It is 2:45 in the afternoon on Friday, February 27th and I know that at this moment my husband is sitting in a meeting with the owners of his company likely being told that he is being let go due to the poor economic conditions, if not today then likely within 30 days.
I find myself wandering around the house.
Sweep the floor, get the mail, talk to Max, clean up the kitchen, get the steak out to thaw for dinner, I even turned on the TV to distract myself. Watching the truck slip through the Ice Road on the history channel does not take my mind off the state of things, but it does help pass the time. My mind races.
It is 3:15. Steve has not called, and that likely means there is bad news and he is sparing me for as long as he can, until he gets home from work. Plus, in his mind the longer he can go without saying it out loud, the longer it will not seem real. He told me last night (when he broke the news to me) that if it is not today, in this meeting, then it will likely be in the next month that he is done. When I kissed him goodbye this morning I could not even wish him luck - uncertain of how much hope there was for a favorable outcome - instead I just told him that I loved him.
It is not like we could not see this coming. It has been a
long and stressful two years. Things started slowing down during the second half of 2007. Work was harder to come by, as non-union home builders started bidding on small construction jobs to keep their people working. Limited by union wages and benefits, my husband could only cut so much from his jobs to compete. He ramped up his bidding and worked his contacts even more, but the competition was fierce.
In December of 2007, concerned about the direction of the construction market and the outlook for 2008, the owners cut his salary by 20% and changed our benefits so that we ended up paying thousands more a year out of pocket on top of the pay cut. Effectively, it was a 30% decrease in our take home pay, the only income we had, as I was at home with our four kids. We had some room to move for a bit, but we both knew I would have to find a part-time job in my field (accounting) by summer.
I resurrected my resume and thought about what I had accomplished in my 9+ years at home. I wondered if I enjoyed it enough, if I did enough with the kids, if I would ever be back in that place again. Somehow I knew I would not. I started this blog and started working harder then ever to be frugal. It was not enough.
Going back to work was very hard for me. I was far more rusty than I ever would have imagined. And it was much more difficult to focus now that I had four kids and a household I was managing on top of learning a new job, a job that is never the same two days in a row (surprisingly). One day this summer, my 10 year old daughter broke into tears, crying "I just want my old life back, the one where you were home." Our 2 year old is still attached to my side all the time, seemingly uncertain of when I will be home and when I will not. I work in a great place with great people and maximum flexibility and it was still hard. You know the kids will be fine in the end, but it is still hard. Mommy guilt abounds.
Somehow, we managed to find our way through 2008, although I am quite certain that I have more grey hair and wrinkles. Steve pieced together work for his company, key employees stayed busy despite horrific economic news every single day and people all around us being affected in so many ways. I was grateful for my job and so was Steve - we were grateful for the means to support our family. We both worked hard to fit in all that we needed to for work and still be there for the kids. We both swept, played with the kids, cooked, cleaned, did the laundry, ran errands, drove the kids here and there, picked up/dropped off at daycare. We recognized that we had to work while there was work.
Many nights we would sit side by side with our lap tops and work after the kids went to bed. I started getting up early or staying up late so I could take on more responsibilities at work, I worked my way up from 16 hours to 22 hours a week by working at home around the kids' schedules and sleeping hours to fit in the extra 6 hours a week. Steve would work 50 hours plus in a week at work, just to come home and continue working at night to bid one more job, two more jobs - whatever he could fit in. We both worked hard to make ourselves as valuable, meaningful and indispensable at each company as we could. Neither of us have been really rested since I went back to work.
We worked to spend as little as we needed to, balanced out with spending on wise projects or items that would benefit our family. After all, we both still had jobs. It was very much like holding your breath for 2 years - you just cannot do it all the time. You have to live once in a while. We saved up and bought a new computer when ours crashed. We remodeled the laundry room so it will be far more functional and roomy.
As we worked our hardest, we told each other that it was worth it. That the security in us both having jobs in different segments of the economy was vital and whatever we had to juggle, we needed to do it for our family and ourselves and our family's security.
And it was.
Because today it is likely that he is in danger of being let go - the company is giving it 30 days and they will "start yielding the sword" - we are not sure exactly what that means, but I guess we will find out. I am sure it is not without a heavy heart that they do so. They are like family to us - in fact they and their wives are godparents of our youngest, Will. We have had each one of our kids while Steve has worked there. It is just one of those things that is what it is. They are not willing to go into debt to fund the business at this point - wisely realizing that things will not turn around anytime soon - there would be no way to pay it back in the foreseeable future. It is that conservatism in running the business along with Steve's hard work to bring in as much work as possible and manage it well that has kept all of us that rely on this company running fed, dry and warm to this point. Many other construction companies have already fallen.
We have been here before.
