There was some question in the last blog why I didn't mention Nikki. Oops, I kinda forgot, so I'll give you a little more updated info this time around.
Yesterday, Xavier got his exit lay-off interview. He got nothing special and yes, he's going to lose his pension. That makes me the angriest. We have to stay until Nov 2, 2009 in order to get that pension vested, and yes it is a lot of money. No, they will not give him the pension he has earned up till now. Next question, how do we get the most amount of money we can? Option 1: He walks away. They pay 3 mos notice, which he will have to work every day during those 3 months and walk away with a small lump sum of cash and then go directly onto unemployment. Option 2: He walks away. They pay a smaller lump sum, forego the 3 mos pay (I think) and goes directly into the transfer company, where he will receive retraining if he needs it and help for re-employment and will stay in this transfer company for up to 6 mos with 80% of his net income, then if he doesn't find a job, he will go onto unemployment. If he does find a job, then he will receive 20% of his net income for the remaining time he would have been with the transfer company. Option 3: Fight. He will get no money, not sure if he will be able to go onto unemployment and will sue the company to keep his job. Suing takes an avg 14 mos in Germany and in the end he may or may not win. Option 4: Fight. Sue. But during the suing process Xavier will have to go to work and in the end he may or may not win and he will get layed off again the first chance they have. Option 5: Our preferred: Fight. Sue the company. Company keeps him home but with his full salary. The suing takes us past our date of Nov 2, 2009 upon which the pension will be vested by law, then they may offer another severance package for Xavier to walk, another lump sum which he will take and leave the company. During the time he is home, he can look for other jobs or even better, research and get set up to start his own company.
Complications: Company might go bankrupt before Nov 2, 2009. Next week there will be a meeting and we'll find out if Saxonia (German govt) will pay Qimonda money to keep it afloat. Currently, Qimonda only has enough money to pay people through March 2009. If that's the case, why aren't more people being layed off? Only 2 out of Xavier's dept of 14 are being layed off.
Xavier has until next week to accept the severance package. Xavier is upset because there are supposed to be laws protecting people supporting families and Xavier has 3 small children. About 1/2 his dept are single. Xavier's lawyer says he has a very good case to fight. Next week, we'll find out if the German govt is going to bail out Qimonda. That's what will make our decision. If they get bailed out, we will fight only if Xavier will be allowed to get paid during the fight (no unemployment). A judge decides that before you start the law suit. You file a petition and it takes 2 weeks for a judge to say yay or nay to remain working for the company during the law suit. We feel in our souls that we need to fight this one. There is a time to learn how to fight and experience fighting. I think this is it. Our goal is to 1: buy time in order to both look and find a job 2: get our pension that was part of the original negotiation when Xavier was first hired. Xavier has been looking for jobs now for about 3 mos and hasn't found anything yet. He is worried about having to take a pay cut and not being able to find a job before money runs out.
Having children makes everything much more complicated. The kids are finally stable and in a good situation. They go to a great kindergarten and uprooting them again will hurt Anais badly, I think. We have very little desire to uproot again. The mere thought just gives me stress. Moving to Germany has been one of the WORST experiences of my life. I know what it means now to do it again and I really don'T want to. There is good and bad about every country, but moving from one country to the next is so daunting. In all honesty, I have much less complaints about Germany, than I do about the US. Our neighbors in Austin were a surrogate family for me and moving away from them hurt me the most. I cannot get close to anyone here because of the language barrier. It is very isolating. I'm not sure what would make me happy anymore. I feel as though travelling has made me completely spoiled and now I'm too exigent where there is no perfect fit. Family, ocean, mtns, sandy beach, nature, sunshine, good food, good social, 6 weeks vacation, good schools, excellent cheap kindergarten, good health, low cost of living, nice affordable house, capacity to have an actual retirement at 60, quick access to my family in Chicago and Xavier's family in France. Oh, and being able to communicate would be nice. If any of you know the answer to this, please let me know. We also want to raise the kids in a French/English school environment. Germany fits into many of those criterion.
