Be careful during these trying times folks:
11-20-2008
Drove 2,000 miles to get axed Day 1!
In August, the St. Lawrence Zinc company in upstate New York laid off Gallup.
Sam Gallup bolted New York for a new home, a new life and a new job in Montana.
One 10-hour shift later, he was facing the same old problem: Unemployment.
The 24-year-old upstate mine worker traveled 2,000 miles to find work only to get laid off after one day on the payroll of the Stillwater Mining Co.
"It's kind of a dead-end situation," Gallup said Thursday.
"Job security? There is none. Right now, I'm in the financial situation of losing everything."
Stillwater recruited him and some co-workers willing to leave their homes for Montana.
"I packed up everything I owned in my car and drove out here," he said from Montana.
"Took me three days. Then I drove two hours to work, two hours home, with a 10-hour shift between."
And that was it.
Stillwater, which mines platinum and palladium at two sites in southern Montana, laid off more than 500 employees this week from a work force of 1,770.
Gallup receives his one-day check on Dec. 1.