Originally Posted by beernutt

I was a 9/11 furloughee. The mil guys went back to active duty, reserves or guard. The civilian guy (me) sent out resumes all over and until I got a job flying in Saudi Arabia for ARAMCO I was driving a tow truck, working in a hardware store and managing a movie theater. Simultaneously.

Other civilian furloughees I knew sold real estate, did construction jobs, worked as repo guys and generally did whatever they could to keep the lights on and eat until recall. A couple of guys offed themselves. No US flying jobs available unless you were in the very first wave of furloughs, and even then employers at even the lowest-rent operations would have nothing to do with you because they knew you would leave as soon as you were recalled.

Best advice I can give - if you’re going to be furloughed make sure you’re either independently wealthy or single with no debt. If you’re married, and/or with kids make sure to have a wealthy spouse. Be prepared to take any job, anywhere. Any amount of preplanning you can do now will help, like debt reduction, sending out resumes, and downsizing. You can always buy more useless crap later.

Furlough sucks. It was the most stressful 4 1/2 years of my life, but I learned a lot about myself and my capabilities. I hope it doesn’t happen to anyone here, but if it does you’ll emerge a stronger person with a better perspective on what’s hard and easy, and when dudes bellyache about not upgrading in two years or having to be based in NYC for longer than 15 minutes you’ll laugh at them. Like I do.