First of all thanks to all the people who are sympathizing with me regarding my situation: it is catastrophic,but not completely desperate :P

Our delegates had lately new meetings with our CEO about what the company is proposing. what the company is, proposing in temr of package, follow up of employees, help to find a new jobs (all these are legal measures in france), etc.. are completely under the minimum legal requirements.

Our delegates pointed it up, and made an alternate proposal that has been completely refused, and the CEO told us a global fuck you... so possible negotiations...

I know other major companies have much more repsect to their employees, believe me... so today I know I will certainely not get as much as others in the same business area... anyway

The other problem is to move from area to get a new job: quite easy when you are alone... not really when you have kids, and a wife with a job...

So different people, different situations, and also different beahviour... you are never happy to be fired, but I was expecting more "respect" from Wipro top management...

Anyway: there are solutions, not for every employees unfortunately...

Wait and see... :/ 

so NO possible negotiations... 

"everyone go and look at the slums of south america or africa or india and then start talking about economic crisis

we dont know what we are talking about."

This is not a good debating tactic. Because those people over there are suffering worse, that means that the people over there aren't and shouldn't complain and we shouldn't empathize? That's ridiculous.

Yes, other societies have people who are worse off than most Americans. People in this country are still losing jobs, homes, and going hungry because of this crisis. 

First thanks for the first non-assholic response to what I said.

Look, I do feel for what people like JPL, nonentity and -- well -- even myself have gone through.

In a rare post where I even mention any personal details of my life, life has tried to eff me over at least 5 or 6 times and the first couple of times I was scared but last few times I put on my "game face" and said "Life is trying to screw me over again; let's teach life a lesson about trying to do that to me." [As a result, I am unusually aggressive.]

It DOES suck.

But looking past the feelings, when life deals you some bad cards you STILL have no choice but to play the cards you are dealt.

I choose the glass is half-full approach and most people struggling in the "new economy" aren't dealing with life or death but rather dealing with major inconvenience and the fear of the unknown.

If you find the positive in a situation, you are so much better off. The positive is that this isn't life and death, but largely material inconvenience and stress. And the fact is, the world economy will not likely improve soon so the sooner people develop a non-victim mentality and go for the "I will take on this challenge" approach, the better off people will be.

To RickyT23: I admire your spirit [and your awesome maps], but you will find you have much more wisdom once you have reached puberty. k thx bye ;-) 

I'm all about positive thinking, to be honest. I think you DO have to avoid feeling sorry for yourself and do whatever you can to hold things together. And I think the majority of people DO that.

What I take issue with is the casual dismissal of the hardship someone is going through because those people over there are suffering more. That's a cop out that frees you from needing to help the person in front of you who is down on their luck. 

This is not a good debating tactic. Because those people over there are suffering worse, that means that the people over there aren't and shouldn't complain and we shouldn't empathize? That's ridiculous.

I was not looking particularly for sympathy from other people (but I have to admit it is always cool to see people understand your point of view and what is you feeling regarding this particular experience...) I clearly know there are people that have even worst problems than mine. I am quite lucky to live in a very well developped country, with a lot of social helps. Also, I think that since you didn't experiment such "use case", you cannot state about what I can feel there. I personnaly gave 5 years of my life to a company that now is flushing me off like a shit in the toilet.... and some others have spent more than 10 years in this company, you can imagine what is their state of mind :(

What I would like you to understand, is that my company is behaving like bastards, also because it is claiming to develop business in Europe (and France particularly), it is claiming they are treating well their employees, etc.. etc... Why advertising that much good messages when the reality is the opposite ? just to hide the bad things.. and keep their face "clean"...
Small example: for any entity shutdown, there are legal procedures to follow, legal process to put in place: even this is not correctly done by the company, an they are breaking the french law today, just because they don't care about us any more, and maybe they think they are following strictly the law, but it is actually not the case...
Another example, just after the CEO announced the shutdown, he required us to continue to do "business as usual", and to not communicate to the customers about the situation as it is only a "project".. while everybody knows what will be the outcome.. wtf ? They want to fire us, and they would like us to continue to work for them to do money ? do you really think it is serious or fair ? I'm very angry about this kind of behaviour because I think it is a complete lack of respect, thinking we are stupid enough to not understand the situation.. come on... we are all engineers, we are not stupid... though...

Wipro is like others big companies: it is only looking for immediate profit, (the company have done billions dollars benefits after tax in 2008). I understand there are some business considerations to take, that a company can decide to stop an activity because it is not profitable, I have no problem with that. My problem is what will come next, I mean regarding my "micro-economy"? Employement situation in France is not that good / flexible as in the US.

You know: I'm not one of these guy that uses the system because too lazy to make the effort by himself. I am not waiting for somebody else to find a job for me: I'm already looking for a new job, and I already have some contacts here and there.. but who knows what will happen ?

