or email me at my profile.
6 comments:
That's a lot better than "give us your electric key, and someone from h.r. will watch to make sure you only remove personal belongings from your desk", Aunt Snow.
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Good luck with the search, no matter what you end up searching for.
I'd stick w/ your organization if you can, since you're vested in the retirement system & would still get health ins. Certainly devote most of any job-seeking effort over the next few months to internal searches. If that doesn't pan out then start looking outside.
Which may be grim. Does part-time office work exist any more? I suspect in the current climate bar-tending/receptionist type jobs are going to immediate family members, in-laws & the like.
And it may be possible to find a better (at least equivalent) gig in your field w/ 10 months to look, although one does read horrific Internet tales of yrs. spent looking.
Or you can take a leaf from my book & be disabled, so you can get your Social Security money before Paul Ryan does.
I think you should figure out how they will still need you after the operation shuts down, and then go tell the person in charge (not your supervisor) that they may have not realized that they actually will still need you.
I did something like that in the 80's in NYC after the business I worked at was sold. It worked, and I actually had a very unique, interesting job for two or three years. And it was my first "management" experience, such as it was.
Here is the more philosophical approach. You have been give the gift of time - why don't you let all your options sink in, let them twirl around in the back of your brain and see which ones sits best with you. 10 months will go faster than you think but it should be time enough not to feel pressured to do something sensible because you have no choice. And it really does depend a lot on how happy you are with the organization you work for.
What wonderful and wise friends I have!!
thank you!
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