Bite my lip and close my eyes...
I'm bored.
And a little sad.
Friday evening, sometime around 12:00AM EST, the large corporation, itself a subsidiary of a mega-corporation, sold my division to an independent distributor of our products.
Some of you may remember the craziness of the time when I first moved out here, the 12-16 hour days, the doing everything with duct tape and good intentions, the wild, unbelievable goal of standing up a sales and distribution network of 24 physical locations, $80M+ inventory, and more than 300 employees (almost none of which had any experience or training in our field)...all in 90 days.
Seriously, that was the best time in my professional career. And it feels like it was all basically for nothing.
During that startup phase, I was doing all kinds of things I had never done before. Inventory receiving, facilities procurement, obtaining business licences, dealing with building code inspectors. Explaining benefits and paycheck information to new employees, training the technical aspects of our industry, working with vendors for services and supplies (I'm still damn proud that the coffee service I selected is our vendor to this day, and the only instruction I received on that task was "Get coffee in here by the end of the week"). Since we officially opened our doors, it's kind of been all bad. First, the fact that I was experienced meant that I was expected to move back in to the role I had filled in Dallas, even though I had shown and aptitude and enthusiasm for bigger and better things. Then the financialocolypse hit, and it was all "Spend less" and "salary freeze" and worst of all "hiring freeze" (here's the dirty secret of a hiring freeze...it's also a firing freeze, even if someone is grossly incompetent at their job. If you can't replace them, you can't get rid of them). And layoffs. Plenty of those. As of the time of sale, we were a 19 location operation with about 185 employees.
So here come our new masters...and the sale and all the stuff that goes with it has been handled extremely poorly by Large Corporation. They haven't let The New Guys talk to anyone not deemed "transition mission critical" about whether or not they have a position. They've been extremely circumspect about any of the details of the deal, and when they have told us things, they have been contradictory to what we had been told previously. For the last month my office has been a combination of Turkish prison and quilting circle. All gossip and rumor and everyone with a look on their face that says they would gladly shank you to be the last one on the life boat. It feels like I'm watching all the hard work, all the blood, sweat and tears, all the time and the love I've put into this place being garage sale haggled into oblivion, and it's pissing me off.
Tomorrow morning, I'll go into work, and nothing will really be different. As a term of the sale, we will all continue to be Large Corporation Employees until the 30th, giving The New Guys a chance to make offers to those they wish to keep. I'm fairly certain that they'll make me an offer. I'm also fairly certain that the offer they make will represent a not-insignificant pay cut. Sure, they'll promise metric-based bonuses to make up the difference, and maybe even say that at the end of the day I'll get paid more. And I'm positive they'll believe that. And I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it won't be true. Unless they have a pretty radical restructuring in mind, and are willing to bleed customers and market share in the process, it's just not going to be possible for them to make the numbers they need to pay bonuses. Those are "vapor benefits" as far as I'm concerned.
And so, dear readers, comes my problem: Why should I keep on trying? I gave my all, and my all was damn good, and in return I got demoted, underpaid, traded off like a second-string bench warmer, then (presumably) insulted by the New Guys. All while watching this thing that I poured myself into get run into the ground by incompetence, then indolence, and now watch in get broken up and sold for scrap. It's been a long time since I really loved the functions of my job, but I've always loved the company. I was very much a company man. Fat lot of good that did me.
So yeah, why bother?
Also, for old times sake...Because I am bored, you should suggest something for me to do, elsewise I find myself a party clown to kill.
And a little sad.
Friday evening, sometime around 12:00AM EST, the large corporation, itself a subsidiary of a mega-corporation, sold my division to an independent distributor of our products.
Some of you may remember the craziness of the time when I first moved out here, the 12-16 hour days, the doing everything with duct tape and good intentions, the wild, unbelievable goal of standing up a sales and distribution network of 24 physical locations, $80M+ inventory, and more than 300 employees (almost none of which had any experience or training in our field)...all in 90 days.
Seriously, that was the best time in my professional career. And it feels like it was all basically for nothing.
During that startup phase, I was doing all kinds of things I had never done before. Inventory receiving, facilities procurement, obtaining business licences, dealing with building code inspectors. Explaining benefits and paycheck information to new employees, training the technical aspects of our industry, working with vendors for services and supplies (I'm still damn proud that the coffee service I selected is our vendor to this day, and the only instruction I received on that task was "Get coffee in here by the end of the week"). Since we officially opened our doors, it's kind of been all bad. First, the fact that I was experienced meant that I was expected to move back in to the role I had filled in Dallas, even though I had shown and aptitude and enthusiasm for bigger and better things. Then the financialocolypse hit, and it was all "Spend less" and "salary freeze" and worst of all "hiring freeze" (here's the dirty secret of a hiring freeze...it's also a firing freeze, even if someone is grossly incompetent at their job. If you can't replace them, you can't get rid of them). And layoffs. Plenty of those. As of the time of sale, we were a 19 location operation with about 185 employees.
So here come our new masters...and the sale and all the stuff that goes with it has been handled extremely poorly by Large Corporation. They haven't let The New Guys talk to anyone not deemed "transition mission critical" about whether or not they have a position. They've been extremely circumspect about any of the details of the deal, and when they have told us things, they have been contradictory to what we had been told previously. For the last month my office has been a combination of Turkish prison and quilting circle. All gossip and rumor and everyone with a look on their face that says they would gladly shank you to be the last one on the life boat. It feels like I'm watching all the hard work, all the blood, sweat and tears, all the time and the love I've put into this place being garage sale haggled into oblivion, and it's pissing me off.
Tomorrow morning, I'll go into work, and nothing will really be different. As a term of the sale, we will all continue to be Large Corporation Employees until the 30th, giving The New Guys a chance to make offers to those they wish to keep. I'm fairly certain that they'll make me an offer. I'm also fairly certain that the offer they make will represent a not-insignificant pay cut. Sure, they'll promise metric-based bonuses to make up the difference, and maybe even say that at the end of the day I'll get paid more. And I'm positive they'll believe that. And I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it won't be true. Unless they have a pretty radical restructuring in mind, and are willing to bleed customers and market share in the process, it's just not going to be possible for them to make the numbers they need to pay bonuses. Those are "vapor benefits" as far as I'm concerned.
And so, dear readers, comes my problem: Why should I keep on trying? I gave my all, and my all was damn good, and in return I got demoted, underpaid, traded off like a second-string bench warmer, then (presumably) insulted by the New Guys. All while watching this thing that I poured myself into get run into the ground by incompetence, then indolence, and now watch in get broken up and sold for scrap. It's been a long time since I really loved the functions of my job, but I've always loved the company. I was very much a company man. Fat lot of good that did me.
So yeah, why bother?
Also, for old times sake...Because I am bored, you should suggest something for me to do, elsewise I find myself a party clown to kill.