Five Signs You May Be on the Layoff List
More than 750,000 jobs have disappeared from the U.S. economy this year and workers face the prospect of plenty more layoffs to come as a continuing credit crunch and weak CNC Machining Center consumer demand hamper firms trying to maintain payrolls.
The good news is that workers can look for red flags for approaching layoffs, and knowing that a job loss is coming is a first step to getting back on your feet, experts say. Here are five cnc machine wood engraver omens that may signal your position is on the line.
Others are losing their jobs
Even if colleagues have been let go, workers are often surprised when it's their turn to get called into the boss's office. You are not immune. If others are losing their plotter jobs you may too, even if your boss says different.
'It's dangerous to assume that management has a crystal ball about these things. Situations can change very rapidly,' said Monica Parker, founder of LeavingTheLaw.com, which helps cnc wood working router unhappy layers find new work. 'I don't think that people are going out of their way to deceive others. It could be that they are lacking information, or circumstances change.'
The bottom line is cnc engraving machine that you need to be aware of the possibility of a layoff.
'It doesn't help to close your eyes to the situation and hope that it won't be you,' Parker said. 'There's this sense that mini cnc router it's going to be someone else. But, in fact, it's you. It's a very tough thing.'
Depending on a company's policies, workers at greatest laser tube risk of layoffs may be those who were most recently hired. Other targets are workers who aren't getting the job done.
'If management sees that you are not following through with your responsibilities, that's a big piece of it -- if they don't see potential in you to advance,' Parker said.
Hiring freeze
Vanishing job postings on Internet sites can also send a layoff signal.
'You have the ability to hire, and all of a sudden your manager says 'wait,'' said Melissa Fireman, co-founder of Washington Career Services, a career management firm.
Workers should look at whether colleagues are taking on more or less work, and whether some are being asked or told to leave.
Manny Avramidis, senior vice president for global human resources at American Management Association, said the newly budgeted positions that never get filled laser engraving are the first to go, then replacement spots that used to be posted and have disappeared, and then come the retirements that seem to be welcomed by management and are not filled.
Even as businesses trim around the edges, some departments are at lesser layoff risk, and there won't necessarily be cuts across the board, he added. Workers that contribute directly to revenue may be safer.
'For example, a telemarketer selling product usually laser cutting stays around,' Avramidis said. 'If you start to see budget dollars going away, and the people who supported those dollars are going away, there is [cause for] concern.'
Workers should remember that layoffs don't translate to losses for a firm's entire work force, he said.
'As long as a business doesn't go out of business, they'll have to retain staff. The leaders know that when they get through this recession, they'll need employees,' Avramidis said.
Training budgets cut, projects slow down
Even large companies may cut training mini laser engraver budgets, a red flag that financial concerns could lead to layoffs.
'They are not going to train because they are not sure if everyone is going to be there,' Fireman said.
While there are certain critical initiatives or projects that need to go forward if a company wants to keep up production, workers should watch out when project cutting plotter spending slows, Avramidis said.
'From an employee's standpoint, anytime they see an organization cutting back on its spending and cutting back on activities, as well as staff or initiatives around them, they need to think through the vinyl cutter details and figure out at what point does it reach my desk,' Avramidis said.
Office gossip
Conventional wisdom calls for taking office gossip with a grain of salt. But sometimes it makes sense to listen to what your co-workers are saying and doing, Parker said.
'It's helpful to listen to gossip. It makes sense to notice what the talk is and to notice how people's responsibilities or jobs are being redefined,' Parker said.
Fireman said workers should be careful about desktop laser engraver gossip, but that it does make sense to keep a 'temperature reading' on your boss.
'If you do have a good relationship, ask how things are looking for the next quarter,' Fireman said. 'When I have heard from people who have a good relationship with their boss, the boss says to them it's a good time to start looking.'
Company is missing targets
While some management may be less than laser engraving machine forthcoming about missed targets for financial performance, workers can investigate a company's health by checking out the budget.
'That will tell them a story they want to know,' Avramidis said. '[Companies] have a budget they are trying to achieve. An organization usually only has so much tolerance in how much they want to tap into reserves, like an individual tapping into a savings account.'
A major sign of approaching layoffs is a laser engraver business that isn't performing well. Especially at publicly traded companies, performance is critical, because firms that don't perform to an expected level, even during recessionary times, will be forced to cut back.
Call it the face of freedom.
After Jorge Hendrickson lost his job at a Manhattan hedge fund three weeks ago, he stopped shaving. 'I've shaved for so long, and it's nice to be able to look at the positive laser cutter side' of losing a job, says Mr. Hendrickson, 24. 'I'm changing my lifestyle while I can.'
