I am so f**king bummed right now.

[Beer Snob-50]

I just got a phone call from a co-worker at one of our locations. He is dying of cancer and he was asking about his 401K and then he asked if he gets a pension. I told him no he has no pension and I thought he was going to start crying. Also, the only life insurance he has is our policy for him.

[fleabert]

1. so sorry, for him and for you to have to be the bearer of more bad news

Sadly, there are so many people in his situation...

[yvr girl]

2. That's rough.

I don't suppose he has disability insurance either.

:hug:

[Beer Snob-50]

4. it doesn't sound like it.

[bigtree]

3. crappy world

most of the time. Maybe some sort of fund can be arranged w/ co-workers.

[Kali]

5. oh

that hurt, My sympathies for having to handle that. The poor person. God some parts of our society are so fucked up.

[Willy Lee]

6. Can he get his social security?

We went through something similar and were able to get some payments from SS.

[Beer Snob-50]

7. he is old enough.

i don't know what he put into it before he came to work for us.

[skygazer]

8. Most people are one catastrophe away from bankruptcy

I know I am. I'm going through a crappy situation right now - I have some medical issues that are causing a lot of pain as well as requiring me to visit the doctor a lot. I can't afford to miss work because I need to work in order to maintain my benefits to pay for all this. I had elective surgery last year so I don't have anything in the way of disability to fall back on - had I known this was going to come up, I would have postponed the other.

It's a constant catch-22 with health care and benefits for so many working people. They're okay as long as they can continue working but when the shit hits the fan, they find out they really have only a thin tissue of a financial support system.