O.C. Layoffs Leave Hardship, Pain for Many

A systems analyst reborn as Mr. Mom. A former janitor and single mother searching desperately for work. A onetime research analyst who cries in her sleep. A 69-year-old clerical worker who wonders how long she can pay her mortgage.

These people--Paul Sheridan, Lap Doan, Renee Schulte and Lena Gniadek--are but a few of the dozens of employees recently laid off by Orange County, a government serving an area so affluent that its financial woes remain incomprehensible to many.

With the news that 1,040 other county workers will soon become the latest victims of Orange County’s bankruptcy, those in the first round of layoffs suffered again, only too aware of the hardships their former colleagues will soon face.

“When I heard about the . . . new layoffs, I just started crying,” said Diane Bouchard, a county property agent laid off in January. “I just can’t bear to think of other people going through what I’ve gone through.”

Those laid off between December and March have little in common except their former employer. They are white, black, Latino, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Iranian, 25-year-olds whose county employment represented their first post-college jobs and workers past 60 who had hoped to hang on until retirement.

Their circumstances are as varied as the positions they lost. But in interviews in the past two weeks with more than 50 laid-off county employees, a picture emerges of the human toll exacted by the county’s extraordinary plunge into bankruptcy.

Many former county workers are struggling to meet house and credit card payments, enduring discouraging job hunts and facing constant worry: that they will lose their homes, be unable to pay for medical care or snap once too often at their bewildered children.

They know now the pain that thousands of private sector workers in Southern California have felt through the hard years of recession and aerospace retreat--pain these government workers expected to avoid. With civil service jobs, the deal was supposed to be that you exchanged high salaries, and perhaps some opportunities to advance, for job security.

But the deal has been broken, and the impact is spreading--slowly, certainly, across the county.

Baby-sitters and gardeners are being let go. Optional spending for movies, dry-cleaning, new clothes and cable TV have been cut by many laid-off workers. Some have trimmed more critical expenditures, such as doctor visits and child support payments. One 17-year-old, the daughter of a laid-off county worker, has been told that her dreams of college are now on hold.

“She’s absolutely devastated, and I can’t blame her,” said Bill Grey, who had been a senior projects manager. “She’s trying very hard to understand.”

The layoff victims say they, too, are trying to understand.

How, several asked, could they be the ones laid off, often after years of good performance reviews? Why are they losing their jobs, when they had nothing to do with the county’s financial collapse? And why, many ask, were their dismissals handled so coldly, so impersonally, after years of service?

Helena Clift, 66, a former clerk typist for the Health Care Agency, still finds it painful to discuss her Jan. 24 layoff.

“The supervisor stood over me as I cleaned out my desk. She even said, ‘Don’t forget to give us the coffee club money!’ ” said Clift, who now hopes to supplement her unemployment checks by selling Easter hats and afghans she knits.

An eight-year county employee, Clift said she was told upon her dismissal “not to speak to anyone, just get out. It was like I was a criminal.”

A few, like Gail Mowry, a personal services coordinator in the personnel department, said their layoffs were handled with compassion by superiors who notified them privately and stressed that the terminations had nothing to do with performance. Indeed, other ex-workers wondered if there was any way for supervisors to handle well such a thankless task. Given the extent of the county’s travails and the number of layoffs to be made, they said, their dismissals were accomplished as humanely as could be expected.

More common, however, were complaints of insensitive treatment. Computers were shut down--and passwords changed--before the employees who operated them knew what was happening. Plainclothes deputies stood nearby in case of trouble.

And no one said, “I’m sorry.”

“I just wish these people could walk in my shoes, just one time in their lives, and know what they did to me,” said Gniadek, a former office specialist in the registrar of voters office. “Just one time.”

If they did, they would feel the shock and anxiety of a 69-year-old woman who has lost her job and says she has no idea how she will make her monthly mortgage, let alone escape the burden of debt she has carried since her husband’s death two years ago.

