Work status and expectations

[brichter]

I'm somewhere in between Retired - worried about making ends meet and Retired - I should be good, depends on how long this lasts.

I retired 4 years ago; investments were doing well, I own my home, and I was living off my savings which were abundant at the time, since I'm not old enough to touch the IRA yet and SS is a long way off.

Now the economy has me concerned, my stuff isn't as far gone as the stock market thanks to diversification, but pretty much everything is taking a hit now! I don't want to start pulling capital out of the investments because whatever I take now won't be there when the market does come back. Still got a decent amount in savings and I've got a couple side hustles I can do when I want that are both considered essential, so I won't be homeless, but man, this is a weird time to be alive!

I worked for a large tech company up until I retired, and I got a real look into how this works. Coworkers from other countries would save up their PTO and come back after 6-8 weeks on other continents. They'd pick up some bug and come back to work because they used all their PTO, and over the course of a couple weeks, pretty much everybody in the building would come down with it because it was foreign to our immune systems. Now the bad bug is here, and I'm thinking about all that again. We're just able to travel too far and too fast to be able to stop the spread.

 

[Eldritch]

Chose the wrong time to switch jobs. Now at the mercy of our gov shutdown before I can start at the new place, not getting paid or getting insurance.

Sucks. I got lucky and started the new company 2 months ago.

 

[mean dad]

I work for a very small company in the electrical transmission and distribution industry. We supply parts and equipment to PG&E as well as cities, municipalities, etc. The boss is a sharp dude and has built this place up nicely so I don't see it going anywhere. Doesn't matter if electricity is generated from wind, solar, coal, or splitting atoms, it travels on the equipment we provide.

I run the warehouse and do inside sales so I'm here every day like normal while everyone else is wfh status for the foreseeable future.

 

[two wheel tramp]

I work for a very small company in the electrical transmission and distribution industry. We supply parts and equipment to PG&E as well as cities, municipalities, etc. The boss is a sharp dude and has built this place up nicely so I don't see it going anywhere. Doesn't matter if electricity is generated from wind, solar, coal, or splitting atoms, it travels on the equipment we provide.

I run the warehouse and do inside sales so I'm here every day like normal while everyone else is wfh status for the foreseeable future.

Isn't being a key player a nice feeling?

 

[asdfghwy]

Work for a medium size company of ~3000ppl, consumer tech with a couple thousand people in the bay area. I'm located in Dallas. All US operations are WFH until May 1st, and my bosses boss is betting an OVER for July before we get back into the office. Hopefully we will be okay. My counterpart on my team just put her 2 weeks notice in, so I feel a bit safer.

 

[GAJ]

Retired.

Looks like we will lose half our income for at least three months as one of our four rentals is a commercial space trying to avoid chapter 11.

We will make it through, but very stressful for my wife who is 6 months into breast cancer treatment.

Prognosis is good for her but the added stress of losing half our income has her severely on edge.

Her two sisters depend far more on that income than we do as we have a greater level of savings.

We are far better off than most.

 

[mean dad]

Isn't being a key player a nice feeling?

Honestly, I feel somewhat guilty pulling a full paycheck while others aren't. I just refi'd my home loan so my monthly payments will drop by about five hundred bucks, and I have enough in the bank to cover a full year's worth of bills so I'll ride this thing out ok.
I'm concerned I'll be in the minority.

 

[Godsdarling]

I work for a small business, on one side some of what we do is for the medical field on the other side some of what we do is for cruise ships and restaurants. So really don't know which way the wind will blow.

I am grateful I have a job, thankful my husband has a good job. We are not guaranteed tomorrow but I am content in where I am at.

 

[GAJ]

Honestly, I feel somewhat guilty pulling a full paycheck while others aren't. I just refi'd my home loan so my monthly payments will drop by about five hundred bucks, and I have enough in the bank to cover a full year's worth of bills so I'll ride this thing out ok.
I'm concerned I'll be in the minority.

Please don't feel guilty.

If you want to donate to a food bank I'm sure the funds would be put to good use.

 

[mean dad]

Please don't feel guilty.

If you want to donate to a food bank I'm sure the funds would be put to good use.

Oh I've been assuaging it for years by donating. Every night I quietly thank the deities that I have a bed to lay in and a roof over it.
No matter how 'secure' my position is, I'm nervous about the future.

 

[GAJ]

Oh I've been assuaging it for years by donating. Every night I quietly thank the deities that I have a bed to lay in and a roof over it.
No matter how 'secure' my position is, I'm nervous about the future.

