Black Tuesday

July 10/13 Black Tuesday

So recently the company I work for was acquired and we've been waiting to see what would happen once they completed the purchase and began to look at that all critical synergy.

Well yesterday was the day they pulled the trigger and announced they had finished the review and would be implementing changes designed to mesh our team with the rest of the organization worldwide, resulting in 19 out of 112 people being terminated.

The ironic thing is that a few weeks ago I'd been golfing with a friend who works in the R&D area of the company and as we made our way around the course we talked about ways the company could boost revenue and cut some costs, yesterday's announcement pretty much covered off the same exact reductions we had worked out and we looked at one another from across the meeting room and both felt sick to our stomachs knowing what was coming.

I survived the cut, being somewhat in the know I'd actually already packed a box with my personal belongings, but was completely ready to be bought out as usually someone in my position doesn't last long as there are always synergies to be found when merging accounting & finance teams. Guess my being there for over 5 years worked to my advantage or as my ex texted me later when she heard about the blood bath and my survival, knowing where the bodies are buried can sometimes work to your advantage.

Did these cuts make sense and were they needed? To an extent I think they did as we'd allowed a mini empire to be built by one executive to the detriment of the rest of the company, maybe not as deep as they went but the problem was that two departments were redundant to those already in place in other parts of the organization. The part that is really hard to swallow is that the actions my friend and I had come up with were worth more than $2M a year and would have easily seen the company able to stay independent and move to profitability.

Now it is easy to sit here and armchair coach the decisions but the truth is our former CEO was completely useless and afraid of confrontation, so much so that he allowed our VP of Sales & Marketing to run roughshod over every one in the company who dared question his strategy, the same strategies that had seen our sales fall from $15M to $10M over the course of 4 years....now in any sane organization that executive would have been asked to leave but not here....heaven forbid that our CEO admit his mistake in allowing the VP to remain.......so in the end his lack of strength cost 19 people jobs and his shareholders literally millions in lost gains. It is sad that the running joke was that our sales and marketing group was nicknamed DanCo after the VP and we used to refer to the rest of the company as an operating subsidiary of DanCo.......kind of amusing but also very sad given the fact that there was a bit of truth to the joke.

Now as we pick up the pieces and move forward I know 'll never look at the organization the same way......and maybe that is for the best as I have more important things going on in my life than my job.......I work to live and not live to work for at the end of my life I'm sure as hell not going to be thinking to myself if only I'd spend a few more hours on that cash flow projections worksheet versus wasting time coaching my kids soccer teams.....hell no

On that note, my release last night from the stress of the day was coaching my son's team as they rolled over our biggest rival 10-0 on a very hot and humid night......with one of the two stars of my life scoring once and assisting on two more goals......the daughters turn comes tomorrow when her women's competitive team plays its next game :))))))