I'M BACK!!!

I actually finally managed to find my way back to this blog that I started in 2006. It was just a coincidence that I saw the blogspot.com website this morning, while I was checking out a quilt top made by one of the ladies who posts on the HGTV message boards. As I was looking at her pictures, I realized that they were part of her blog page, and it stirred my memory, so I tried logging on and discovered that my previous posts were still here!

So, what's been happening since I was last here - a whole lot. It started in May 2006 when I got laid off from my job at a law firm in Chicago. The firm had had a great 2005 and settled four major litigation cases. The bonuses that year were great. Unfortunately, as those cases wrapped up, it became very apparent that there were going to be a lot of attorneys with no work to do, and the firm decided to counsel about twenty attorneys to find jobs elsewhere. I lost one of my attorney, a fourth year associate. She was pretty much out of the office by November of 2005, but still on the payroll until February of 2006. My workload dropped. Then, in April, I started noticing that the partner that I had worked with for nearly nine years had started having "mysterious" lunches with other law firms. He announced that he would be leaving the firm on May 4. He told me that he could not take me with him at that time. I said not to worry about it because I had five years in at that firm and really wanted to stay there until I retired. So he left having been assured that I would be okay.

Three days later, on a Tuesday afternoon, I was to meet with the folks in HR. I figured it was to get my new assignment. Instead, I was informed that I was to be terminated as of May 12, the next Friday. I was given a settlement package that would be mine only if I agreed not to sue because of my separation. I was more than a little upset. You see, I was scheduled to have a gastric bypass surgery on June 6. The good news was that the firm was offering to pay the Cobra payments on my medical for six full months (the end of November) as part of my settlement. Needless to say, I didn't sign anything that day. The firm had my computer turned off while I was meeting with HR, so I couldn't even make copies of my personal stuff to take with me. I had to tell them what I wanted and they put it on a cd for me, which was shipped with the boxes of my personal stuff the following week. I went home immediately after the meeting and started calling My attorneys (the partner and associate that I used to work with).

The partner (Jeff) was absolutely pissed when he found out that I had been let go. He had been told by HR the previous week that I would be taken care of. The associate (Myra) was totally angry with the firm. Her fiance is a labor lawyer, so she had me talk to him to discuss what my options were. His advise was to get out of the office immediately, then wait a week before signing any documents. I was going to be paid for all of the vacation time I had coming, but I would not be paid for the 19 hours of personal time that I still had available. So, I went into the office on Wednesday (where, by the way, I was not allowed to discuss my termination with anyone). I finished packing up the rest of Jeff's files, then when my nosy neighbors left, I started packing up my personal stuff and putting the boxes in Jeff's old office. By 6:10, I had finished everything, so I took a bag of stuff with me and left five boxes in Jeff's office. Before leaving, I left a voice-mail message for the head of HR, telling her that "on advice of counsel" I was using 14 hours of the personal time that I had coming to cover Thursday and Friday, and that she would find the boxes of my personal stuff to be messengered to my home in Jeff's old office. I then left and caught the 6:38 train home.

The HR lady called me on Friday morning about getting the documents signed. I told her that my attorney was reviewing them and that we would be making a decision on how to proceed in a few days. I would let her know then what my plans were. She sounded a little shaken. You see, the firm was hoping that I'd just take what they offered without any discussion. When I let them know that I had contacted an employment lawyer, they were more than a little upset. If I had been able to afford it, I could have sued them for age discrimination, discrimination against the disabled, and illegal termination due to health problems. If I could have afforded it, I would have tied them up in litigation for several years, costing them thousands of dollars in legal fees, as well as most likely forcing them to pay me considerably more than they were offering. In the end, I just made them wait a week and a half before signing the documents. That was the beginning of one of the most horrible summers of my life, but that's for another post. I've got to get going for now. Later, all.