Anais is now requesting to watch our American movies and cartoons in German and when she plays make-believe by herself, she speaks in German. I guess that's normal. I've learned that my children's capacity to socialize is directly related to my capacity to socialize, which I have been doing very poorly since we've been here. I have to make an effort now to socialize with specific friends of my children and their parents. I don't make much effort currently and that is my fault. I need to have goals to invite a kid for each of mine over to our house 1X a week. Austin seems to have tons of friends in kindergarten, which surprises me. He seems very popular, especially with the girls. It makes me feel very good and very proud.
We went to a party last sunday at one of Xavier's french friend's house. He is divorced and came to germany to escape his meltdown with his wife. Anyway his kids are already grown and he has another french girlfriend whose in the same situation roughly as he his. Anyway he saw Xavier Monday after the party and told Xavier that I was a great mom and really stable emotionally and with my head in the right place. I think that is the greatest compliment I've had since I can remember. As parents we do our best, but we're always afraid of really screwing up our kids or hurting them unintentionally. I love my family very much and they are the most important in my life. I just want everyone to be well-rounded, happy and healthy. I think when you are well-rounded, then you will be healthy and happy. It's hard to maintain balance. We struggle with that all the time.
Other family news: Anais joined the choir at kindergarten. I think she will be singing in a X-mas concert at the school on Dec 18. I signed both kids up yesterday to bake x-mas cookies at the school. They seemed to really enjoy that. The kindergarten also has a kid parlament where each group has representatives that vote representing the children's interests. It's a nice idea, but I have no idea how it actually works.
Nikki is totally huge. He must weigh now at least 8 kilos. He'll turn 6 mos on the 8th of Dec and is already wearing clothes for a 12 month old, but that might be deceiving because my dryer shrinks everything. I have to buy 1-2 shirt sizes bigger for all the kids, in order for them to be shrunk to the right size for the kids. Nikki laughs a lot and eats a lot. I give him solid dinners now at night. I read Anais a story last night in bed and Nikki seemed to enjoy it more than Anais. He was touching all over the book, really looking at the pictures and trying to eat it. He can grab things very well now and holds stuff in his hands. He can grab his pacifier and put it into his mouth. He seems to be able to express himself pretty well. I believe he tries to say mama. When he cries for me, sometimes he says ma ma ma ma. I think he is beautiful and very smart. He loves his bath and adores being taken care of by both Anais and Austin. Anais gives Nikki lots of attention. She helps me feed him at night and likes to take his bath with him. She sits next to him in the car and is patient when he cries, whereas Austin yells "stop crying" at Nikki. Nikki plays with toys now. If they light up and make noise, he's very happy. He enjoys his walker and is just learning to move forwards instead of just backwards. I think he is very smart. When I took him into the doctor for his second set of shots, he laid on the bed and took one look at the doctor and immediately started crying. It appeared as though he knew what was coming. Last time we went to the doctor, Anais had a 5 yr development check-up. The doctor asked Anais to hop sideways back and forth over a line on the floor and she started hopping to show what she wanted Anais to do. I was sitting in the chair with Nikki on my lap and he just started cracking up when he saw the doctor hop back and forth over this line. It was hilarious. He was at most 5 mos old at the time. It was sweet. We all had a good laugh.
I think that's it for news here. The English class in already filled to start next month. I asked to have an option for a third class. I want all kids to have the option to take the English class. I'm afraid people won't push because it's already full. The list was full within the first week it got posted. I ordered a book yesterday to help me with this class. We'll see if it's any good. My syllabus is all set from last year. I might try to vary it a bit this yr.
I hope you are all well for x-mas and the new year. We are staying home this yr in an intimate family set up. Xavier's parents wanted us to come to Maubeuge. Xavier's sister was going there as well the day after x-mas. We cannot handle the stress of all those people in one house. We cannot afford a Gite this yr so we would have to stay there. I cannot handle my in-laws fighting and Daniel getting drunk. Xavier agreed it would be too stressful. We decided to stay here. I think his parents are angry so they don't want to come here, they would rather stay in Maubeuge alone if that ends up being the case. When they come here the same issues just extend under our roof. Yvette takes control of my kitchen and she cooks great, but then we're forced to spend every bloody day waiting on Yvette to cook. She never cooks on time and the kids are always hungry. We end up eating btw 1-2 PM. Dinner is at earliest 7 PM. It's a nightmare. The kids need to be in bed by 7:30PM in order to get up on time for school. Our schedule gets all screwed up because we have to go on Yvette's schedule. I've tried to make her comply to ours, but it ends up being all out war and in the end it just isn't worth the fight. I still lose the fight in my own home anyway. I've learned a long time ago to give up control right away when Yvette comes. It's the easiest way to go. When the kids get hungry, I send them to Yvette. IF she wants to cook twice because she won't eat at the kid's schedule, that's her problem. I refuse to cook twice. That was the source of one of our first wars. Don't get me wrong, I love my mother-in-law as much as a daughter-in-law can. I appreciate her good qualities and we actually do get along. However, not sure how much that is saying. If I am capable of getting along with Anglika (even after months of serious dislike), the teacher of the kids pre-school in Linden, a Bavarian village, then as far as I'm concerned, I can get along with just about anyone. It was hard to get along and to accept Angelika for all her ignorance and bull-headedness.