Gniadek, of Rancho Santa Margarita, said she had hoped that this year, when she became eligible for Social Security, she could pay off $5,000 in bills remaining from her husband’s hospitalization. There is no chance of that now, she said.

A few, like Cheryl Barba, a former county staff analyst who went through another layoff years ago before being hired by the county, are philosophical--and already at work at new, though often lower-paying, jobs. Weary of the mounting tension in the office, Barba volunteered to be laid off.

“I said, ‘Let me be the first,’ so I could get on with my life,” she said.

Others make no effort to hide their bitterness, particularly at members of the Orange County Board of Supervisors, whom they blame for the county’s financial debacle and for their sudden unemployment.

The supervisors have been “arrogant and ignorant, which is business as usual for these people,” said Charles Lus, a former project manager in facilities operations. “Instead of treating the county like a public trust, they’ve acted like spoiled little kids who have inherited the store from their parents.”

Maria Mendoza, 65, the county’s homeless issues coordinator before she was laid off, said she wondered if the supervisors had any idea of how degradingly laid-off workers were treated. On the other hand, said Mendoza--who was recognized statewide for her work with the homeless--”maybe they don’t care.”

Several laid-off workers complained that the ax fell especially heavily on those approaching retirement age, though most asserted that they worked as hard and were as capable as younger workers.

Samouen Chhay, 59, a translator and health care educator for the Cambodian community, said younger, less senior people were kept and older employees let go for no apparent reason other than their age.

“I thought people who had been there for a shorter time would be asked to leave. But that wasn’t the case,” said Chhay, a 10-year county veteran who worries that her age will make it hard for her to find work.

Lawyers for the largest county labor association have said the average age of workers affected by the first round of layoffs was 47 and that they were trying to determine whether a pattern of discrimination is emerging.

Through arbitration hearings ordered by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge overseeing the county’s bankruptcy case, some laid-off workers have now been reinstated. A handful of others have managed to find new jobs, although they are often lower-paying, temporary, or out of the area.

Jeff Henderson, 34, a county facilities projects manager for four years, last week left his wife and two young children behind in Orange County to take a three-month job in Portland.

For many, the single most difficult aspect of losing their jobs has been the loss of medical benefits. Although they are eligible to extend their benefits for 18 months under federal law, many said the cost is prohibitive, especially for people who now have little or no income.

To make matters worse, several said the stress they are suffering has provoked new medical problems, or exacerbated existing ones.

Tony Esparza, the county’s principal technical systems specialist before his layoff, said his blood pressure has shot up and he has been unable to sleep--conditions his doctor says are related to his job loss. More significant, Esparza said, his wife suffers from chronic medical problems, including a disabling form of rheumatism that will make it difficult to obtain new insurance.

Gayle Clanton, a former data entry technician with the registrar’s office, maintained her calm for weeks after losing her job. But Clanton’s composure was shattered March 8 when her husband suffered a major heart attack, in part because of the extra hours and worry about the family’s finances, she believes.

He is recuperating, but will be unable to work for the foreseeable future. “I’m no longer sure what we’ll do; we no longer have a plan,” Clanton said.

The job loss has thrust a number of former county employees into new roles. Several laid-off fathers, unable to find immediate work, are taking primary responsibility for their children.

Jeff Yaugher, 31, a onetime warehouse worker, is juggling his job search with caring for his 3-year-old daughter, Jessica. Paul Sheridan, 51, a senior systems planning analyst, is enduring pointed questions from his four children about the “crazy concoctions” he cooks for dinner.

Sheridan has other worries, too. Even before the layoff, the family lived paycheck to paycheck. Now, after several months of late payments, the family’s Pomona home is on the brink of foreclosure, he said.

“It’s been a roller coaster,” Sheridan said. “Sometimes you’re with your family and don’t have all the patience you once had. You’re snapping at the kids because you’re anxious inside. I look back and say, ‘Why did I just snap at the kids? Why was I not listening to my wife?’ ”

Times staff writers Lee Romney, Ching-Ching Ni and Tina Nguyen and correspondent Geoff Boucher contributed to this story.