Some advice for the newly outsourced, downsized, and generally unemployed

DuctapeFatwa

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Thu Oct-23-03 11:01 PM
Original message

Some advice for the newly outsourced, downsized, and generally unemployed

First of all, welcome to the nouveaux pauvre (that's "new poor" to you. Your french phrase days will gently fade into happy memories, like some other things.)

The purpose of this thread is to help you understand some of the changes that accompany this new chapter in your life.

For those of you who still have savings, early withdrawn IRAs, homes or automobiles to sell, or other assets that you have not yet liquidated and spent, you may wish to print this page out and save it. Depending on how hotshit a coder you were, it may be months, for a few of you, either a couple of years, before you need it.

For those of you who have already passed through that "well honey thank goodness we have enough to keep going for a little while" to the "hm, I think we've got enough equity that if we sell the house, we can get enough to tide us over" to the "holy shit! We have a total of $700 to our name, no income coming in, and this $1200 apartment I thought we'd be in for a month or 2 is now asking for month 6 of the rent" phase, some of you will now transition to the "I guess we can go back to Peoria to stay with the folks for a while" benchmark.

Print this and save it. You are very fortunate.

Now those of you are left are the ones who have already sold and spent everything you had, you don't have folks to go stay with for a while, and you have just made a new and important discovery: Your new "survival jobs until.." are not enough to enable you to afford housing. In other words, you are now priced out of the housing market.

If you are lucky, you may find something with a roof that with one more shift you can afford, where you will learn many new things, and so will your kids.

You always knew that there were neighborhoods like this, but you never thought YOU'D be living in one, especially not with kids, who you have had to take out of the progressive alternative school and place into the one with the metal detectors and the very reasonably priced nearly new Glock swap meets in the parking lot, from which they will return every afternoon to discover their new neighborhood while both of you work your second shifts.

There is no one way to explain to them that everything you taught them about calling 911 is no longer applicable, because the only way the police will come here at all is if you yell "officer down!" into the phone, and frankly, nobody at the precinct is buying that any more because they know that no officer goes there. It's an opportunity to grow in your parenting skills.

There will be some dietary changes. As soon as your car is repossessed or stolen, you will be reliant on your feet and public transportation, and in combination with your new 5 AM to midnight 7 day schedule, you will notice some differences in your food choices. Instead of riding out to the big supermarket with the produce section, grocery shopping will now mean picking up some loaf bread and stale peanut butter at a convenience store for about twice what you paid for it at the supermarket. The plus side is that it is open 24 hours, and you can walk to it!

Hot meals will now be available at McDonald's. You will soon find that this is both more economical and practical than trying to make a hot meal out of a dusty can of peas and a small $4 pack of beef jerky from the convenience store.

Another big change will be health care. You have probably been accustomed to take the kids to the doctor, even go yourself, in the case of illness, and made a point of making sure that the whole family gets in for regular wellness checks and preventive care, like an annual physical for those of you who are over 35 or so.

While that will no longer be possible, what you can do is discover that while some illnesses and injuries are painful and uncomfortable, they eventually get better and/or heal on their own.

You can also know that you are participating in the free market system, and your education will come in handy to help you realize that neither you nor your children have any value at all on the free market, and it is in fact not in the best interest of the insurance industry or your employer to provide any usable health insurance for you, and that even if one or more of your "survival" jobs comes with a "benefit package," in most cases, it is far cheaper to pay out your burial policy than your health care claim, and simply replace you, as the amount of "training" your replacement is negligible, as is the new hire paperwork, and for every "survival job" you have, there are dozens if not hundreds of people clamoring for it if you expire.

This is an especially good economic fact to remember if you should ever be tempted to share your opinions on the conditions of your employment with management.

Coming soon - Part II: How long will your child be held for the first offense seeing you can't pay bail money?