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

Not really when he was responsible for this?

[quote]I'm talking about if you work at Ford. you meet your quota after 3 or 4 hours and just sit around playing cards until that 8 hour buzzer rings. You should know that this kind of work cant last forever.[/quote]

That was just asking for what had to happen in a Capitalistic Society. The Big Boss wears it all, just like Obama must wear it when he makes mistakes like GM's CEO did. The Buck stops at the Top.

This post has been edited by garmanma: 30 March 2009 - 09:28 AM
Reason for edit: fixed quote

The original thought behind this thread was what you will say to someone who loses his job this year. It could also be her job.

In terms of who's guilty for the state of the American economy, that could take up a whole thread of its own and I would prefer that that particular hot topic be given its own space, if I can request that. In this thread, the topic is oriented towards understanding not how the economy got into this state, but how to deal with someone's misfortune. Please keep this topic in mind and consider creating a new one if the discussion should go in the direction of who's to blame.

Thanks.
Zllio

This post has been edited by Zllio: 30 March 2009 - 07:33 AM

You are right there, all I can honestly say to them is, I think someone at the Top screwed you!

If you was working for me you would never have got Screwed.

Actually, I think you touch on an important point. Most people don't want to hear - it's all your fault! Not even the guy at the top. Most people who lose their jobs say that enough to themselves, that hearing it from someone else is redundant.

i agree, zlio, telling them that its not their fault, even if they did indeed want to hear it, will not help them.

as ive said, i just want people to be educated about their situation, and find a place that wont just start firing people when they start going down the tubes, because there are other solutions, (oh, unless you are hiding behind a grand union).

in conclusion, theres nothing really more to say. if you lost your job, get a new one.

minor layoffs, that the government and media never noticed, have been taking place for years. who stopped that? no one.

i know its a different time, but still, were these individuals any different than yourselves? no. its like now you only care because you are the one that got fired. stop it.

this is not a time to cry.

it is a time to act.

"What will you say to someone who loses a job this year?"

Can I buy you a cup of coffee?

[quote name='groovicus' date='Apr 10 2009, 09:41 PM' post='1217757']
"What will you say to someone who loses a job this year?"

can you speak english?

I think he meant what most of the older people really feel about it, Mate.

"Can I Help you out with some thing, even just a cup of Coffee?"

I think you misread my Post and Zillos' answer to it, Mate.

People want to hear Positive things, not negative things all the time.

Just offering a cup of Coffee is a positive thing, it shows that you really care about them, that is just what they need. They just lost their Job? They feel down the bottom of the Pile, then, without Support and Help, they go beserk and do silly things, simply because noone offered them a cup of Coffee and a Chat. Think about it?

This post has been edited by Abacus 7: 11 April 2009 - 02:21 AM

@ryan_w_quick
I can write English, and I can read it too. I also know how to punctuate. Everybody else figured it out what I meant, so I have to guess that the problem isn't on my end.

In my experience "Can I buy you a cup of coffee?" is an invitation to talk and therefore I understood it to be meant as a helpful gesture. I consider it to be kind and appropriate as a response to someone who's lost a job, in particular if it's someone you don't know that well, but who's confided this news to you. Even with a relative or a best friend, it's an invitation to talk and talking helps people get reoriented after a difficult experience and begin to sort out their options from their grief. Some people can switch options easily, no problems except the basics of having to relocate or adjust to a new set of colleagues, but other people need years to find a new place for themselves in society and it's a daunting process. Also, one of the worst fears people have who've switched positions from self-sufficiency to the possibly needy, is that they will not only be needy, but that all of their friends will disappear, so they will not only suffer need, but also plain old lonliness.

It is really hard to know what to say in that situation other than to say how sorry you are that they lost the job they had. I would tell the person that even though it is hard to find jobs right now, they will eventually find one and that in the meantime I am here for anything that they might need and to please not hesitate to let me know what that might be. Then I would keep an eye out for what I could possibly help provide since they probably won't ask for help and just go without unless someone just provides it on their own. I would try to be there for them when they need to talk and when they just want to bs and forget their troubles for a while.

To me, it really does not matter the how or why they lost their job, if they are no longer employed, the reason for it does not matter, the result is the same. Any one of us could find ourselves unemployed with no notice at any time. Companies are closing or cutting back and many get fired for things that have been acceptable to do until the one day the boss is in a bad mood and fires them for doing something that is technically against the rules but is something that they have always been allowed to do. These kind of things make people afraid of losing their jobs every day.

Where I work our hours have been cut back so badly that I don't know how any of us are really going to make it for long and finding something else is not the easy task it once was. Jobs are hard to find right now so we are trying to ride it out and are just hoping it gets better like it should. Many places here have hiring freezes on and the want ads have dwindled down to almost nothing and this is in a major city. The bulk of the available jobs here require a lot of experience and education in specialized fields.

HI everybody_
What most of you have described is just to simply reach out from your hearts with messages of encouragement,
help if you're able to provide it,
Stang777- I don't know why, but your post reminded me of this.....in and of it's self it's just a simple childs story..
But the message of this simple childs story is very relevant today.....we all need each other

http://www.extremelinux.info/stonesoup/stonesoup.html

we have become a society of closed locked doors, afraid to reach out to one another for fear that we'll be made ashamed and rejected, in reality that's partly true...BUT the other part is that behind some of those closed and locked doors beat very caring heart's that are ready to offer their hand in friendship if only given the chance!

In fact a lot my friends have lost their jobs and only support of their families helped them to do nort get depressed

From the point of view of someone who DID lose their job at the beginning of January (during the height of Super-Economy-Meltdown-Firesale-Panic), here were a few things I didn't want to hear/say/do.

I spent years at a company where it was gone in an instant. It felt like all your hard work was for nothing. The last thing I wanted to do was talk about it. It's like that for at least two weeks. Words of "You'll find another job" made me cringe. It came with all sorts of self-searching questions like "Yeah, but what kind of job? Will I have to go back to school? How am I going to pay rent?!" The best thing a person of support can do is, just be there. Support doesn't need to offer advice; they just need to listen, because the recently laid-off/fired/redundant/quitter will let that emotional dam break eventually.

On a brighter note, the one thing I would say is that no one is ever without a job. Because you have to make a job out of looking for a job. Get up early. Take a shower. Eat breakfast. Get dressed like you were going to work. Hit the classifieds. Search the internet. Cold call for interviews.

It works.

This post has been edited by LordRupertEverton: 04 June 2009 - 11:40 PM

Hi LordRupertEverton,

There is no more valuable advice than that which comes out of real experience. I appreciate your sharing it. One thing that is not given any consideration at all when companies are breaking up or people lose their jobs, are the social repercussions for the group of people, whether it's one person leaving a group or whether it's a whole group being disbanded. Often people have relationships which have developed over a period of many years and so losing all of them at once, is like losing a group of people in a natural disaster. All the reliable locater devices in the mind, such as the schedule and routes one has been keeping on a daily basis, the tasks and movements associated with a certain set of routines, are gone. Your suggestion of going on and developing a new set of routines is probably the most stabilizing and helpful one to counter all that jostling that occurs when everything a person's relied on for sustanance and social support is suddenly pulled out from under them. I think some of the social disorientation can be lessened by meeting with a group of some kind on a regular basis, whether it is in the form of an interest group or some kind of training/schooling or a social group that meets regularly. For most people, the social setting of work, of being part of a group that has some common goal, is important, so the loss of that should be addressed as well.

Zllio