A Year Ago

This is the one-year anniversary of my layoff notice from Nortel. A lot has happened in the past year. Unfortunately, not a job offer for me. I am still optimistic. This has me thinking that something bad may end up being a good thing.

Relaxed

The atmosphere at Nortel had been intense. Since about 2000, there was a constant feeling of the Sword of Damocles hanging over you. I lived through about 16 layoff rounds in various groups. I had worked in all these groups. So, the actual layoff was almost a relief in a very odd way.  My minister made that exact comment. Since he had first met me, every time he spoke to me, I mentioned something about impending layoffs. So, my eventual layoff was anti-climatic in a perverse way.

Severance Paid

From my calculations, I was in the last group (or nearly the last group) that received full severance from Nortel. The people after me are on a long list of creditors who will be paid little or none of what they are owed (or were promised by the company). I have heard many very sad stories from people I used to work with. I count myself as very fortunate.

The latest stories are sickening. They will be withdrawing payments to people on long term disability. They will also pull their medical coverage. Hopefully there will be government assistance to these folks, but I am not optimistic.

Pension Losses

I suspect that Nortel’s pension debacle may only be the tip of the iceberg in corporate Canada, with Air Canada already having done this (and doing it again).  I took my pension money out of Nortel when I could, which in hindsight was a great decision, but at the time it was more my lack of trust in the company that made me do it, not any great insight.

All pensions these days seem to be under pressure (even the Public Service pension lost $ 9 billion this past year), which makes me wonder how the retirement of the Baby Boomers is going to go, and whether all pensions can deal with this huge outflow of cash from their reserves?

Reflections from a year ago

My view of my layoff last year is that I have been very lucky. I was fortunate to have worked at Nortel/BNR for the time I did. The experience I picked up continues to get me job interviews. I worked with many wonderful and amazing people. Even at times when I seem to be a “bitter former employee”, I am not. I am grateful for the experience and hope to soon find a new place to ply my trade.

Redux and Reflections in Retirement

Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good, is what still resonates in my head. As with many events that at the time were a real gut punch, this ended up being a very good thing in the long run.

Pension

Thanks to my extricating my pension (in full), I was able to buy into the Government Employees’ Pension, which is the cornerstone of my retirement. This was not any great plan on my part; it was driven by spite. I didn’t want to rely on Nortel, and luckily I did it quick enough to get it all.

Smelling like a Rose?

Did I come out smelling like a rose? No. I had to use my severance completely to bridge the entire year I was unemployed. I also had some charity from very kind folks who helped me that year too. I came out of the experience: jaded, and not very confident in my own talents. Those still hang as a dark curtain in my mind, but I work to get over that part of the experience even today.

My family took a hit that they never really talked to me about, but I could observe. My oldest daughter had just started University, and I am sure she was unsure of what this all meant. My ability to navel-gaze and not understand what was going on around me shows in this period of my life (i.e., it was not all about me).

Financially, I “fell into butter,” to quote a wise financial blogger. The pension money saved the day. My finances for the first couple of years were a little tight, but they eventually worked out. I am now one of the lucky Canadians who can retire, in relative comfort.

Nortel related articles

• On Being Laid Off (a retrospective) what had I learned the 10 years after getting laid off.
• A Year Ago, written a year after that day I was laid off luckily, I was waiting to start a new job
• Sometimes it is better to be lucky a retrospective about how lucky I was to get laid off when I did. Read on to find out why.
• Pensions and Severance: an important topic I took from my layoff from Nortel.
• Twenty Years in One Line is what my severance letter did. My 20 years are summed up in a sentence.
• Financial Issues With Severance what do you do with your severance if you have options? If you get severance as well.
• On Being Laid Off: my explanation of being laid off from Nortel, a day or two afterwards.
• Nortel Still Paying Out? Really, well not that much.