Here are some links about some education programs that might help those of laid off from Aces and found our skills that were so compatible with Flight Sim and so forth were not valued in the rest of Microsoft.
There are programs where you can receive your unemployment benefits while taking classes to make yourself more employable. There are a lot of catches. — you’re dealing with goverment bureaucracy after all — but BC in particular has very experienced people to help you figure out if you qualify and help you with the process.
Workforce Education:
http://bellevuecollege.edu/we/wetrainprog.asp
Approved Training Programs:
http://bellevuecollege.edu/we/wrp/wrptrainprog.asp
They have regular info sessions on campus which you have to attend:
http://bellevuecollege.edu/we/wrp/default.asp
Info about receiving unemployment:
http://bellevuecollege.edu/we/wrp/wrpui.asp
I highly recommend you attend the CAT/TB session. I ended up having to fax 14 pages for my application. If you don’t do things just right, you may mess up your UI status forever.
