BleepingComputer.com: What will you say to someone who loses a job this year?

What comfort can you give? What solutions can you offer? If you have lost your job, what would help you now?

A little known fact that could help anybody that worked in more one state. If you had employment in two different states you can file an interstate claim in any state. Shop around and find one that pays the best. Massachusetts pays a little over $600 per week and you file online after you apply in person. Basically you don't receive any more money than filing at home. Just bigger checks. As an example, if you were going to get 100 checks for $100, at home, you would get 50 checks for $200.

Most people don't work in more than one state and are unaware of this. It's mostly a construction worker thing.

What would help me now? Aside from a job... umm... well... winning the lottery would take care of one or two things!

Thanks for the comments, Sniffels and Amazing Andrew. I was getting worried there might not be any at all. Amazing Andrew, I have concentrated hard on your winning the lottery. I hope this will help.

When someone tells me they've lost their job, I usually ask them how that went. I ask them if they have the means in place to make it through the next 6 months. What special worries they have? If they plan to look for a new job immediately or if they have the possibility to take off some time and do something they want to do? I usually ask if there's anything I can do for them. Sometimes there is something simple like an invitation to dinner, so the person can get out of lonely and back into thinking mode. In most cases, losing a job is not contagious, so it's not necessary to run away.

When someone loses a job, for many people they lose a part of the structure of their lives and that can leave them feeling wobbly. Helping someone through the wobbly disoriented period can go a long ways towards helping them find a way to get going again.

Zllio, you are an exceptionally kind and thoughtful person. Many people find their self-worth in work, and some identify very strongly with the position that they held, making it a base for their identity.

Sometimes it isn't being fired that is painful, even with the fears associated with lack of money, financial security, health insurance, etc., but the process with which a person was fired or forced to resign. It is possible to let people go without being mean about it, but unfortunately, some supervisors and human resource folks are real jerks who enjoy making people miserable. That goes far beyond adding insult to injury; it can be so traumatizing that it makes it very difficult for a person to hunt for work.

So kudos to those who treat the unfortunates who lose their jobs with dignity, respect, and cionsideration.

Hi fuzzywuzzy6,

I agree that the process itself is often painfully destructive. I consider it a characteristic of our current society, not necessarily as the result of meanness so much as the result of ignorance. How to end a relationship is not something most people have much training at, and that both parties stand to gain from a positive ending, is an idea we haven't quite assimilated yet.

To be honest, I don't personally know what it feels like to lose a job, career-level wise. I find that being there for that person and being their friend still and a support beam helps when my friend went through that last summer. Continually supplying them with things that make them happy (nothing huge, maybe a lunch or dinner here and there or rent and movie and watch it at home) and once their happy, keeping them motivated. I also find that keeping your paws off making them find a new job helps since maybe that's not their goal anymore. They might want to go do something else that's not so unstable.

Really depends on the individuals circumstances wether or not I have sympathy or comfort to offer.
Those deep in debt and are decent hard working people who just plain got screwed, I feel sorry for and will do what I can to help them through, including free room and board. (provided I know them of course). They are in a very tough spot as even selling off assets is difficult. Nobody's buying anything.
Those who were out to milk the system or really don't need to work anyway, I have zero sympathy for.
My own wife is the latter and I have no sympathy for her. She likes it too much.

It would depend on the circumstances.....I'd give my last nickle to somebody lookin for a hand up.......lookin for a hand out....i believe i'd be keepin my nickle.....
somebody that's out there sweatin blood to keep body and soul together has my sympathy and my respect!
If all your wantin is to cry the blues, and not willin to do what it takes to take care of business, has my sympathy..because there just pathetic...and have usually gotten themselves into the mess that they are in....and in this case given them my last nickle ain't gonna help them one lil bit..it's only gonna foster the same behavior....

I think I should bring this back to the original title of this topic which is "What will you say to someone who loses their job this year?"

There are events in people's lives which are sufficiently difficult or even traumatic, that it's hard to know what to say. Whether the person shared this information with you themselves or whether you came by it in another way, it is now a piece of information you share, which has disturbed the balance of your relationship through the aquisition of misfortune. The same question could be changed to "What will you say to someone who tells you they've just been diagnosed with a terminal illness?" or "What will you say to someone whose marriage is breaking up?" or What do you say ... when some other misfortune is occuring which is likely to have major consequences in some way that will impact on your perception of them.

