Monday, February 12, 2007

I left my last post up...

for some extra days hoping desperately that someone else might go badger the Forest Service a bit. Hopefully they did!

I remember reading somewhere in the last few years that when the "old growth" was being cut in the Northwest last time that it was all being shipped out of the country; we couldn't even afford to buy the timber ourselves! That may have been back when Julia Butterfly Hill was sitting in "Luna" to save her from the axe.

(Sometimes things that happened last week seem a very long time ago; other times things that happened 40 years ago seem like yesterday!)

Found out when I got up today and checked my e-mail that for the first time in 5 years, I'm getting laid off due to lack of car sales. Only a week at this point, but it's a financial reverse I really didn't need right now!

Meanwhile "the Shrub" is out there touting how well the economy is doing under his watch. Housing sales have tanked, all the other car manufacturers have been fighting this (to the point Toyota is offering 0% and rebates on the Prius). Somehow our sales had stayed strong enough I hoped we might avoid the same fate.

The first 15 years I worked I was laid off almost as much as I worked, barely keeping my seniority at times. There are a lot of those I work with who hired in as little as just two weeks after me who did "break time" and now have 1982 or 1983 "seniority dates", meaning they lost 4 or 5 years towards whatever retirement we'll end up with when the time comes. This was always a bad time of year as people are trying to pay off their Christmas debt and waiting for their IRS checks, but these last year we had been very lucky. A lot of my financial woes come from living on plastic back then...

To more pleasant subjects...we're finally above freezing for the 2nd time in a month! Of course, it's raining and at sundown the temperature is going to start dropping until it hits 21 sometime in the middle of the night with the rain freezing then turning into snow. 2-4 inches tonight, continuing tomorrow with a high of 22!

"Lovely weather we're having..."

(from an old Louis Armstrong song)

At least my friends up north get enough you can really do something besides just shovel!

:o)

alan

4 comments:

TK said...

Shit, Alan, I'm really sorry to hear it. That's such a stressor--and worse in your industry, which is so cyclical.

Cold here, too--and tomorrow we're expecting our first snow of the season (though I'm sure it'll fade away to nothing...) Kids are praying for a snow day. It's so simple, at 7.

xo inger

b o o said...

i got laid off 3 times. i've been working for 14 years. oh well.

thinking of u & Dottie :) hugggings xoxo

Anne said...

"luna" was just up the road a bit from here, in humboldt county.

Kranki said...

Oh gee! I hope it is a very short layoff. Just enough that you can eat bonbons and watch some TV covered in the dog and cat.