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Adventures in the Obama Economy – Uninstallation Day
(Previous installment is here.)
It’s been quite the whirlwind since I first started writing about my unemployment journey. Last week, I thought that I would have nothing but time on my hands and be able to chronicle everything that happened to me in minute detail. My experience has been just the opposite – I’m busier than I’ve been in the past few months, and much busier than I’ve been in the past five-odd years.
I’ll say this for my soon-to-be former company (which is, I guess, my former company, as of midnight): They do not mess around. You get notified on a Monday, you have two weeks to get your affairs in order, and the next Friday, you’re out the door. I guess it’s the employment equivalent of ripping off a Band-Aid. In my case, I got ripped off in several ways — because of the Independence Day holiday, which falls on a Saturday this year, and thus will be observed tomorrow, I don’t even get to work or claim my last Friday. Seeing my final paycheck (for a whopping two days of work) on the payroll site was a bit of a downer.
I’ve been the good corporate trooper about the situation thus far, keeping up a brave face to my coworkers and friends, but little pockets of suckage are draining my pool of optimism. In researching the benefits cutoff, I’m basically now in a window of two-to-three weeks where I have no insurance, and no option even to continue my old coverage. Ordinarily, this wouldn’t be a problem, because after that window, I can get COBRA retroactive to my termination date. But the pharmaceutical benefits also go away tonight, and my 14-year-old daughter kind of neglected to tell me that one of her prescriptions was running out. She needs a refill authorization from her doctor, and getting that today became impossible because she neglected to text her mother this morning when she first noticed she was running low. So she’s just going to have to go without for a couple of weeks, because the prescription’s retail price is unapproachable, and would have been even when I was still employed. (For those who are concerned, hers is not a life threatening condition, but it will make her somewhat harder to live with for the next few weeks.)
I also found out last night that one of my former nemeses was subjected to the same workforce reduction that got me, but a few weeks earlier. Of course, that invites comparison between his situation (not showing up for work for weeks on end while running a side business) and mine (showing up for work pretty much every day, and some nights and weekends, with a distinct lack of side businesses). This is driving me nuts. I need to remember that “comparison invites disappointment,” that his situation wasn’t at all comparable to mine, and that, despite our greatness in this life, our graves will both be dug to the exact same specifications. [1]
The other drag is that I’ve spent some time looking at an entrepreneurial opportunity that would require some upfront investment and a lot of hard work, but that would, I think, be the best move for all of us. However, generating any spousal interest in this alternative is going to be a very tough row to hoe, if the lukewarm reception I’ve gotten from my wife continues. [2] I’m resentful that she’s not more supportive. I want to go in a direction that doesn’t give a large corporation the ability to suddenly, and without warning, pull the rug out from under my life for arbitrary reasons known only to the higher pay grades.
I have been remiss thus far in explaining why I believe my condition is due to Obama and his policies. In my case, I can directly attribute the fact that I no longer have one of my prior jobs to the growth of the federal civilian workforce. I started out five years ago as the manager of more than 40 contractors who provided temporary help to the US government, but as the civilian workforce grew, the call for augmented staff dissipated. When I left that assignment earlier this year, there were only five contractors left working for me, all of whom were on a short-term contract coming to its end. To make matters worse, many of the new federal employees were my former contractors. They simply took off their contractor badges on Friday, came back on Monday with a government badge, and sat at the same desks, doing the same jobs. This transaction was adjudicated by those who are in a position to make such decisions as more cost-effective. But an objective analysis of the numbers reveals that this “cost savings” is in fact a fallacy – as these formerly-temporary contractors are now permanent civilian workers until such time they choose to leave, or die, both of which are statistically more likely than their being downsized or terminated for cause.
I don’t blame my former employees for taking that route. It was, in many cases, their only option to keep a job. But the smug justification that “the taxpayers will save money in the long run” is simply risible. There is a ready alternative explanation: Government civilian employees are perceived to be a natural Democrat constituency, and new hires are immediate targets for recruitment into the government employees union. These facts, coupled with a palpable hostility toward for-profit enterprises, explain the explosive growth of the federal civilian workforce under the Obama administration.
