Sorry to hear about your loss as well Jerry. I've been down that road several times and I can look back and say that it was kinda of like they did me a favor. In my case it had ended up getting a better job because of it that I enjoyed. Over time I'm learning to stay away from government or state jobs that are contract or volatile with budgets. I would say the post office would probably be an exception, but aerospace, DOD, defense, semiconductors, DOT, corrections and the list is long are areas that are volatile when money gets tight. I would say what had driven what happened in your case is that your prisons (like many others) budgets have or will be cutting back and possible guards and others will be cut in time. The part of them keeping a lazy worker and getting rid of a good worker that cares what he is doing is beyond stupidity at the very least. This shows you the mentality of your management and I've seen that happen more times than not. It seems almost like the most stupidest people end up in that decision process. There are very few company's that see a good worker and will move them into a safe position to keep his or her job when they see bad times. Those company's are extremely rare but have high morale and very low attrition.

I know it's hard to do but don't let it get you down and this will help pave way to something much better down the road, as we always said out at the cape was that [color:"red"] layoffs were like falling off a wave that you are surfing on, you shake off the beatings and swim back out and catch another wave and rock on! [/color]