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The times are havoc-ing everyone....in the past several months I have watched a family member's construction business tank and now it seems he and his family might lose everything including their marriage; a 30-something nephew with new home payments get laid off his highly skilled computer job; high school friends with three decades of experience get Friday afternoon pink slips; two friend's spouses with more than three decades get the word they are next. One child's significant other had unexpected layoffs in his megacompany sales department and we know the toppling will continue.
It's painful to think most everyone is on the line and for those who get the proverbial axe, everything you have worked for, can be lost or taken from you with speed. I have read about retirees going back to work; had quite a few friends lose a lion's share of their retirement portfolio in the stock market tanking, but the tanking is now closer and closer to home. If we lived in IL or MI, or other states involved in the car industry, I know reality would be incredibly harsher.
Having the Federal government for an employer at this point in our country's history is the most stable of all sectors. The Feds have been given a mission to help the millions of Americans who need tools or resources, to make the corrective U-turns.
I know this prattling sounds a little lame or hollow because we are not directly, albeit closely, suffering from the recession. The community we live in is thriving; the community I work in, is one of 27 communities greater than 250,000 not showing any recession signs.
The gods saw fit to bestow on me a Federal job last year after being gone from the Feds for 10. And we have have had our own suffering with spouse's four year old on the job injury-not only is his back broken and he lives in unforgiving chronic pain for the rest of his lifetime, we have had the obscene "pleasure" of four years of state L&I corruptness and litigation.
I am feeling for these people we love and praying for everyone too, for a break, a sign, that next opportunities are not only coming, but nearly in hand. Hang in and stay strong everyone! We will do what we can to help.