[1] I’m not suicidal, nor entertaining such thoughts, so please do not be troubled. The line about the graves just applied too well for me to pass it up. 8^)
[2] To be sure I was being fair to my wife, I let her read this before posting it. Her fear is not being able to afford insurance during the lean times in a startup. I reassured her that the President was on the case and would make sure we were never without coverage. I don’t think she’s buying it.
Published in General
You should look into the pharmaceutical manufacturers assistance program. My father gets a nominally $1200/mo prescription for free from Pfizer because his insurance company won’t cover it.
That being said, this is a majorly stupid issue caused bu the interaction between the pharmaceutical industry and the insurance industry. Health insurance should not be paying for pharmaceutical’s for chronic conditions. If a person is expected to be taking a drug in perpetuity – it is a known cost and it makes no sense for an insurance company to be paying for it. The only reason that the drug is unaffordable without insurance is that insurance companies pay for it.
I know it is not your fault – you didn’t construct the system – and I am sure your daughter is helped by the drug. It’s just stupid all around.
Rapporteur. Entrepreneurship and risk are one and the same. As long as you are an employee you are subject to other people’s whims. I don’t know you or your circumstances but insurance is not a reason not to be a entrepreneur but an excuse not to take a chance.
Very well said, PHCheese, and thanks. At least if I lose my shirt in an entrepreneurial venture, I only have myself to blame.
Z, thanks. We actually have a discount card from the manufacturer that has reduced the price for us in the past.
If my situation goes long-term — and I still retain just enough optimism to believe that it won’t — we’ll definitely explore the assistance program.
When your situation stabilizes, look into Express Scripts – They will auto fill your prescriptions. I am grateful they participate in Tricare (the military health system.)
While what you said of gov’t employees may be true of other departments, I don’t see it in the DoD civilians I work with.
Good luck.
My heart goes out to you, both because I’ve been unceremoniously dumped on the street (you got two weeks’ notice? Lucky dog!) and because my awesome insurance covers my wife’s medication, which retails for over $11,000 per month.
That’s not a typo, unfortunately.
So yeah. I’m terrified of things going south. Side project I hope I can launch, then sell? You’d better believe it. By the way, if you can program at all, or have friends who do, consider this: you can develop, launch, and sell a web system for such a small amount of money no VC in the world would be interested, but it’d be enough for a family of four to live off the interest from in perpetuity.
It seems wrong to say that I’m enjoying these posts, so I’ll just say this: please, keep ’em coming.
I know I keep responding with anecdotes about when I got laid off, but your experience is bringing back all kinds of memories. I can understand the temptation to compare yourself to other people who got laid off, or (even more pointless) to people who didn’t. But every case is different, and I think you have to just accept that you’ll never know the real answer.
In my case, I eventually learned that my manager had been engaging in some budgetary shenanigans. Nothing illegal, but the upshot was that he was diverting funds from one budget to another in order to pay for a position — mine — that technically didn’t exist. I was unaware of all of this, naturally. When the time came for layoffs, I guess it was a no-brainer to cut the person who wasn’t even supposed to be there in the first place.
That, along with generally poor management and unhelpful performance reviews, allowed me to fix blame on my manager for getting me laid off. It was useful emotionally for me to have someone to blame, rather than chalking it up to faceless corporate stupidity.
I also took satisfaction in the fact that on the same day my manager informed me I was being let go, he received the same news from his manager.
I do. My dad works for the Naval Department. He sees this all the time, they check out Friday with a contractor polo and badge, and come in Monday with a gov polo and badge.
Of course sometimes they do the opposite and switch back to the private sector when the pay is enough. Either way the system doesn’t inspire confidence that the dollars are well spent.
