DH is going to be out of a job tomorrow

[JanH]

That's it, really.

WTF are we going to do.

But OTOH it's only money, glance down and see eg misdee's thread about Peter and think hm.

Sorry. Self-pitying tonight, will be ok tomorrow.

Oh Jan - you can't blame the choices someone made under one set of circumstances for what happens in another!

I know you must feel upset right now - but don't let this awful thing cause any more damage that it absolutely has to!

He will probably feel bad too right now - but we aren't born with futurevision and rightly so! The decisions we make must be for hte right foreseable reasons and not second guess all that might come in the future!

No, I'm not really, soapbox. Just having a bad night. I will go and be nice in a minute.

Well I suppose you are entitled to have a bad night - afterall it probably won't figure in you top ten nights of your life, will it?

I hope you get some sleep tonight and that your DH can face tomorrow with as much strength as he can muster!

I hope tomorrow is a better day for you, mdear

Thank you

oh sh*t Janh, that's really crap. So sorry.

sorry this has happened janh xxxxxxxxx

I'm really sorry to hear this JanH. I can still remember coming home from college in my 3rd year and being told my dad had been made redundant.He would have been about 50 at the time and had worked for them since I was a baby. He did find another job fairly quickly (within months) and stayed with them until he retired.

Is there any chance of him finding out which areas of IT are growing and doing a course to bring him up to speed in that particular area? I thought there were government grants for doing that sort of thing?

Janh
really sorry to hear this - I hate bad times, they always seem to be lurking just around the corner and jump out when you least expect them.

Whereabouts are you? What's the job market in general like there?

Oh Jan. So sorry to hear this.

All I can say is having met your dh he seems a very cluey guy and I'm sure he will make good. People with IT skills are always needed.

When my dh was made redundant there was something about it I enjoyed, in a strange way. When we were getting our heads together and bandying ideas, working out what we were going to do next - it was very soothing to plot and scheme together. I hope this situation can be turned into an opportunity for you Jan.

hey, you are allowed to be self pitying, it is a terrible shock, just before christmas and all that We ahve had two lots of crap like this recently so i know how you feel it is frightening and way too stressful.

But look at the good points:

He will redundancy money (so that will last you a few months)

He will get a very good reference

His line of work is always in demand. You live near a large city and there are jobs

You have a job in which you can increase your hours to full time and he could do something as a fill in

You both had problems with his job anyway, long hours, alot pressure, no thanks

He is 53 he is not an old codger fgs! My uncle lost his job last year (he is very high up the corporate ladder) and he found a job before he had worked his redundancy period. he is 60!

and my final note is. You will have to give up the wine and you will feel much better for it too.

HTH, a big (hug) from me xx

sorry to hear this jan -- fingers crossed for a new job very soon

Thanks for all the cheering messages, it's so lovely to have MN at times like this!

batters, 3 or 4 times, blimey - do you still get that sick feeling just the same each time?

He is on his way home now - insurance on the car runs out at midnight, someone will come and collect it. We'll have to buy one pretty much straight away because I need mine to get to work and he will be looking at jobs all over the place - have no savings though, it'll have to be a credit card (better get a new 0% one before they find out he's lost his job!)

Redundancy will only be equivalent to 1 month's salary but it will tide us over while he looks, and the software house say they will use him when they can.

fio, you are right, it will actually be great for him not to be at their beck and call all the time. And I don't think for a minute that the administrators have any idea how many hours he puts in at home so I'm hoping there will be lots of instances of "can you get this report for us?" "er - no - he used to do all that but you got rid"! (He says not though, they're just going to cut costs as much as poss and try to sell it.)

Apparently they took everybody into one big room and read out a list of names who were taken to another room - everybody left was for the chop (lots of them) - not a nice way to do it, thank god he knew it was coming, a lot of them cried

I know a little bit about iT recruitment, so 1st thing to do is get Cv onto the websites.

CWjobs
Monster.com
HOTonline.co.uk
computer people

..and then contact some of the big agencies such as Lorien, Elan, Computer people.

tbh, Nigel registered with alot of online agencies and found them quite infuruating. he bought a book of amazon.co.uk called "what colour is your parachute?" it is a god send, american though but the section on job hunting is fabulous

he had another book which was fab too about interview ttechniques, but i have forgot what that is called. i will ask him tonight for you.

Chin up though, sometimes redundancy is this best thing that ever happens to people. My husband was made redundant twice last year, although we were pleased about the one time as you know. But tbh it has done him good. He is much more ambitious than he used to be and it really has taught us not to take things for granted, iykwim. Not that i think you do, but it can be life changing in a way

How is your job going?

Really sorry to hear about your DH's job. I've been made redundant 4 times and have always tried to look at it as a chance to reassess and move on to something better and generally it has worked out like that. Fingers crossed that your DH gets something even better very soon.

JanH, I am so sorry to read this
Are there any colleges/big schools near you - IME of these things they are very, very keen and grateful to get experienced IT people and the pay can be better than one might think.
This has just happened to someone else we know and love. It's the thousand cuts of swiping back the car and the mobile, the sheer nastiness of the sudden blow...How I wish I was not reading this thread

Oh hell, Jan.

1 month's pay as redundancy can't be right though - surely he should get pay in lieu of notice too?

Awful as it is it's much better than last time when he was finagled out for alleged (non-existent) "gross misconduct" - which meant no benefits because it appeared to be self-inflicted. (They couldn't make him redundant then because they wanted to give his job to someone else, but also seemed to quite enjoy doing it. That was really nasty. He ended up with about 4 months' pay in a pre-tribunal settlement.)

The redundancy money will be much better than we'd hoped, partly because of his age (it's an ill wind!) - for 8 years service he gets 12 weeks at the top rate, and yes, SP, there will be pay in lieu of notice, we didn't know that - so we're not panicking quite so much about money.

Marina, he is sort of considering getting into teaching - apparently it's possible to start teaching a subject and do a PGCE alongside? He would certainly be happy to escape from retail! We will definitely look into it.

hausfrau, I hadn't realised that was your situation, if someone suggested we had to move house in this country - let alone abroad - I think I would go into a terminal decline!

fio, my job is OK, thanks for asking (how is yours? ) but I am applying for another - similar but much nicer company and better pay.

good luck with the other mine is fine, i love it actually except I have to go toa 2 hour meeting tonight and my husband is convinced I am going out on the piss

you can do a pcge alongside teaching, plus colleges are screaming out for 'professional' people to lecture. My h got offered a job at a college before we moved, but he decided not to take it - not sure why??!

teaching and working here

Thank you, iota!