Shortly after we bought our first house in 1994, Steve was laid off from his job (the one he had before this one). We lost half of our income with a new house in the blink of an eye. I don't remember being overly stressed, although I probably was. I just did what I had to - I worked. And worked. And worked. Busy season as a young CPA in one of the Big Four - with 80+ hour weeks, there is not a lot of time to think. I would drag myself home at 9:00 at night to a warm dinner that Steve prepared for me. After a few months, he found his current position, although that was a 30% pay cut at the time, too. But, you do what you have to, right?
It feels very different today. Maybe it is that I am more mature and less naive. Maybe now we just have so much more to lose and four kids to support. Maybe then I was young and over confident in my abilities and now I am humbled by how little I sometimes seem to know. It probably did not hurt that at that point in my career, I was rapidly increasing my salary each year and had no idea I would ever want to stay at home with our future kids. Maybe it is because the stock market is at a 12-year low and our country - you and I, actually - are bailing out banks and automakers left and right. It is true that the economy in 1994 felt nothing like it does today. For most of us the 1990's saw double digit growth year after year for many companies for most of the decade. I had a job locked up nearly an entire year before I graduated from college in 1993. I know that I have never lived in a time where I was old enough to remember with this many layoffs and global economic crisis, and most certainly not as an adult.
Yet, we are more prepared for this than any other of the many obstacles that have fallen before us during our marriage. We are living frugally, we have started an emergency fund, we can live on one income (well, one income and a small part of another - depending on the first income); we are not dependent on two full time incomes. And, I have worked very hard at work, trying to go the extra mile and take on all that I can. There is a need and want for me to work more hours. I have been wanting to give more attention to the huge to-do-list that sits on my desk at work, but I have been unwilling to send my kids to daycare more hours a week in order to achieve it. I believe it will be easier knowing that Steve will be home with them, that they will be at home, not at daycare all week. However, whether they can afford for me to work enough hours to be entitled to benefits is up in the air. That would greatly impact our monthly bottom line. I have been straight forward with my work and they are looking at whether or not they can make it work for me to move to full time and salary.
In some ways it may be a blessing. Steve has been ready for a change for quite a while now, but a combination of uncertainty of the economy and a loyalty to his current company and keeping things going there kept him in place. Our kids are older now, 2 1/2 and up - Will no longer nurses, he can talk and walk and do things that make it easier than having an infant. And more time with Dad could hardly be anything but a blessing for all the kids. As for me, it would be nice to focus on my job - really focus, without worrying about dropping off or picking up from daycare, staying home when someone is ill, rushing home to make dinner or worrying about our older two are home alone after school.
Still, it marks the end of an era. The end of my time at home. A return to a career that I thought I had left behind; although now I feel that I am definitely moving in a new and exciting direction. Reactivating my CPA license, attending luncheons, sitting in board meetings, flying out of town (but not too often). I may need to look for full time work outside of where I currently work - we don't know yet if they feel they can support my wages and benefits full time. New, different and yet vaguely familiar all at the same time. Exciting and frightening. Before we had some options, now we are cashing them in and going in one direction. OK for now, but aren't two options are always better than one? Even if juggling them is exhausting?
Still, I know that I am lucky. The kind of luck that happens when preparedness meets opportunity. The kind of luck that sacrifices in going to college, taking the CPA exam and working hard can combine with opportunity to provide good things like the ability to take on a challenge and the skills to meet that challenge. The kind of luck that learning to compromise and be there for each other can combine with difficult times to strengthen our marriage and our family. The kind of luck that leaping to a one income family and learning how to be frugal, trying to make do with less can combine with tough economic times and having to make do with less. I am lucky that I had the foresight to prepare enough to be able to take advantage of a great opportunities that can mean the difference between life as I know it and living in a tent city with my family. There are
people here in the US doing that right now.
These are seemingly small things that we tend to not always take seriously - it is easy to think:
that pesky CPA - I can always pass it next year! Thank goodness I did not keep putting it off. It was hard - I took and passed the whole thing at once exactly two weeks after I gave birth to our second child. And even after I left the field, I kept it filed with the state, filling out the paperwork each year - just in case. I filed it under "Life Insurance". And indeed, it has been.
I did not mean for this to turn into some sort of lesson, but if there is one in here somewhere, it is this: Do everything now that you can today to ensure that you are able to seize opportunities in the future. You are not going to know what will be needed in the future, so work as hard as you can to cover your bases and hang in there. You may not know how your hard work will pay off now, but when it does you will be grateful that you held on. You cannot always prevent difficult circumstances, but you have to at least try your best.
Chin up!
It looks like we going on another adventure....
Steve says he will continue to give it his all, but he does not see how 30 days will make enough of a difference. As I mentioned, I have discussed some options with my employer and we know that I will be able to at the least work 30 hours a week and have benefits (huge!). We are discussion full time options, but nothing will be immediate. I will update at the end of March.
