My "Career" ~ Part 8 ~ "Everything's Great"

Rumors began buzzing, but none of us knew for sure, because nobody who was in a position to know would tell us, nor could they tell us, I guess.

I finally, one night, turned my TV to CNBC, the one and only time I ever watched that channel. A couple of financial guys were speculating about the buyout of our company, but nothing was final yet.

The next morning as I was getting ready for work, I again flipped on the TV, and there it was. We were being bought out. Bought by one of the big boys.

Everybody got a Xeroxed memo that day, announcing the merger, and promising that they were going to play by our rules. That didn't make sense to me, since we were the buyees, and they were the buyers. But I chose to believe that they saw in our company a better way of doing business, and thus, they'd gotten on board.

The first inkling that would not be the case was when our employee insurance coverage changed. As employees of Acme Insurance Company, we'd had the best coverage ever. A minuscule copay for any type of service, no deductible. We could visit our doctor every day if we'd wanted to, and it was all covered. The premium was picked up by the company.

No more. We had to start chipping in for our coverage, and the benefits were much worse.

Not only that, but our stock options were discontinued. I was so enamored of my company that I'd invested a ton of my 401K dollars into company stock. (DON'T EVER DO THAT!)

But other than the insurance coverage and the dissolution of stock options, our everyday business model didn't change.

Peter was still my boss, and he still was very supportive. He apologized over and over again for not being able to promote me to manager, even though I was doing a manager's job, and even though I was overseeing five supervisors and more than 150 hourly staff. And still supervising my own unit, albeit a "cream of the crop" unit; the best of the best, who thus needed little to no supervision. 

Even though I was having daily telephone conversations with the gal at Kelly Temp Services, telling her what I needed. Even though I was scheduling and conducting job interviews twice a week. Even though I was tutoring my supervisors in the fine art of writing performance reviews.

Even though I was juggling my salary spreadsheet, and ranking employees on a one to five basis, in order to manage salary increases to the unworkable parameters that Peter had set.

Even though Peter damn well knew that I was able to retain staff with negligible turnover because my people liked and respected me, and they knew that I liked and respected them.

Even though I kept having the same conversation over and over with Pat in Allentown, trying to keep my impatience from bubbling over. Telling myself that eventually she'll "get it". If I just remain calm and repeat myself a lot, she'll catch on. She has to. Doesn't she?

And why in the world did Peter ever choose her in the first place?

Billy Joel kept running through my mind. I started daydreaming that all the factories in Allentown were being shut down because Pat was running them. And Pat was an imbecile.

I didn't know if our new owners were the ones being chintzy or if all the manager slots had already been doled out. It continued to eat at me, though. 

Despite all the dire news on the corporate front, I believed that everything was still okay.

Things were okay with IKFI. We were humming and strumming along. Our numbers and our outlook were great.

What could possibly go wrong?

A cold wind was about to blow in.


To be continued...........