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A new Dad, days later, laid off from work.

Autokon

Autokon

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 21, 2008
403
147
CA
I'll keep this short Macrumor Forums.... May 24th, my Wife and I had our first child, a healthy beautiful baby girl. All was amazing. Skip to May 28th (mere days later...), I was laid off. I was a (Windows/VMware) System Administrator for IBM for about 4 years. Right smack dab in my paternity leave, myself and many others are given lay-off notices. Aside from also going the usual job hunting routes, I decided to come here as well, to the Macrumor community. A giant community full of lurking insiders and hidden opportunities.

P.S. The legality of laying off a person on paternity leave has already been investigated. No dice!
 
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I suppose a joke about flatlining would be inappropriate?

Good luck.
 
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Nathan - LOL. Indeed, flatlined. Hehe

And thx... Will manage! I'm sure of it. Just wanting to use all resources as I know this community rocks as well.
 
flatline82 said:
Nathan - LOL. Indeed, flatlined. Hehe

And thx... Will manage! I'm sure of it. Just wanting to use all resources as I know this community rocks as well.
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Have you considered the 'human interest story' perspective? Maybe contact local tv stations, do a CNN iReport type deal, an OPED in the local paper on some issue that you could relate to your current predicament?

You could generate interest that way/ get your name out there if you don't mind a little attention.
 
I didn't realize that it was legal in this country to fire someone in the middle of a paternity or maternity leave....

That's pretty F$%$# up in my opinion.
 
Given the way it showed up in the main page, I thought it this thread was about something else entirely:

Picture%2028.jpg


Being serious: That sucks. I also thought they had laws to prevent stuff like that from happening. :(
 
NT1440 said:
I didn't realize that it was legal in this country to fire someone in the middle of a paternity or maternity leave....
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Others got the axe too. Probably a while in the planning. He just got caught-up in it all. :(

Hopefully they came up with some salary continuance, to help-out during the job search?
 
Sorry to hear - I was laid of from big blue way back in 2002 and took 3 years to find a job at 1/2 that pay (and there was no "unemployment extensions" back then). Was laid of from that job just a couple of years ago.

It's rough, especially with all the off-shoring and competing with temporary foreign workers.

Hope you find something - maybe look into Consulting? Everyone I know who stayed in I.T. had to go that route....
 
Shouldn't be hard to find work if your willing to move to another state. Hewlett Packard has a huge facility that they just built here where I live and I know they are still hiring for various jobs. Cost of living is dirt cheap too.
 
Sorry to hear that. Isn't Apple hiring for iCloud?

NT1440 said:
I didn't realize that it was legal in this country to fire someone in the middle of a paternity or maternity leave....

That's pretty F$%$# up in my opinion.
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Probably a whole group, not just him.
 
Thx all for your comments, didn't expect this many to begin with haha.

Anyway...yeah, its screwed up, but what can you do? And while it wasn't expected at that moment, it was eventually going to happen (Rumor mill said Winter). Getting a call while on paternity leave is what really made the entire thing rather sour.

I do appreciate all the feedback. I've been applying ALL over the place. Relocating at the moment isnt possible, but we havent ruled it out for the long term future.

I havent ruled out consulting, but I'd still need a firm that would hire me to do just that unless I went and did my own business which is rather scary.

I'll find something, I'm optimistic :cool:

Consultant said:
Sorry to hear that. Isn't Apple hiring for iCloud?



Probably a whole group, not just him.
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I believe they are...but applying for a job at Apple is incredibly difficult unless you know someone. I applied to roughly 5-10 jobs at Apple last week.

And yes, it was a group of us. They are doing it in waves.
 
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NT1440 said:
I didn't realize that it was legal in this country to fire someone in the middle of a paternity or maternity leave....

That's pretty F$%$# up in my opinion.
Click to expand...

Considering it is IBM and some other little things I know I would not be surpised in the least if he was put on the chopping block because his wife was pregnant. This is to avoid paying those early child care health cost and the fact that there is a greatly increased chance that he will take time off so they have to pay those benfits and work around it.
I know of a law suit that was in the work for one round of lay off they did age discrimination.

Consultant said:
Sorry to hear that. Isn't Apple hiring for iCloud?



Probably a whole group, not just him.
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If it was anyone else I might say that. But its IBM and it is not the first time they pulled **** off like that.
 
-aggie- said:
If you have a degree, you should consider the IT dept in the federal government.
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Indeed, I have a B.S. & an A.S. in respective IT fields. Perhaps I'll check into it...though anything fed takes MONTHS to even get started. But heck, I'm not doing anything now :D
 
OP, you sound like you have a good attitude about the whole thing. I lost a job recently, too, but I was lucky to find another one relatively quickly. Let us know how things work out. Fingers crossed for you. :)
 
Consultant said:
Probably a whole group, not just him.
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It seems people in this thread have gotten the wrong idea. I understand he was part of a group being laid off. I was under the impression, however, that maternity/paternity leave was time off without the worry of losing your job so you can care for your newborn.

Then I remembered this is America, where corporations are king and workers are dispensable.
 
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