Redundant again for the 8th time!

bpcy

Hi,

I work in IT and I have just been made redundant for the 8th time!
Seven times since year 2000!

I am really down....

Whenever I join a company and the chips turn down it's always the last in and first out. I have never once taken voluntary redundancy.

What is wrong with this country that they always want to make people redundant?

I have now got to tell the wife and family...What do I say again?
My wife blames me. If I was an Accountant or Doctor I wouldn't keep getting made redundant. I say that when I did my degree in the 80's everybody wanted to be in IT. Nobody foresaw that the work would be moved offshore 25 years later!

Where I live there is not much work and we can't afford to move closer to London where there is more work. It takes me 1:45 min to get to my current work place (3 - 3.5 return) and I was lucky to find this job after my last redundancy.

What do I do?

BPCY

SevenOfNine

Redundancy isn't YOUR fault, are you adding to your woes by assuming your wife blames you, or has she actually said it?

You may have to look at re-training, add more strings to your bow maybe. Though I can't believe there are more jobs in IT only in the London area!

Peelerfart

Any chance of agency work in your area ?

bpcy

Hi,

I think the wife just gets frustrated and worried. It seems that every 2.5 - 3 years we go through a redundancy.

Unfortunately I work in Oracle as an Architect not a programmer and there is not a lot of work around Bristol area. I would need to commute to London (too expensive) or Reading/M4 area daily which I would be willing to do. It's just I am frustrated that no one complains about the fact that they need an Architect (Data/Oracle) but it is an easy option to cut when the chips are down.

BPCY

epsilondraconis

Hi BPCY,

I know how you feel, I too am in the IT type of business. I've been made redundant before (although only once due to liquidation of the company) and it was a horrible feeling. The only thing I can suggest is that you to try to save as much as you can when you do get another job in case it happens again and consider taking out some kind of insurance that will help if you are made redundant again (I don't mean PPI, I mean specific unemployment cover).

Sorry we can't offer you a job - we're only a very small business and don't use Oracle.

I really hope you find something.

I sometimes think that I should been an accountant or something. I even looked at changing career to be an aountant when I was made redundant; however the problem was the big drop in wage. Plus, it wasn't as easy as I'd hoped to get another job in that field as I had no experience.

I feel your pain...


Edit - Also tell your wife to stop moaning and blaming you. If you're like me, you're already beating yourself up beause you've been made redundant. It's not your fault. Keep your chin up eh...

bpcy

Thanks I was looking at retraining for something else last time I was made redundant but found I would have to take a big salary cut just to get started again and with the family and mortgage I could not afford to.

What is so infuriating is if I lived closer to London I could get one of those £50K+ jobs and I probably would not be made redundant so frequently as the Employers would want to retain staff as there are a lot more opportunities for their staff to up and leave if they did not get a payrise etc. I would like to stay with one company (with a decent pension scheme) until I retire. Just live a comfortable life with a decent salary that will allow me to pay off the mortgage, have some holidays each year and to send my children to University.
I'm not looking to always be on the leading edge of pay!

BPCY

ceridwen

I remember when being an IT specialist was THE thing - THE way to go...and it wasnt very long ago....

You did the best you could with the information you had at the time.

EIGHT:eek: times is a LOT of times to be made redundant...whew!!!!!

Hope things work out for you soon.

dmg24

Have you looked at working overseas? A friend does that, his employer allows him to be onsite for three weeks and then three weeks working from home. In doing this for two years he will earn enough to pay off his mortgage with enough left for a decent rainy day fund.

McKneff

By the way, there is criteria for being made redundant. You cannto be made redundant on a 'last in first out' basis on it own.
There has to be other criteria met.

whitewing

Could you work in London during the week and come home at weekends?

What does your wife do?

If you get some 'family' goals that everyone works towards then the actual job you do and who does it becomes less important and therefore redundancy is a kink in the path rather than an overwhelming sense of loss. It also means that everyone tries to find solutions. If your children get through uni, get good degrees etc does it ultimately matter whether you support them or whether they work thro themselves?

Friends of ours moved to their DD's uni town so she could study at her choice of uni and still afford to live. Yes it meant that she didn't have the same experiences as I did at Uni but it is a different world now. I know quite a few people now who made the decision not to drink alcohol in their first year, mainly as a cost saving exercise. That was unheard of when I went.

You are still very employable if you have been made redundant so many times - you obviously get into a company easily.Times will settle. I do agree that redundancy is often poor management overall in my experience.