More economic woes

[mrs_sweetpeach]

The boss took our fire extinguishers in for their annual physicals today (Boy, does this city ever have strict fire department rules & regulations. It sure wasn't like this when we worked in Troy.) Anyway, while he was there, he got into a conversation with the owner's brother-in-law and was told that Chrysler owes them $1M and that they (the fire extinguisher place) were recently forced to lay off part of their workforce -- for the first time since they were founded in 1949.

I've also taken to counting the number of vacancies in the various strip malls I visit. The one up at the corner where we buy pizza is at about 50% capacity. The big mall by our house is even worse. Two of the "anchor" stores have closed and along the longest side of the open-air 'u' that forms the plaza's footprint, only three stores remain.

Comments

[drkcherry]

We have two big malls here in Colorado Springs, one North and one South. The one that is North is filing for bankruptcy.

[kevinnickerson.livejournal.com]

Let me see if I understand this correctly. The city requires you to have no fire extinguishers one day a year. Interesting.

[drkcherry.livejournal.com]

Our fire guy comes to us.

[mrs-sweetpeach.livejournal.com]

Our fire extinguisher place would too -- if we were willing to spend the $100 for the truck. Being the cheap folk we are, we take the extinguishers there and pay a whopping $5.

[mrs-sweetpeach.livejournal.com]

Well... no. That part is entirely optional. :-)

I don't know what would happen if the fire inspector decided to pay a visit on the day we took the fire extinguishers in. We'd probably just get yelled at though, then he'd have to come back for a follow-up visit to make sure we'd brought them home.

[ahavia.livejournal.com]

I just drove by our local K-Mart and saw a sign that the store is closing.
I was laid off from Aetna last Dec. along with over 200 of us here in Blue Bell, PA. and 800 up in Hartford. Since then there have been more folks left go. Most of the work is now being done by vendors in India. We are all professionals, hard workers with a long history in Information Technology and most of us have not been able to find a job.
I have retired at 63. Putting energy into volunteer work and planning on moving to a retirement community.
Ahavia

[mrs-sweetpeach.livejournal.com]

There are some awesome retirement communities out there. jebra's band played at one in our area last year and after visiting, my only question was "Can we move?" As it turned out, we don't meet the age requirements and won't for something like another 15 years.

Yay to volunteer work. What are you doing?

[ahavia.livejournal.com]

I am hoping to move to a Quaker community called Staples in Philadelphia, PA. It is not far from where I live now. I have many friends who live there. And I still can go to my Quaker Meeting if I live there. I now live in a large very nice apartment, 2 bedrooms, one I use for my office and 2 full baths. I am on the 6th floor with a balcony. I will have to down size a lot which breaks my heart. But my health is not so good, I have COPD so I need to be in a different living situation.
35 years ago, I was one of the founders of a rape crisis center here in Montgomery County, PA. It is now called Victim Service Center of Montgomery County. I am involved in the planning of the 35th anniversary in 2010. Each year I give awards to people and organizations in Mont. Co. who are helping people called 'The Matty Muir Awards', the other name I am known by, which is an honor to be involved in. I also volunteer at Phila. Yearly Meeting, a Quaker organization and am on the Care Commitee for a wonderful woman, Vanessa Julye who has a ministry to heal racism. I am doing things from my heart instead of to make money, which feels wonderful. I do have to be careful about money but I have more than most so I am blessed.
Ahavia

[mrs-sweetpeach.livejournal.com]

Blessed *and* made of awesome. :-)

As for the VSC -- 35 years, wow. That's quite an achievement!

[fanfromfla.livejournal.com]

Our big headlines today were that our local Jeep dealership is closing this week. That's more good jobs lost in an already dire landscape, and more fallout from the Chrystler situation. Ripples far and wide.