And the walls come crumbling down....

We knew something was up. There was too much talk, too many strange things going on around work. Today we found out what we suspected was imminent.

To give you a little back story, the place I work in has three employees. There are three branches, one in Charlotte and two in Georgia. The other locations have more employees than we do. We have the largest gross profit of the three locations...and we do it with three people. Not only that, but most of our customers hate...I mean absolutely hate going to the competitors and only do when they have to. Between the three of us, we make deliveries, pull orders, run a sales counter, answer phones, make calls on delinquent accounts and help customers load their orders and with anything else they need. Customer service is what we pride ourselves in and the customers have let us know time and time again how much they appreciate the quickness and accuracy with which we pull their orders, as well as all the other ways we help them out.

But too many people had been asking questions. One of the big-wigs from our parent company called a couple of weeks ago just to ask who our biggest competitors were. The realtor who procured the building for us has started visiting us again after not having seen him in a while. The delivery drivers that shuttle materials between locations have been questioning the goings on around their facilities as well. Our ordering powers had been diminished in the past few months and the orders we sent to be called in for us (or delivered from the main office location out of GA) have been trimmed significantly, sometimes leaving us in a bind when a customer put in a large order. It's hard to keep people happy when you don't have the stock they need...but we tried and bent over backwards to make things work for them. Then this week our general manager and another of the head honchos came to visit. They were doing some quarterly physical counts, or so they said. This has never happened in the three years I've been here. Then the clincher...yesterday after they had both left a locksmith came by looking for our general manager and said he was there to re-key a lock (a screw up on his part as he wasn't supposed to come until today). After a short phone call to the GM in which I heard him say, "Oh yeah, it does say wednesday on here", then he went outside to finish the conversation before getting in his van and leaving. Now we knew something was up.

The answer came today. They're shutting us down. Not all three locations mind you, but just us. They say with the economy the way it is, with building in a downturn, it just wasn't profitable anymore. But wait, don't we have the largest gross profit? Don't we sell more of the high dollar items than the other locations? Isn't Charlotte one of the fastest growing cities in the country with the smallest downturn in building? All true, but it's about more than that...

It all comes down to the fact that we lease our building and they own the other two. They didn't want to commit to a new lease agreement with an uncertain economy. I think the other locations aren't far behind, but since they own the buildings, they're going to give them a little more time. And the re-keying? We thought it was because they were either firing one of us or shutting the place down immediately, but there's another reason for it that's really not worth getting into...just didn't want to leave that subject open.

The news isn't all bad though. They are going to give us a severance package, continue our insurance for a period of time and also help us try to find new jobs if we wish to have their assistance. I feel worst for one of the guys I work with...he's been with the company for over twenty years. He's seen the place change ownership several times and every time he's worried for his job security. He's told me and the other guy we work with that he loves working with us and wouldn't want to work with anyone else. He's 57. He's not in the best of health. In other words, he's not what employers are looking for. I have faith that in the end he'll land on his feet. Some of our customers have known him for years and one way or another someone is going to give him a job. He's a great worker and has a heart of gold, but still with the job market the way it is, I can understand why he's extremely pessimistic about his future.

As for me, I'm trying to be optimistic about the whole situation. We are going to be employed at least until the end of the month, possibly as long as the end of June, but that's the definite cut-off date. They're trying sell our company to one of our competitors and said that could mean that we'd get to keep our jobs, but I'm not stupid and know that more than likely we'd still be let go. Then the severance package...we don't know yet what we're getting (we'll find out in the next couple of days), but I'm sure they're going to take care of us very well. There's also our ESOP that we should see a little money from as well. And when all else fails and the severance ends, we can file for unemployment. I definitely won't mind taking a short vacation before starting the job hunt, but I won't sit around too long (I know it may take a while for me to find something). I've been thinking for a while that I needed a change of venue even though I loved working there, with the guys I worked with and even some of the customers. I'm planning on taking a class this summer and I think this change will be a good thing for me in the long run...if I can find a job before all my funds are exhausted. I know I can, but I am still a little worried about finding one that pays what I need. Still, I'm looking forward to the challenge of doing something new.

That doesn't mean I'm not going to miss the place, the people I worked with, the customers and the freedom that this job has offered me over the past few years. It's a sad day, but one with a ray of hope attached to it. I just keep telling myself it could be a lot worse...

Odd things are happening at work. I will know more tomorrow, but seems change is right around the corner. Hopefully the changes will be beneficial to me and not a detriment to my already unstable being. If it's for the better, it's good timing too, as I need to make some changes with myself...some of them permanently, some may be temporary, but I need to get my life back on track. I do plan on going back to school and that may delay some of the changes I need/want to make.

On a lighter note, I re-watched a movie that I saw in theaters last year last night. It's called Great World of Sound and is set and filmed right here in our lovely (I know that's debatable) nearby city of Charlotte. It's about a record company that's not quite on the up-and-up, but I won't give away any more than that. The actors are pretty much unknowns, the pacing is kind of slow at times, but I really, really dig this movie. It also has many cameos from local musicians, which is a good chance for me to to say, "Hey, I know that person!". Rent it if you can find it.

Speaking of knowing people in movies, I recently bought a copy of a movie called Bandwagon. It's another NC product and was filmed in Raleigh about 12 years ago. It had a very limited theater run (and I did catch it the one week it played in Charlotte) and has never been released on DVD (at least here in America...seems there is a DVD version out of Thailand for some reason). About 5 minutes into the movie, there's yours truly bobbing his head to a crappy metal band (they were crappy on purpose) while a fight breaks out in front of me. I got to see myself on the big screen and finally after all these years I have a copy I can show my friends. It's another good yet slow paced movie about the music business. The only person in it that I've ever really seen in anything since is a guy named KevinCorrigan who went on to play the younger brother on Grounded for Life and had a small roll inSuperbad last summer. He was actually the best part of Grounded For Life and the main reason I watched it when it came on.

Hopefully I'll get to see my mom on screen this year in a movie called All About Steve starring Sandra Bullock. She won a trip to CA to be an extra in the movie from an online contest. While on set she and my dad got to meet Sandra herself, as well as Thomas Hayden Church, Bradley Cooper, Kerri Kenney and Ken Jeong (a doctor and comedian who graduated from Duke University (boo Duke, but hey, it is a North Carolina connection). We're hoping her scene doesn't get cut and that you'll actually be able to see her if the scene is in the final version of the movie. I'm not crazy about Sandra Bullock movies, but this one looks like it could be okay, besides I'll have to give it a shot just to see if mom is a movie star like me...