UNEMPLOYED? How You Can Live on Less

"We're Letting You Go"

THE management called him Fantastic Fred.  His innovations had  saved the company  a fortune during the six years he was employed there. So when he was summoned to an executive's office, Fred expected a raise or a promotion. Instead, the executive  abruptly announced, "We're letting you go."

Fred could not believe his ears.  "I was making good money and enjoying my work, but in one moment everything came tumbling down," he says. Later, when Fred told his wife, Adele, about what happened, she was equally stunned.   "I felt as if my blood were draining out of me," she recalls.   "I thought, 'what are we going to do now?' "

What happened to Fred has happened to millions of others.  Yet, numbers alone do not reveal the crushing emotional impact of unemployment.  Consider Raul, an  immigrant from Peru who was laid off after 18 years of employment at a large hotel in New York City. Raul searched for work, but in vain.  "For nearly 30 years, I had provided for my family," he says.  "Now I feel like a failure as a man." 

Next time: UNEMPLOYED? How You Can Live on Less - Conclusion of  " We're Letting You Go"

From the Awake! magazine