Back in September the law office that I work for was going through a tough time. There was not enough work to keep all employees busy. It was very hard for my boss to decide what to do but he did, he chose to cut everyone’s hours. For me this was no good I have two children one in school part time and day care the rest and the other in day care full time, cutting my hours meant I couldn’t afford to work as day care is so expensive. I in turn volunteered to be laid off under the understanding that I would return with my EI run out, this term was great excepted and my boss was grateful that I was willing to do this for the company (that I have worked for 6 years this year).

I contact my boss last week stating my EI is up at the end of March so I wish to return the beginning for April. After a few days I received the following:

We apologize for the delay in responding to your email; it was not intentional.
We were hoping perhaps that the numbers for Jan/Feb/March etc would be better.
Unfortunately, the numbers to date are down. As of today, we are not in a position
to have you back to the office. We understand if you cannot wait for our numbers
to improve. Should you find other employment before we are able to call you back,
we support you 100%.

I was in shock I never thought in a million years my boss would do this. I thought if work was still slow someone else would step up or be told they have to be laid off. I now have no idea what I should do. I can not wait for things to improve because who knows when that will be, I also can not work for less money that I was getting there. I can not change shifts either to be home with my children during the day as my husband works 5:30 till 5 five days a week and 6 hours on Saturdays.

I’ve been trying and trying to come up with a reasonable solution but I don’t have many ideas. One thought was trying to start a home day care, which I am thinking about what I need a plan to fall back on.