There are two ways to pass a hurdle: leaping over or plowing through... There needs to be a monster truck option. - Jeph Jacgues
So have you heard? My company got sold.
Well, actually, acquired, whatever that means.
It means that we will now have to deal with six months to a year of aggravation, segregation, alienation, procrastination, and any other 'nation' you can think of.
Will we still have our jobs?
Will we be relocating to another site?
Will I still be able to spend that month in Malta?
Okay, that last one isn't real, just checking to see if you are paying attention. Anyway, my $55 million company got "acquired" by a $39 million company that we were told, fairly recently, was going bankrupt and out of business because of the way they are being run. To top that off, the president of the acquiring company will be in charge of the us acquiree's. (I know that isn't a word, thankyouverymuch Mr. spell check).
Makes sense so far, right? Now get this...
The current president of our company, who just two months ago told us about the "evils and bad company management" of the acquiring company, now tells me to put all that information into a file, and shred it.
What the (expletive deleted)?
Seriously, does he think that we are all that STUPID?
Apparently, some of us are, because they all had Kool-Aid stains all over their shirts.
Don't get me wrong, I am all for the merger, because we are actually being bought by a much larger ($12 Billion) company, with lots of opportunities. What I don't like is how it appears that we are being "sold down the river" by these rich people getting richer at the expense of us non-rich people.
Oh yeah, I may be conservative, but it doesn't mean I am all for everything corporate. Nor, for that matter (notice my tangent...) am I a racist because I don't like how the president is selling our country down the river, by saying "(expletive deleted) Constitution, who needs this (expletive deleted) old piece of paper anyway?" Um, it's what made you president moron.
Back to my original rant...
Where was I? Oh yeah, the merger. So, we have a question and answer session, where I did bring up the issue above - the look on the CEO's face was priceless since he knew that I knew it was him bad mouthing the new guys. Benefits of a small company. I should point out that our company president and CEO are one and the same, in case I confused anyone. He was brought in to make the company "sell-able" and did his job, it's what he is good at.
The questions that were asked got answered, sort of, because you know they can't tell us "everything." What fun would that be.
By the way, on a completely different subject... ROLL TIDE! (currently they are winning 24-6 with 5:34 left in the third).
I'm thinking that you definitely need a monster truck option for this one. I hope the merger goes as smoothly as a merger can. Maybe smoother.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking from experience, never believe anything a company tells you before they sell, merge, or are acquired by another company. Never believe anything that is said from company that is acquiring your current company. Basically, whoever is taking over is there to get as much out of the employees that they can before they bleed it dry...in which case, it will either fold altogether, or somebody else will buy it and try to prop it up enough to squeeze a few more drops of your blood out of it.
ReplyDeleteWhen my husband, who is a research scientist, worked for Amoco (before BP bought them out) he could see the writing on the wall...Amoco was going down the drain. He found that he was no longer doing research, but just "troubleshooting". Anyway, Amoco was laying off engineers and scientist at a rapid rate. The few remaining engineers that were left at his research plant were given the choice to take early retirement, find another job with a severance package, or be transferred to Texas. A large group of them with young families decided to take the transfer. They sold their homes, pulled their kids from school, and started a new life in another State. Three months after the transferees were in Texas, they all got laid off.
My husband had the good sense to get out of Amoco before he was laid off. But it doesn't end there...
He started with a small company that does research which sells it to companies like Amoco, Exxon/Mobile, etc. Originally, it was owned by two large parent companies, Dow and Honeywell. They were run independently, and they were consistently making large profits for their parent companies. Then about two years ago, Dow sold out to Honeywell. They told my husbands company that nothing would change, health care benefits, pay, vacations...everything the same. The company continued to make large profits for Honeywell. In return, Honeywell put them on forced furloughs without pay, one week every quarter. Then Honeywell realized that the workers were using that as vacation time, so they just cut their salary by one week every quarter. That way they can have the pleasure of working for free. Now Honeywell is complaining because productivity is down and they are losing customers. You see, when doing research, you just can't stop in the middle of running an experiment and gathering data. So...their fix for that? They stopped allowing the scientists to give talks at conferences throughout the scientific community in the US and around the world. That's how they "sell their wares" so to speak. All travel is now banned (unless the scientist wants to pay for the travel and use their own vacation time to do it.)
Needless to say, this company won't last long. The bean-counters at Honeywell see only one thing...how much money they can make in the short run. They save millions of dollars for every unpaid week for the employees at this company. That's all they care about. What they don't look at is the profit in the future they are losing. And they know, these guys have no where else to go because of the current job market. Honeywell will bleed them dry. Scumbags.
(Sorry, this turned into MY rant.)
My suggestion...keep your eyes and ears open and don't believe anything unless you see it in writing...and then, still don't believe it.