change in employment status

Big news! Zach's leaving his job!

And he doesn't really have another one set up quite yet.  

It is... slightly scary.  I'll give you that.

So this is the situation: Zach's been working for Company A for about 7 years now.  It's gone ok, though the past year or 2 have not been the best.  A few weeks ago they announced that Zach's department (about 80 people or so) would get spun off into Company B.  Details were sketchy, but basically Company B would be treated as a brand-new start-up type company, with no pay changes but some loss of benefits and total loss of seniority (he'd get treated as a brand-new employee rather that someone who's been there for 7+ years).  

For a while Zach thought the only options were to a) quit, and be completely income-less from day 1 and b) go with Company B and hope for the best.  Then yesterday he found out there was a hidden option c) where he could turn down the job at Company B and instead get effectively laid off from Company A with severance pay (and be eligible for unemployment after that). 

He's been super stressed out at work lately, so much so that he'd come home and complain about chest pains.  And his current job path, especially if going over to Company B, isn't the direction he wants to go.  Lots of stuff has been going down with Company A, and we've talked every situation up and down and inside and out, so that when he heard of this 3rd option he knew he could accept it right away.  Nothing is written in stone yet, but for now we're expecting that as part of getting laid off he'll get couple months notice and then another couple months' worth of severance pay after that (we're waiting to see if Congress will extend the unemployment benefits package so that we may also take advantage of getting a huge break on COBRA).  

I will admit, when he first came home yesterday and told me the news I think my blood pressure went up quite a bit for several hours.  It's scary to be a stay at home mom and find out that your husband will soon be out of a job.  But, Zach is quite happy with his decision, and I'm now feeling a lot more comfortable with it, too.  I don't like my husband working at a job that is likely to give him a heart attack-- it's just not worth it.  We're also in a good enough situation to make this type of decision.  Hopefully Zach will be able to find a job within four months (several others have left Company A in the past months, and all of them have found jobs already).  But, we've also been diligent about saving all these years and so have a decent nest egg (aka the "Perhaps One Day We Can Afford To Buy A Shack In This Ridiculously Expensive Paradise Land" Fund) that can be tapped into and would last us a while, if necessary.  He'll also start looking into applying to grad schools, so that's one fall-back if no jobs come through.  And since we don't have a mortgage and D isn't in school yet, we're flexible in case we end up needing to move for either a job or school opportunity.

So, for now at least, we remain optimistic.  Zach's already been emailing different contacts and getting responses back and possible leads, so we're hopeful that he'll be able to find something else sooner rather than later.   I suppose we'll just cross our fingers and see what happens.