The $26,000-a-year job he had with the county gave Yaugher more than an income. The communications supply warehouse was full of friends, and working with the supply end of the county's vast emergency communications network was a daily thrill for the ham radio enthusiast. The shipments he would order and oversee included phone booth-size repeaters and transistors no larger than a fly's head.

"I loved my job, I just loved it," Yaugher said. He began working for the county when he was 17, a young man elated to find a job that seemed to promise both security and extensive promotion opportunities.

"I thought I was set. I was just wrong."

Some days seem to drift away now for Yaugher. He busies himself making Jessica's meals and guiding her through alphabet lessons on the family computer. He finds a welcome escape with his ham radio hobby, chatting and joking with friends across the region.

His search continues for another warehouse management or inventory control job, but the prospects of finding one quickly appear grim.

Making the ordeal more difficult, Yaugher said, is watching some county leaders and officials escape the bankruptcy crisis more or less unscathed.

"Mismanagement and irresponsibility, that's what led to all of this," Yaugher said. "But they're not paying the price, we are. It just doesn't seem fair. We had nothing to do with it."

Despite 10 years' service, Yaugher knew he would likely lose his job when the cutbacks hit. He had been an employee for six years and then left for a different job. His second stint lasted one year, cut short by a motorcycle accident. He bounced back from that and returned for a third tenure, but the books showed him as a just a three-year employee when the news came that there would be layoffs.

"There was just a chain of events I had no control over."

Yaugher said he doesn't dwell on bad luck or bitter thoughts because he and his wife have far more pressing concerns. They have cut back greatly on their expenses and expect a scaled-back holiday celebration this year. The couple rarely go out, he said, and they have long since canceled their daughter's day-care program, which was too pricey at $320 a month.

The time Yaugher now spends with Jessica seems to be the sole positive of his layoff, but he added that even that has a downside.

"She should be spending time with kids her age, she needs that exposure to peers," he said. "And her dad, of course, should be working."