How Do I Tell Them?

15 years. For 15 years I start my day the usual way. Alarm goes off,I quickly turn it off to not wake up my wife,who if she’s lucky will still get two more hours of sleep. 15 years of stumbling to the kitchen ,turning the coffee pot on, letting the dog out and getting ready for work,its 0500 in the morning.

An hour later I’m dressed and a quick kiss on my wife’s forehead,pat the dog and I push my scoot into the road,fire it up and off to work I go.15 years,nothing changed,until today.

The recent economy crises have hit a lot of folks. First the fuel prices sky rocketed through the roof,causing a lot of self employed people to lose bids on work because they simply couldn’t afford to drive . Others couldn’t afford to even make it to work.It had cost me 50 dollars a week just to get to work,so I used to joke that I had to work six days to afford to work five.

Now businesses are modifying work schedules,adjusting hours,freezing pay and raises and ultimately laying folks off. After 15 years that’s what happened to me. No one is immune.

They called us in right before lunch and told us that due to the last two months of registered users,( I’m Chief of maintenance, was,at a golf course) the number of hours we could work and personnel would have to be cut drastically,almost to zero except for the weekends. Weekends! OK so there still was hope.

They will always need a mechanic so my job security was still in place. However if no equipment is being used,well nothing breaks! So I’m on the same time line as everyone-else. They send us home,its not even 12o’clock yet.

15 years and I’m off by 12o’clock, she’s going to know somethings wrong! What do I do? What do I tell her?

She can read me like a book.Nothing left to do but tell her the truth.

Suggestions: I’m by no means a psychologist, family counselor or certificate owner.I ‘am ,however a man, father , husband.So take these suggestions as you will.

1. Don’t hold back any details. Its a family thing ,let them all know. You may want to brief the wife first,then if there’s children,next. And if there’s teenagers involved,well that’s going to be a whole new meeting!
2. Expect some attitude. You were upset,they will be too.
3. Come up with a plan. Everybody. If everyone is included there will be sense of ownership toward its success.
4. Don’t go out borrowing money! You just lost you earning potential how you going to pay what you borrow?
5. Start looking for extra income sources around the house. This can be as little as finding out if you really need cable,to as extreme as getting rid of that big bass boat!Again expect some attitude. Yours when the bass boat gets sold and your teenage daughter when her cell phone gets shut off!

All in all we’re all going to get through this.It just depends on how well. Just keep remembering that ,I love you and thank you is free,doesn’t cost a penny.