I hope all of you have a wonderful x-mas. If anyone feels like popping over to Munich over the holidays let us know. We will surely be here.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Germany News Nov 2008
Hello everyone. I decided to try the blog thing again for news so that everyone won't have to be tortured into reading too much if they don't want to.
Kid news:
Austin and Anais are both in kindergarten. Austin is doing fine. He has some friends and the teachers tell me he is both very sweet and very bright. He understands a fair amt of German already after only 2 months and he started speaking German the first day. I was pretty impressed. Anais is still Anais. She is doing well also. She has a German class at kindergarten 1X week with other foreign kids by an actual school teacher to get her German up to speed. Anais is in her last year of kindergarten and this is called a Vorschules Kind, before school child. She is learning numbers and shapes and still has speech therapy 1X week and has special play session with a teacher again for German learning 1X week. Austin has the same as Anais, but sees 2 speech therapists and has speech therapy 2X week, but no special German learning for 1st grade prep. We are not sure where to put Anais for school next year. We have to get this going now though and get our decision made. I definitely don't want her in our little local village school. I think there, they completely lack the infrastructure for our foreign kids. I admit I totally look down on the local school. It's made for farmers who have lived in these few villages generation after generation and some of whom cannot even speak proper German (they only understand their local bavarian dialect). Couple that with the local people not going far in school because you don't need much to be a farmer and that results in terror for parents like us. I think our kids would be more or less screwed in that kind of a situation with such low priorities given to education from both the families and the schools. Oye.
The kids are also in gymnastics. Anais is in actual gymnastics with the gymnastic equipment and she seems to really like it. The other one is just an age appropiate indoor physical playing for kids. Otherwise, I'm still co-chairing the international playgroup in Holzkirchen and I'll be teaching English again at the kids kindergarten. I guess it was pretty well received last year and this year they have more interest in the class. And I'm teaching English privately to an adult 1X week for spoken English on the side.
Xavier's company is beginning to tank and he will be layed off soon. He's been looking for another job, but cannot find one as of yet. The CEO and head people put this company into this situation and personally I think they should be sued by the employees and fired. They're going to push hard to get Xavier out the door first. We are going to leave, that's not a problem, but we have a lawyer and we are going to rip them apart on the way out and take as much money from them as we can. Going after Xavier first was a mistake. We have enough experience now that you don't just roll over and let yourself be abused by a company. We are going to go after the company and fight our way out the door. We don't need to stay employed by these people, afterall who wants remain on a sinking ship? But legally they have no right to get rid of Xavier now by law because he has a housewife and 3 young children. They cannot fire him or lay him off by German law. We think they are singling him out because he has a high salary. If there is too much meanness in this company, I want to meet with Xavier'S lawyer and I want to set up a law suit against Qimonda and personally against the CEO and advisory board for poor leadership and putting the company into this mess in the first place. Germans are good soldiers who always do what they are told and are very proud and who respect authority. I don't think they are much used to suing authority. They will soon get a wake up call. We have never fought before, given we have nothing to lose, we are going to go for the jugular this time around and see what happens. A lot of people get screwed out of their jobs due to poor decision making and poor leadership at the top. I think it's these people who ought to be held accountable and who should be layed off like the rest of the company.