Facial hair is showing up on more former corporate types. It's one of those tiny luxuries unleashed by unemployment, a time when people are briefly released from workaday habits and may wish to take stock of their lives before setting out anew. Al Gore grew a beard after losing the tumultuous laser cutting machine presidential election of 2000. Neatly trimmed, it looked cozy and anti-establishment as he pursued creative projects on his way to the Nobel Peace Prize.
Scott Berger, a 35-year-old investment analyst, stopped shaving in October after being laid off from hedge fund Laurus Capital Management. 'It's something you can't do in the corporate world,' he says. He does, however, cut his facial hair closely with a beard trimmer, pledging, 'I'm not ever going to look like a lumberjack.'
The trend may be driven in part by the music industry, where beards have become fashionable. Carrissa Turley, a hair stylist at Rudy's Barbershop in trendy West Hollywood, Calif., says she began to see an uptick in beard requests in mid-October. Men up to age 40 began vinyl cutter coming in with photos of bearded musicians from bands, including the Foo Fighters and Kings of Leon. 'It's kind of the hipster thing now,' Ms. Turley says.
For most office workers, the look remained too daring -- until they had nothing left to lose. At the Donsuki salon on Manhattan's East Side, owner Suki Duggin says she's been helping an increasing number of male clients groom newly liberated facial hair. One recent customer came in with a month's growth on his chin, saying he'd lost his job and wanted 'to totally change' his look, she says.
Ms. Duggin, who charges $30 to trim a beard, is spending more time teaching these clients to style their stubble. Beards must be trimmed closely around the mouth, for instance, to avoid cutting plotter embarrassing episodes when eating. One longtime customer discovered last week that his beard would need to be colored if he wanted it to match his dyed hair.
Ms. Duggin says her bewhiskered clients often associate facial hair with power and rugged masculinity. 'They joke with me
Sure, Ernest Hemingway had whiskers. But like bow ties and white loafers, facial hair is fraught with negative connotations. An alternative meaning of 'beard' is laser cutting system someone who diverts suspicion from the guilty. To avoid sending unintended messages, stylists say, guys should think carefully about what their beards signal.
ZZ Top is the least of it. A thickly bearded man can seem to be hiding something. Within the Amish sect, a long, full beard may denote mature stability, but on an unemployed financial planner, it suggests rather the opposite. Grooming the beard doesn't remove all problems. A man with stubble that's cut close -- a la Tom Ford -- can seem narcissistic.
Kelly Lynn Anders, associate dean at the Washburn University School of Law in Topeka, Kansas, and author of a new advice book called 'The Organized Lawyer,' tells students to avoid laser cutting equipment facial hair entirely. As the term 'clean-shaven' implies, 'people find it cleaner,' she says.
Still, professorial beards on older men can imply depth of intellect. Indeed, Ms. Anders says, fully one-third of the law school's male faculty members have facial hair. Among them, she says, 'we have two goatees, a mustache and two full beards.'
Brad Pitt has a goatee on the cover of Architectural Digest this month, and the look implies intelligence and style as he promotes an innovative housing project in laser engraving machine New Orleans. John Lennon's beard connoted 'thinker' and 'poet.'
Ben Bernanke's furry jawline gives the Fed chairman the look of a trustworthy intellectual. But Brad Warthen, editorial page editor for the State, a Columbia S.C., newspaper, recently pondered what would happen if laser machine Mr. Bernanke were to shave. 'Could this be the bold stroke that is needed to jolt the economy back to where it should be?' Mr. Warthen posited in his blog.
Intellectuals, musicians, artists, and tycoons like investor Sam Zell, who just took Tribune Co. into bankruptcy proceedings, have free rein with laser cutter facial hair. Not so, workaday businessmen. Beards are virtually verboten in corporate circles. Bill Richardson shaved his beard last week, just before the announcement that he would be the country's next Secretary of Commerce.
For many men, growing that unemployment beard is akin to a tame dance at a bachelor party -- a momentary freedom enjoyed while the rules are suspended. Many of today's beards may be as short-lived as the laser cutting machine holidays. Mr. Berger shaves for job interviews, then re-grows his beard, which takes about two weeks. 'I can't go on an interview with a beard,' he says.
Mr. Hendrickson isn't in favor of mixing beards and business suits either. 'Everyone who's lost their job may be changing it up,' he says, 'but I think we'll all be very happy to go back to a more regular life.'
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