Also the fact I am in this situation today shows that nobody is under cover from loosing his job... All of my colleague were thinking we were not in this mod... unfortunately we were wrong... Keep that in mind: statistically, each worker will have to experiment at least one "restructurating plan" with mass-layoff as outcome in his woring life... bad news, anybody can be the next one :P

I sincerely hope it will not happen to any of you... 

No, JPL, don't get me wrong ... I'm not blaming you or doing anything negative at all. I'm annoyed with the people who put down other people's suffering on the basis that the people over there are suffering more. Bad luck is bad luck, and it sucks when anyone has to go through it. 

although sometimes it can help put things in perspective if you compare yourself to others (who are worse off). I kind of understand what Baker is trying to say, but I too don't like the way he's putting it. Suffering is suffering, because if you are affected, you look at what you have lost, and not what others have never had. But I think it's good to take matters in your own hand and try and turn things around - if you can. Not everyone is able to do this, for various reasons, and I think it's condescending if you look down on those who don't have the ability to change, just because you could. 

I apologize if you've been hurted ;) and I agree with you as I know there are always somebody in a worst situation than your...

And about changing the situation, I think some of my colleague already decided to completely change of job, meaning they will not go back to microelectronics company any more... even if they have to sell hoover.... though...

I am not really worry yet, as I have different options, while nothing is really clear as of today... 

It's very easy to have your point of view, but that's formed on where you are. Things will be much rougher elsewhere - and posts here are global. So alot of what you said above was pretty offensive. 

well, we shall see.

Yes, it's true to some extent that karma is biting people in the ass for living beyond their means on credit. Here in the US at least, I don't know the situation elsewhere.

But if you want to point fingers, look beyond the actions of individuals and see the disgusting corporate greed for profit at all costs. Currency trading and stock market speculation created a huge bubble in the economy, and well, all bubbles burst sooner or later. And what does our gov't do? Reward the thieves to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. So we the people get shafted twice: first by watching our savings shrivel to a fraction of what they were, and again through the debt we'll likely be saddled with for decades, if not generations. And cutting back social services to pay for it.

The next hammer to fall is the implosion of the value of the dollar; let's all hope that doesn't happen, or things will get really interesting/exciting/fucked. 

look beyond the actions of individuals and see the disgusting corporate greed for profit at all costs.

but if I look beyond the corporations I come back to the greed of the individual. 

Again, all my comments are constrained to my view of what has happened in the USA ...

In the USA, the economy from 2000 to 2008 was fueled largely by:

1. mortgage refinancing (= borrow and spend!)
2. corporate growth via outsourcing
3. Government spending growth (Iraq; prescriptions; dept of homeland security = $250 billion/year more spending)
4. Consumer debt (credit cards, etc.)

So essentially consumers were borrowing and then purchasing electronics from Asia (mostly China) while financing the spending via foreign creditors.

Then that model went bust in the USA.

The credit is gone; the jobs are gone (outsourcing + NAFTA); there is no chance of manufacturing growth in the USA (due to NAFTA it is always cheaper to build in Mexico).

So the way in life in the USA was borrow and spend. Now there is no credit and few things are made here (we have the 5th worst import/export ratio in the world; we make very few things to sell to other countries).

All of that is over now.

It's going to take a long time for the US economy to rebound because it must first achieve net cashflow.

Which is exactly what can't happen here because there is no export parity and we have it set up so it is virtually impossible. 

having a good export ratio doesn't really seem to help anyone in the lower/middle class 

having a good export ratio doesn't really seem to help anyone in the lower/middle class

bar revolution little does 

This small video remake has been made by one of my collegue... It is "reflecting" what happened during the last week....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INhjz8bG01E

Awesome job :P

PS: Any relation with my company, or my top management is completely undesired :) 

Hitler downfall videos are like totally 2008, man. Look here, there's even meta-vids now:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eb8RkIpCWSo 

... stands in the fact that it clearly describes what happened these last two days... (traffic jam, airport welcome, etc...)

As example, we have welcome our CEO at the airport.. hence 2 small sentences said by Hitler: "I was alone when you were having a drink at the hotel" and also the "where were you when they were massacring me ?"
Other example, the fake job proposal is true, etc.. etc..

Well, actually, it is extremely fun for us.. at least :P 

Yo dawg I heard you like being angry so I put Hitler in yo Hitler so you could be angry while being angry. 

Yes we can :) 

Der Untergang is still an excellent movie and deserves a second viewing. 

Some more info I learnt today: Wipro has picked 12Meuros of financial governmental help. 5.2Meuros have been paid earlier (on Wipro's request) just announcing the decision to shutdown the activity in France... Take the money and run...
And Wipro still dare to claim about their "ethical behavior"... :( 

Did the mention of ethical behavior at any point mention whether it was referring to the shareholders or the employees? 

Company ethic refers to shareholders, and the employees... and actually shareholders do not have any ethic at all... IMHO... 

... if you want the employees to apply such value, the management (and the more the shareholders) should show us the example, and be even more ethically irreproachable :P