:thumbup

The more folks still earning a paycheck and doing reasonably well, donating to the needy, the better for us all.

 

[two wheel tramp]

Honestly, I feel somewhat guilty pulling a full paycheck while others aren't. I just refi'd my home loan so my monthly payments will drop by about five hundred bucks, and I have enough in the bank to cover a full year's worth of bills so I'll ride this thing out ok.
I'm concerned I'll be in the minority.

It's people in our position who can offer a hand up to those who need it. That is how I view this. We can spend, we can donate. Just my two cents.

 

[mean dad]

C'mon, you can give more than two damn cents. :x

 

[two wheel tramp]

How about tree fiddy?

 

[TheRobSJ]

I work in an essential industry. That said, between tax season and now everyone being locked down for at least another two weeks, we have had maybe 1/4 the customers of normal. Despite the fact that I am the foreman and kinda need to be there to handle any of the difficult stuff, I’ve been told to stay home. Probably because I foolishly said that I can afford to take the time off if we can’t run a full crew. Not how I wanted to burn through the 180+ hours of vacation I had banked, but whatever. A couple other of my guys are off too, but I don’t think they had the vacation time to cover it. We’re not part of a large corporation. Three dealership group with maybe 300 employees between all the stores. I actually do have a doubt whether or not the owner can afford to keep the doors open until all of this has truly blown over. Service and parts will always have stuff to do, but car sales have come to a complete halt, and it won’t pick back up again for awhile. And if a dealer isn’t selling cars, they won’t last too long.

However. I was in process of trying to leave anyways. I’ve gone through some of the steps of the interviewing gauntlet with a few companies and was ready to move to the next step...then this happened. Now all those companies will be on a hiring freeze for awhile, when they even get back to work (some were corporate jobs) that is.

I imagine I’ll be back to work in a couple weeks. But maybe on a limited basis. And who knows if that will even last at my current employer. So I’ll still try to make the job change. Just may get delayed until these companies are ready to start hiring again.

 

[mean dad]

.

 

[cheez]

Someone did the math for me the other day- for every hour I spent swinging a hammer for Habitat, if I worked that hour instead and donated the gross earnings, I could pay 12-15 laborers to swing hammers instead- so why not work more and donate more instead of trying to volunteer directly?

I hadn't ever considered it from an "efficacy of my effort invested" perspective so it caught me by surprise to realize it was an order of magnitude more impact.

I'm patronizing every small local business I can during this, but it's a trickle when they're used to a torrent, so I am not expecting good things.

 

[gixxerjeff]

I'm a drug/alcohol counselor at a residential rehab facility that houses 30 people at a time. We already had some health concerns. We have had 7 cases of pneumonia (one co-worker actually died) in the past 3 months. Now we are beginning to suspect C-19 has already swept through us but of course no one was tested, so who knows. I live with someone (my fiance) who has compromised immune system and I was already getting concerned about the notion of bringing something home with me that would be detrimental to her. Once this recent shit blew up I decided to take a leave of absence until we know more about what is going to happen around us. I'm not sure how long I'll be out or how long I can afford to be out. Kinda going week by week right now.

 

[Cali]

Out of a job come the 7th. Luckily I do have money to get me through for a while, but looking for part 91/135 pilot jobs, especially in Idaho, till the airlines turn around again.

 

[Critter]

I work two full time jobs to make ends meet. Luckily for my day job I have my own office (Everyone else is working from home), but for my night job I manage a team of young guys at a laboratory which has been deemed "essential".

For my night job we put standards in place that NO ONE IS FOLLOWING. Although still high risk we felt this would mitigate some of the danger if everyone would stick to the guidelines. Wear your Personal Protective Equipment AT ALL TIMES. Maintain a 6 foot radius from others. WASH YOUR HANDS FREQUENTLY. These guys are literally laughing of the measures we put in place. I'm constantly warning my guys about the danger of the situation and people think its some conspiracy theory.

We had a guy KNOWINGLY show up with a fever and coughing. I got wind of it promptly grabbed my things and left. I advised the company owner that I would not return until we implement a zero tolerance policy regarding PPE that is punishable by immediate termination. Working for these guys they are extremely reactive instead of pro active in regards to employee safety.

I've made mention that we need to consider upping our standards on who we hire since I came on board but I refuse to put myself and my family at risk for guys who are so ignorant about the seriousness of this situation.

I'm worried about how much longer both jobs are going to stay operational.