Drove 2,000 miles to get axed Day 1!
By icyorchid
@icyorchid (2564)
United States
November 21, 2008 7:46pm CST
Couldn't these people have called him before he made such a long trip?!
Drove 2,000 miles to get axed Day 1! N.Y. miner gets shaft upon arriving in Montana
Sam Gallup bolted New York for a new home, a new life and a new job in Montana.
One 10-hour shift later, he was facing the same old problem: Unemployment.
RELATED: FEAR GRIPS MARKET
The 24-year-old upstate mine worker traveled 2,000 miles to find work only to get laid off after one day on the payroll of the Stillwater Mining Co.
"It's kind of a dead-end situation," Gallup said Thursday.
"Job security? There is none. Right now, I'm in the financial situation of losing everything."
RELATED: WHAT ECONOMIC CRISIS? STARS PARTY HARD AT $20M BASH
Gallup received the bad news Monday night after returning home from his first and last day of work.
Standing on the porch of a friend's house in Billings, he noticed a voice mail on his cell phone.
Seconds later, in disbelief, the recorded voice said he was out of work - again.
"I was a little upset," he said in an even tone. "The fellow that called, he apologized several times, but that was it."
In August, the St. Lawrence Zinc company in upstate New York laid off Gallup.
Stillwater recruited him and some co-workers willing to leave their homes for Montana.
"I packed up everything I owned in my car and drove out here," he said from Montana.
"Took me three days. Then I drove two hours to work, two hours home, with a 10-hour shift between."
And that was it.
Gallup's mother, Maryann, said her son was keeping a brave front.
"He's very devastated," she said from their home in upstate Gouverneur, which is about a snowball's throw from Canada.
"From knowing Sam, I think the world has crumbled underneath his feet."
Stillwater, which mines platinum and palladium at two sites in southern Montana, laid off more than 500 employees this week from a work force of 1,770.
Gallup receives his one-day check on Dec. 1.
It can't come soon enough; the miner acknowledges "my capital funds are exhausted" - he's flat broke.
For now, Gallup is living in a friend's finished basement and hoping to move his fiancée and her son to Montana.
He was back on the job hunt Thursday - and optimistic about the future.
"You've gotta keep your head up," Gallup said. "Life is a garden. You gotta dig it."
http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2008/11/20/2008-11-20_drove_2000_miles_to_get_axed_day_1_ny_mi-3.html
3 responses
@icyorchid (2564)
• United States
22 Nov 08
So true DN!
My hubby had his hours cut and I was worried about him loosing his job and he told me not to. Their company is the ONLY company that manufactures industrial plumbers rope, so him loosing his job will NEVER happen. They only have 8 employees, so I'm thankful for that little fact now :)
I hope there are other's just as lucky as we are.
@jonesy123 (3948)
• United States
22 Nov 08
Wow, that is tough. My guess is the decision was made that day to let go of some people and he being the newest one in was the first one out. That's how life sometimes can be. It's tough, especially now. Good though that he doesn't let life beat him down and is already job hunting again instead of sitting at home being upset about all of it.
1 person likes this
@littleowl (7157)
•
28 Dec 08
Hi Icy..that is apalling..talk about devasting for him it must of really upset the gemtleman...no job is safe at this time. My daughter's friend is a stewardess for Easy Jet, at one time she wanted to go for an interview for BAA when I asked if she did she said'no'..asking her why she said 'with the way things are at the moment with people being made redunt etc there is no way I am going to change my job' how wise..BAA are making people redundant left right and centre at the moment...what a shame this poor man did actually lose his doing what he thought was best, my heart goes out to him...littleowl