Furloughed

So, it's about to happen.  K is going to be out of a job. 

He works for a cargo airline, and has his whole adult life, ever since he got out of school and got his A&P license.  The two companies that he has worked for in that time frame both flew for BAX global, or Burlington Air Express, or Deutsch Bond... however you may be familiar with them.  (you may remember Burlington from many years ago, getting in trouble for running tests on their train drivers before being hired to make sure that they were not predisposed to things like carpal tunnel... then refusing to hire them if they were).

So, back in 2001 the first carrier he worked for lost their contract with BAX global, and went into bankruptcy.  They left T town and eventually went under completely (I believe).  So, the contract that they lost went to the carrier that he works for now.  First he worked in their Stores room (parts man basically) because it was all right after September 11 and NO ONE was hiring mechanics.  He did that for about a year and became a mechanic again.  Then he became a pilot for them just in 2010. 

BAX got bought out by Deutsch Bond a couple of years ago because they weren't doing real well.

Over the weekend we found out that as of September 1, 2011, BAX is closing their doors.  All of the mechanics that work for the company are done on that day.

We were hoping that he would maybe have a job through the end of the year, as they have found some work for most of the fleet of airplanes.

BUT.  K is low man on the totem pole.  They do seniority based on age+years of service.  K has been with the company almost 10 years (10 years in December), but he is only 32.  So that makes him 42 for seniority.  All the other pilots are in their upper 40's and older.  So, low man.

Which means he's the first to go.

A good friend of his, which also happens to be president of the union, called him last night.  He felt horrible because two of his best friends (K being one of them) are about to be out of jobs.  He basically said that K will probably fly in August, but that will be it.  No severance, just no job. 

So, we are cancelling our vacation for next month.  We are looking at where we can pare things down to save some money.  We are going to figure out how long we can continue to pay for daycare before we have to pull her out.  We want to give enough time so that K can get his CFI (certified flight instructor) as he doesn't really have enough hours as a pilot yet to get a job with a big carrier.  Then give him a little time to try to find a job, before we pull her.

Oh yeah, and that money we have been saving up for IVF?  That's going to go to paying bills now.  (Katery - I know you asked about going straight to IVF in the past... yes, we have to.  K's last SA had only about 600,000 swimmers, with only about 30% motility and like 5% morphology.  So it's a waste of money to do IUI, unless we use donor sperm).

I'm really really bummed about this all.  I mean, I'm not real worried about him being out of a job, it will be nice to have him home more.  I know with him home we can be real good about removing some wasteful spending from both of us. 

But I don't really want to put off fertility treatments.  We can't decide if we cancel the appointments, reschedule, or keep them.  He is thinking that he wants to work any OT if they actually offer it to him in August, to try to help out with money. 

I just don't know what to do.  I'm honestly a little heartbroken over the whole thing.

The positive?  I don't have to worry about weaning Bug if we postpone treatments some.  That's the silver lining if ever there was one!

Well, back to work.  I'll have to stress about it more later :-)