Thank you for the post. I spent over a year under/unemployed. It is not a fun situation. I echoe your sentiment as well that I don’t want to work for other people. The idea that I work and provide for my family at the whim of people who often make just plain dumb decisions drives me nuts. I’ve been thinking about how to get into my own business for some time.
Should have been more clear – I meant voting democrat.
I was one of those contractors who switched to Government service. Here is what the Gov gets with the switch – when you have a new project coming up, it is much easier to make your active duty / federal service workers pick up and get it started than it is to post a notice, solicit a bid, compete the contract, award the contract.
I switched because when AFGSC was standing up they started with a large military + contractor workforce – the contractors were always intended to be temporary.
“I want to go in a direction that doesn’t give a large corporation the ability to suddenly, and without warning, pull the rug out from under my life for arbitrary reasons known only to the higher pay grades.”
Amen. People often obsess over the risks of starting a business. The risks of working for a large coporation, especially over the long run, are far greater. The bigger the company the more office politics. This gets worse in highly regulated industries. Honest people want a rational explanation for why something is happening. They can’t believe their livelihoods are being threatened by anything arbitrary and stupid. In this economy reason doesn’t work anymore. If anything the best people get let go because they make the incompetents look bad. I’ve seen it happened far too often.
All the best.
May you seize your opportunities with both hands and never let go.
Two weeks notice isn’t the quick version. When my company has layoffs, they catch the victims first thing in the morning and walk them out of the building. They have to come back off hours to clean out their desks. I’m not talking about firing with fault here, just downsizing.
I’ve heard of at least one case where they had a middle manager give the bad news to an employee and then do the same to him the same day.
They did give decent severance packages, though.
Let me first say, my heart goes out to you. Not only are you dealing with the worry and stress of a lay-off but you are trying to keep your family from worrying, which on it’s own is an energy draining task.
My firm has been training entrepreneurs for over 20 years. Entrepreneurship is certainly not without risk, and many people have invested their life savings into a franchise or similar and failed.
Of course, you can also get another corporate gig and be laid off next week. In other words, there is no opportunity without risk.
If I can make an unsolicited suggestion; you must have passion for your next endeavor. If entrepreneurship is your plan, you want to ‘see’ yourself doing this daily. This will be your baby, and you will support it financially and never let off the pedal. Starting your own business is more than full-time, it is a commitment to yourself. Also, do you believe it will be something you will enjoy and take pride in.
Along with the risks there is the potential financial upside. Once you get the business performing, you can dictate your earnings.
Before making an investment into any business, do your due diligence. Look for any bad reviews about that business, and you must have your wife buy-in. Include your wife in the discovery process and make it a team effort.
Best of luck.
You will regret it if you go this route without spousal support. So will your kid(s).
I experienced something similar when I was a kid. The only difference is my dad wasn’t laid off, but simply decided it was something he had to do. It was probably the worst 4 years of my life, but I’d say it was worse for him.
I won’t go into details, but it was bad. Their marriage did survive, though. That’s something.
If your investment opportunity is a Quiznos, I would recommend you walk away.
Yikes. I thought we had some pricey ones, but $11K makes my family’s scripts look cheap.
I’ve read Tim Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Work Week and have a couple ideas for Web services along the lines of what he suggests (and I am a recovering programmer … 8^). I’ve always used my lack of time as my excuse for not pursuing that angle … guess that excuse is off the table now. Thanks for the encouraging suggestion.
I truly appreciate the insight from you (and others who have been in this situation), BXO, so please keep sharing as you feel comfortable. Ultimately, my logical side keeps reminding me that (1) as I mentioned above, comparison just invites disappointment; and (2) no matter who else was affected by the cutbacks, each of our situations is unique.
(Also, my nemesis apparently took a number of potshots at our leadership on his way out, and I didn’t, so I have one point in my favor … 8^)
One of many examples – I had one contractor with narcolepsy issues, and I worked extensively with him to keep his on-site sleeping episodes out of the customer’s awareness. He improved noticeably while he worked for me, until he got hired by the government. After that, he slept at work 1-2 hours a day, and although it was right out in the open, nobody did anything about it – no offers to help, no threat of discipline, nothing.
