Getting Prepared for Being Unemployed

In a way we were lucky- a lot of employees never know in advance that their shop is going to close. We also had a fantastic human resource woman who got all the things rolling to ensure we would all get the help we would need. She set up meetings with the insurance company for the option of the Cobra plan(too expensive) and the people at the unemployment office.

Of course we were still working steady and getting in plenty of overtime. My husband decided to get the surgery done on his legs while he still had insurance so he had his first leg done just before Thanksgiving. He needed stints put in and some blockages opened up. He had three weeks vacation time and used that up during the healing process. I took the day of his surgery off but continued to work while he was laid up. My daughter was living with us at the time and she took care of him while I was gone.

He made it back to work just before Christmas but still needed to get the other leg done. We scheduled that for February. I decided to work the night before his surgery as I had no time left to take off. I got out of work at three a.m. and stayed up to make sure he was at the hospital by 5 a.m. The surgery was over by one in the afternoon and I decided to go to work. I went home changed my clothes and was at the job ten minutes early. My supervisor sent me home at midnight when she realized I was sleeping standing up!

We were informed that the layoffs would be in groups not all at once. While my husband was still on medical leave the first group was laid off. It consisted of anyone that had restrictions on their work or were on medical leave- so my husband was one of them. It just wasn't the same going to work without him. He would call my cell phone at break and at lunch to see how things were going. I was to the point where I wanted to get laid off too.

When the next round came I still didn't make the list. By now I was working on lines I never had done before and doing jobs that were just ridiculous- I spent 10 hours washing out plastic parts bins and getting them ready to ship to Mexico. I so wanted to quit but we needed the income so I stuck it out. I started begging for a lay off but they kept me on the payroll.