We're not sure if we are going to try to stay in Munich or move to a new place. After much thought, our top choices are Munich, Geneva, Vancouver or Austin, maybe Denver. We'll see where xavier can find work. The banking crisis in the US has bled over to a crisis in Europe. Companies are in a panic now and there are hiring freezes everywhere. It is not a good time for looking for a new job. The recession has begun here. The next 6 mos might be very difficult for us. I am tired of this instability. One thing I've learned. The minute there is a financial crisis, all countries close down to foreign workers and save jobs only for their fellow people. Xavier being French puts him at a disadvantage everywhere outside of France and yes the US sadly is no different.
hope all of you are well. I'm thinking of everyone and miss you,
Take care, love,
Jennel
Kid news:
Austin and Anais are both in kindergarten. Austin is doing fine. He has some friends and the teachers tell me he is both very sweet and very bright. He understands a fair amt of German already after only 2 months and he started speaking German the first day. I was pretty impressed. Anais is still Anais. She is doing well also. She has a German class at kindergarten 1X week with other foreign kids by an actual school teacher to get her German up to speed. Anais is in her last year of kindergarten and this is called a Vorschules Kind, before school child. She is learning numbers and shapes and still has speech therapy 1X week and has special play session with a teacher again for German learning 1X week. Austin has the same as Anais, but sees 2 speech therapists and has speech therapy 2X week, but no special German learning for 1st grade prep. We are not sure where to put Anais for school next year. We have to get this going now though and get our decision made. I definitely don't want her in our little local village school. I think there, they completely lack the infrastructure for our foreign kids. I admit I totally look down on the local school. It's made for farmers who have lived in these few villages generation after generation and some of whom cannot even speak proper German (they only understand their local bavarian dialect). Couple that with the local people not going far in school because you don't need much to be a farmer and that results in terror for parents like us. I think our kids would be more or less screwed in that kind of a situation with such low priorities given to education from both the families and the schools. Oye.
The kids are also in gymnastics. Anais is in actual gymnastics with the gymnastic equipment and she seems to really like it. The other one is just an age appropiate indoor physical playing for kids. Otherwise, I'm still co-chairing the international playgroup in Holzkirchen and I'll be teaching English again at the kids kindergarten. I guess it was pretty well received last year and this year they have more interest in the class. And I'm teaching English privately to an adult 1X week for spoken English on the side.
Xavier's company is beginning to tank and he will be layed off soon. He's been looking for another job, but cannot find one as of yet. The CEO and head people put this company into this situation and personally I think they should be sued by the employees and fired. They're going to push hard to get Xavier out the door first. We are going to leave, that's not a problem, but we have a lawyer and we are going to rip them apart on the way out and take as much money from them as we can. Going after Xavier first was a mistake. We have enough experience now that you don't just roll over and let yourself be abused by a company. We are going to go after the company and fight our way out the door. We don't need to stay employed by these people, afterall who wants remain on a sinking ship? But legally they have no right to get rid of Xavier now by law because he has a housewife and 3 young children. They cannot fire him or lay him off by German law. We think they are singling him out because he has a high salary. If there is too much meanness in this company, I want to meet with Xavier'S lawyer and I want to set up a law suit against Qimonda and personally against the CEO and advisory board for poor leadership and putting the company into this mess in the first place. Germans are good soldiers who always do what they are told and are very proud and who respect authority. I don't think they are much used to suing authority. They will soon get a wake up call. We have never fought before, given we have nothing to lose, we are going to go for the jugular this time around and see what happens. A lot of people get screwed out of their jobs due to poor decision making and poor leadership at the top. I think it's these people who ought to be held accountable and who should be layed off like the rest of the company.
We're not sure if we are going to try to stay in Munich or move to a new place. After much thought, our top choices are Munich, Geneva, Vancouver or Austin, maybe Denver. We'll see where xavier can find work. The banking crisis in the US has bled over to a crisis in Europe. Companies are in a panic now and there are hiring freezes everywhere. It is not a good time for looking for a new job. The recession has begun here. The next 6 mos might be very difficult for us. I am tired of this instability. One thing I've learned. The minute there is a financial crisis, all countries close down to foreign workers and save jobs only for their fellow people. Xavier being French puts him at a disadvantage everywhere outside of France and yes the US sadly is no different.
hope all of you are well. I'm thinking of everyone and miss you,
Take care, love,
Jennel
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