Friday, February 27th started out like any other normal day. My brother dropped off my nephew at 7am; I dropped my son off to school at 8:25am; and my husband woke up around 9:30am, to get ready for his shift that started at 11am. At about 10am, my husband's boss called him and asked him to stop at Coopersville on his way into work. A few weeks ago, the RGM at Coopersville was fired for cooking the books; my husband requested to be transferred to that location because it is closer to our home than Muskegon, where he was currently working. We thought that the meeting was in reference to that request.
My husband called me at 10:30am and told me that he had been fired. Downsized, actually. Yes, the fast food industry - which usually is extremely profitable in recessions - is being forced to tighten their belts, too. Apparently HR has a complex equation that is supposed to determine fairly who stays and who goes. Because my husband was one of the newer managers, he was one of several to get the axe. We were floored. This is unfamiliar territory - we have 3 kids and 2 adults to support and never thought that we would be facing this situation.
We sat down Friday night and hashed out our finances. We decided that, most likely, we will have to cancel our trip to Disney World this year. Fortunately, due to God's grace, we had not yet purchased any of the (non-refundable) tickets and reservations for that trip. My husband had lost our copy of TurboTax and we ended up filing about 2 weeks after we had intended to. So, we can count on that check to help us survive over the next few months. Also, during the week preceding the firing, we had paid all our bills and gone grocery shopping. My father also gave us a LOT of meat - turkey and pork. So, while we only have about 30 between us, we are set on our groceries and utilities for a few weeks.
On Saturday, we sat the kids down and told them what was going on. We told them that Daddy lost his job and why. And we told them that we probably wouldn't be able to go to Disney World. I expected crying and bawling, but they surprised me and made me proud. My son said, "So we can't go to Disney World this year, but we can go sometime?" Yep, that's all he needed - to know that we would eventually get there.
Monday was a humbling day for us. We had to make the trip down to FIA to apply for food stamps and health insurance. What a humbling experience that was. There were tons and tons of people there. I never thought I would ever have to go down to apply for those things. We were there for 3 hours and it was just so uncomfortable. After that, my husband went to the Unemployment office to get that ball rolling.
We are looking into him going back to school and getting into a different industry. He's been working in fast food for the better part of 14 years and would really, really like to get away from it. Hopefully we can figure out a way to make it work without having to move out of the state. I just heard on the radio today that Michigan has the highest unemployment rate in the union - at 10+%. Michigan has been struggling for the past 6 years and I would really like to see better things happen here.
All we can do is pray.
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