As some of the comments in this thread indicate, prejudices are deeply engrained, and it can be easy enough to grasp some argument supporting one prejudice or another, in order not to feel the impact of the communication in that moment.

I've been making a collection of answers, which I originally felt were all thoughtless, but I later realized that some of them, in some cases, could be ice-breakers to get beyond awkward. Others are simply destructive in their negation of concern.

Lost your job did you? I always knew you would. You drink too much coffee, not enough coffee, the wrong kind of coffee...
You should have known the banking industry, (auto industry, steel industry) was failing. Anyone could see that coming.
It's the partner (lifestyle, clothing) you chose. That could only lead to trouble.
Pray about it. I'm sure God will help you.
You don't need a job anyway. What do you care?

zllio. i'm goin to answer your question like this.....
I have a friend that was in the middle of endin a bad marriage, she had been married to her husband for 26 years,
durin endin her marriage she kept takin her husband back time and again....she came to me broken and in tears, tellin me that our mutual friends and some of her family where callin her a "Fool" for takin him back....
my answer to her was simply this..."No darlin you're not a fool, you're just waitin for the strength to let go"....

To someone who has worked hard their whole life only to find themselves suddenly unemployed has got to be devestatin!!...as their friend..all you ever need do is laugh with them, cry with them,find the needs in their lives and do what you can for them(on the sly, pay their rent/morgage..maybe hold a rent/morgage party...feed them....whatever the need) while their waitin for the strength to get back up on the horse again as it where.....for in doin so you make them not feel so alone in their struggle...and that goes along way toward makin them feel alot better, and findin the strength to go on.

I hope this helps

MissPlaced,

I could hardly do anything but feel honored to read your answer, you said it so beautifully.

Thank you.

Zllio, you're welcome

Honestly, I just ask that people show some concern. I work in one of the two Home Depot Design Centers. Basically it's a cross between a Home Depot and a Home Expo store with a catalog-based furniture company inside. It has only been open a since Oct. '07, but some of the people in that store transferred from other locations. Some of these people have been with the company for 10+ years. That's not exactly a lifetime, but it's long enough. Sunday evening, before the press release to come Monday morning, Home Depot announced through a conference call to every store that they will close every Expo store and a few other companies they bought out. Something like 49 locations. In the first week of liquidation, this is a small sample of what I have heard:

"You don't deliver? No wonder you are going out of business."
"Why can't you give me more of a discount? It won't matter in a month or two when they shut the doors here."
"With the economy the way it is, I think that you should be able to take more off the price."

Knowing that I am going to be jobless in about 2 months, I have had to hold back urges to strangle people. Not literally, of course, but you get the point. I have only been there for a year and 4 months, I can only imagine what the 10+ people feel like.

I can't even begin to imagine the people that walked into their jobs and got their notice that day.

Honestly, I prefer to be left alone in these situations. Most people "nice" enough to offer a shoulder, or someone to talk to are making up for bad karma elsewhere. Those who are genuine are appreciated more than they know, but I still like my solitude.

The problem with losing a job is that it is more than the loss of income, although the loss of income is the most practical aspect of the problem for most people. It also involves the loss of routine, of knowledge acquired, familiar faces, friendships, insider jokes, daily contact with people and the feeling of belonging and having a place that allows you to contribute. Some people may get back into the area they've worked in previously, others will have to retrain, take early retirement or go on unemployment and ultimately welfare. The short-term consequences may be a loss of routine, the long-term consequences can mean the loss of college for your child, the loss of a dream-vacation worked towards for many years, or the loss of some other goal you may have been working towards.

Since a lot of people are losing their jobs these days and a big effort is being made by the government to create employment possibilities, the internet will be the place people will be looking for support groups to bridge the emotional shock and sites which help get jobless people back together with the new jobs that will be in the making.

I started looking into what kinds of websites are out there and found the following site for Missouri families, which would only be for Missouri families, but it gives an indication that there may be similar websites for other states. http://missourifamilies.org/features/finan...les/jobloss.htm

The conditions in other countries are more regulated than in the U.S. (at least in Europe) and the structures are in place for shifting people from one job to another more smoothly.

Here are two sites from MSN Money. I'm not sure about the advice in the first website, because it relies on re-employment within a certain period of time. Nevertheless, it has some good information and it links to the second site below:

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Savin...GoodCredit.aspx

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Banki...tCounselor.aspx


Please post any other sites you run across along these lines.

Zllio