I may have painted with too broad a brush about the voting habits of .gov folks. I certainly didn’t mean to include any Ricochetti in that characterization… 8^)
The downside to the scenario that you pointed out is that projects are, by definition, temporary undertakings. (Gotta show off my Project Management Professional cred whenever I can … 8^) Once the project has finished, if you had to hire civilian resources with a certain skill set, you are stuck with placing them elsewhere. OTOH, if you bring in contractors, you can “surge” when the needs of the project demand it, then allow those contractors to move on once the heavy resource utilization is done, giving the project / program manager a flexibility s/he doesn’t have with only in-house talent.
Yep – absolutely so. As another contributor mentioned above, I will have to get used to never knowing exactly what happened, or how I could have kept it from happening.
Best quote I have heard about big organizations: “As the organization grows, trust gets replaced by process.” My former company had a whole lot of the latter, and almost none of the former.
True — and I grasp the truth of this statement a whole lot more now than I did three weeks ago.
These are great tips, and I will incorporate them into my research I’m planning in the next few months, while also applying for positions where I think there might be a good fit.
Very good. When I was laid off, the managers commented how pleased they were to talk to me because of how well I was taking it. That’s how it should be. Even if your direct boss has chosen you, it usually isn’t because he wants fewer people and a smaller empire. It’s because word came down from on high. “You will cut X number of people.” There is no reason to take it out on the messengers.
Another guy from the group called me, and he had also been let go. He was taking it very hard, but I managed to talk him through. By the end of the phone call, he was looking forward to the new horizons and opportunities before him. That is also how it should be. We achieve nothing through either beating others down or wallowing with them in their miseries. If your nemesis calls you (probably not likely), be nice and be supportive. Maybe not so supportive as to lend him money, but at least tell him to charge into the wide open field of opportunities that is before him. That field of opportunities is also before you.
That was the way of my old company, until they realized the deleterious effect on the survivors’ morale this practice was causing. Also, being a remote worker, this whole transaction has been conducted via phone and email – I won’t see any of the players in person until I stop by their site next week (and I’m only doing that because it is convenient to vacation plans I’d already made).
Thanks for the wise counsel, Al. I have
a lot oftime to earn her buy-in.[Edit: After reading that comment, I realized that I do have time, just not a lot of it, and that fact needs to drive a sense of urgency on my part.]
#DreamKiller … 8^)
(Seriously, thanks for the advice, but food service is one avenue I’ve never considered. We had a Quiznos a few miles from me that went under, so that’s a franchise about which I definitely would be wary.)
I reassured my boss during the initial phone call, when he had explained all the alternatives he’d pursued prior to that day, that I trusted he’d done his best and that I realized this was a business decision, not a personal attack. As a former people manager, I’ve been on the other side of this transaction, so I knew the weeks leading up to the phone call were absolutely no fun for him.
Actually, we have already signed up for that program, it will reduce our cost by about $60, so we will only have to pay several hundred per month, instead of several hundred plus $60.
Rapporteur is already grabbing his seat belt and crash helmet, as he knows my big rant about the government making medical decision for people.. I will spare y’all the rant as I am tired. But because the medication is considered a controlled substance I have to drive all the way across town to pick up the prescription printed on special paper which is signed by the physician and not stamped, then drive back across town and drop it off at the pharmacy.instead of having it called in to the pharmacy. There was not enough time to do so.
Ultimately, the blame rests upon the 14 year old for not following through and doing what she is responsible for doing. So now she is learning the consequences for shirking her personal responsibility.
I like to rant, especially about the asinine drug policies that don’t affect the people those laws are aimed it. The rest of us are just collateral damage.
Oh, hi honey, I joined Ricochet!!
My bad here – I gave her a promo code. 8^)