August 27, 2009
-
Sold To The Highest Bidder
The boss sold my husband. It’s exactly as it sounds. Now, before anyone gets offended... DH is not obligated to approve of or accept the new situation. But, does he really have a choice???
This is not a booming economy in case you haven’t noticed. There are way too many people vying for the few jobs available. Granted my husband possesses a unique set of job skills that would make him difficult to replace; difficult... not impossible. So why sell the man? Simply stated; money.
The owners have never had a reason to fault DH’s work. He’s an artist, for goodness sake AND a math whiz… one of those self taught, rare, left and right brain thinkers. He’s managed to keep his department solvent and profitable in an industry that has seen much of its clientele shift to offshore providers. The business owners are tied to New York City textiles. They see life through a radically different prospective than a rural upstate manufacturing stand point. The truth is they have never been comfortable with the coloring facet of their business. They inherited the management of this company when their upstate partner decided to retire. At this point they were forced to move from silent capital providing partners to active management of the company. They found that they very much preferred giving the orders, siphoning off the profit and letting some other little guy have the headache of making it all happen.
So for the past month DH has been unknowingly auditioning for his own job. ‘New boss’ has kicked the tires, checked the teeth, made him spin in the town square, so to speak while they weighed the pro’s and con’s of acquiring him along with the entire company division. Meanwhile, ‘Old boss’ has been shifting as much capital as possible back into the industry side of the company by filling as many orders as feasible before the sale leaving DH caught between the tests and trials of the ‘New boss’ and the production demands of ‘Old boss’.‘New boss’ came back with a decision. They would gladly take the dye division off ‘Old bosses’ hands on one condition only. DH had to be part of the deal. That’s when the haggling began.
Old boss: He’s a valuable asset to the company. We could move him to Plant Manager in the Knitting division. (Translation… give us more money).
New boss: We’ll give you more money.
Old Boss: He’s a natural to run the Finishing and Frames. (Translation… give us more money).
New boss: We’ll give you more money.
Old boss: It’s going to take quite some time to train someone else to fill those positions. After all DH already holds a Management role. He knows the strengths and weaknesses of our current employees. They respect him. We really can’t see our way to letting him go at the moment. (Translation… give us more money).New boss: We’ll give you more money.
Old boss: SOLD!!!!!
There are some advantages to being sold.
· He still has a job. DH is at an age where finding a new job becomes increasingly difficult.
· No interruption in his health care coverage. It means a new provider but we’ve been through that nearly every year for the last ten years.
· He’s actually going to be working in the same facility. ‘New boss’ is moving his entire operation into DH’s current location. ‘Old boss’ is renting the building to ‘New boss’. (More money… see a pattern here)
There are some disadvantages too.
No more money for DH.
No surprise there.
Comments (9)
Aw, It is so rough to feel out of control of situations like this. I am glad you are not worse off for it. I hope it turns out to be a blessing in disguise.
Well, it's nice to be wanted and recognized.
Wow -- I have to say, that sounds like he has a tremendous value to the company (except for the more pay part). Does he feel good that both parties wanted him so much that they had to haggle over him?
@ideaguy - No not really. Given the right circumstances both of those guys would have kicked him to the curb with hardly a thought. He is uneasy because for him to have kept this job... the fellow who was already in the postion with the other company was let go with nothing more than a "don't let the door hit you on the way out". They actually made the guy wait in the parking lot while someone packed his personal belongings and brought them out to him. Tom says that's because of the strong possibility of sabotage or theft of company secrets. Please join us in prayer that the other fellow finds a new position soon.
Money only seems to run one way in these deals, and it's never into OUR pockets! But congratulations on him retaining his job.
We have been in this situation before, at DH's last job he was running the dept more than his supervisor was, unfortunately when the contract changed they left the management in place so after 12 years DH finally had, had enough and sought other employment, he likes what he is doing now but he took a pay cut and a serious cut in benefits to take this position by serious cut I mean that currently the kids (college aged) and I are not covered we opted out due to cost ($500 a month w/ a $3000 deductible) we are trying to put the $500 a month into a savings account so if we have to go to the doctor we can and we can cover the cost of prescriptions. It has been a hard transition for all of us. And like your DH he is not of an age to make job seeking an easy thing. Nor does he feel appreciated it's just a job and he's a drone. If this country is not in a depression, I think most of it's citizens are!
@suzyQ_darnit - thank you. We are grateful he is still working too.
@psychoticfrog - Oh, do I hear you!!!! The economics of this area is that if the rest of the country is doing ok, we're in a recession. If the country is in a recession, we're in a depression. It's so very tough making a good living here.
These are never fun situations. I'm aware of office/business politics, but I've never been able (or frankly, desired) to discern it well. I'm grateful to hear that both job and health insurance remained intact. That's important in this economy.
Comments are closed.