Taking the Good with the Bad

Things have been a bit tense around here the last few weeks. Stefan has been speculating that Bowne (the company he has worked for for 10 years) will either do major layoffs or close the doors to the Atlanta plant completely. I've tried to stay optimistic. Yes, this has been the slowest proxy (three months out of the year the require massive overtime) season since we met, but I was thinking it would pick up.

Rumors have been swirling and it's hard not to listen to them. The gossipmongers are saying either

1) the plant will be relocating to save on rent costs,
2) massive layoffs will occur in departments other than Stefan's,
3) the plant will close all together.

The third option sucks. It's the one I wanted to believe the least, but it seems as though this will become reality today. Worried by the stark inventory of necessary means in a print shop (i.e. paper)Stefan believed that something would happen this week. It appears he was right. He called the shop this morning and was informed that just about every non-management employee was herded into a conference room this morning. The inside source stated that the employees were being pulled out one-by-one to sign their release papers. I suppose the unemployment office will be pretty busy in the not-so-distant future.

In a situation like this you have to try to find positives. I've been trying. Maybe Stefan will find a first or third shift job that will enable him to spend more time with us as a family. Maybe he'll find something closer to home. Maybe he'll be able to increase the family business to a level that can support a family of four until I finish school in about a year and a half. Maybe he'll land a job that is less stressful. Maybe he'll find something right away and we can collect his severance as well as a new paycheck at the same time (that would be sweet!). Thank God we didn't plan an expensive family vacation this summer. And Thank God for the government tax rebate check that will hit our account later this week!

Then again, it's hard to ignore the negatives. He's worked for this company for 10 years and will lose all the benefits he has accumulated over that time. He will most likely have to take a massive pay cut. I could go on... but I won't. Maybe it's denial. Maybe it's optimism. Maybe it's just plain naivety, but I prefer to look at the positives.

I just hate (knowing what we know) that he has to drive downtown only to be given his walking papers and have to turn around and drive home in rush hour traffic. That sucks.

Needless to say, times are changing around here.

Oh, and the cherry on the sundae? Our Altima is in need of a new engine because of a badly designed exhaust system in which the catalytic converter is actually two units - a pre-cat that is closer to the engine and the standard catalytic converter. The pre-cat apparently is situated too close to the engine and, because of the heat, disintegrates from the inside while all the pieces get sucked back into the engine wreaking all sorts of havoc. This is apparently a problem for 2002 and 2003 models (so if you know anyone with one of these in their garage, be a friend and inform them of the problem) yet the repair is so costly that Nissan chooses to deal with it on a one-by-one basis rather than doing a mass recall. Anyway, we dropped the car off the day before yesterday. They told us that we'd get a call by 5 p.m. yesterday to let us know if Nissan will cover the new engine and all the costs involved (including the rental car in our driveway). We have yet to hear from them. Keep your fingers crossed that they'll do the right thing as we can't afford the repairs or the cost of replacing the car now of all times (as you can imagine). Hopefully, Nissan will do the right thing and replace the engine. If so, that buys us more time with this car which, given the current job situation, would be nice to not have to worry about for awhile.

Keeping my fingers crossed.