Well. I am back. Quite a bit has changed in the last several months since I was on here daily, but I will give you the quick synopsis.
The place I used to work in north central Arkansas was one of the 2 top producers of epoxy resin countertops, fumehood tops and sinks for labs, kitchens, schools, and industrial. We were purchased a few years ago by a very famous "Scientific" company. Our only real competitor was a company down in Texas. Between us, we covered about 90-95% of all epoxy resin work in the US, and abroad.
Well, the parent LLC company, who owned the Scientific company and effectively my company as well, was in charge of all business payments, resin, utilities, all materials, everything. We went from receiving 2 tankers of resin a week to maybe 1 tanker every couple weeks, and eventually a month or two between. We went from a 1-week turnaround to a 4-month turnaround, with 4 millions in sales canceled during a single month. Many of those were smaller companies who had pre-paid!
Then talks of selling the company. We had a few ideas of would wanted to buy us, and the thoughts were awesome, that we could finally get back out of the hole we were thrown into once we had managment that actually gave a damn about employees and customers. Well, it never happened. What eventually did happen was that we were all laid off permanently and our assets (machines, equipment, etc..) were sold to our competitor in TX.
How is that, you say? They can't legally buy your company, that would give them a monopoly! Correct. But they CAN contact the owning company and make an huge offer on the equipment should they happen to just close the doors completely. And that, from what I hear, is what they did. They paid more (double I hear) than any other bid other companies were offering to buy us for, just to close us down, giving them more work.
Shrewd. Wrong in every sense, and should be illegal. But it happens.
So I spent 2 months on the dole, with unemployment giving me enough to still make bills. However, I packed up my 3-bedroom rental house, gave away a few things, moved to Springfield, moved into a friends back room, and he got me on where he works. Things are going well. I'm learning a new trade; or actually, expanding on a trade that I was already familiar with.
So. That's my last several months, in a nutshell. It's great to be back.
The place I used to work in north central Arkansas was one of the 2 top producers of epoxy resin countertops, fumehood tops and sinks for labs, kitchens, schools, and industrial. We were purchased a few years ago by a very famous "Scientific" company. Our only real competitor was a company down in Texas. Between us, we covered about 90-95% of all epoxy resin work in the US, and abroad.
Well, the parent LLC company, who owned the Scientific company and effectively my company as well, was in charge of all business payments, resin, utilities, all materials, everything. We went from receiving 2 tankers of resin a week to maybe 1 tanker every couple weeks, and eventually a month or two between. We went from a 1-week turnaround to a 4-month turnaround, with 4 millions in sales canceled during a single month. Many of those were smaller companies who had pre-paid!
Then talks of selling the company. We had a few ideas of would wanted to buy us, and the thoughts were awesome, that we could finally get back out of the hole we were thrown into once we had managment that actually gave a damn about employees and customers. Well, it never happened. What eventually did happen was that we were all laid off permanently and our assets (machines, equipment, etc..) were sold to our competitor in TX.
How is that, you say? They can't legally buy your company, that would give them a monopoly! Correct. But they CAN contact the owning company and make an huge offer on the equipment should they happen to just close the doors completely. And that, from what I hear, is what they did. They paid more (double I hear) than any other bid other companies were offering to buy us for, just to close us down, giving them more work.
Shrewd. Wrong in every sense, and should be illegal. But it happens.
So I spent 2 months on the dole, with unemployment giving me enough to still make bills. However, I packed up my 3-bedroom rental house, gave away a few things, moved to Springfield, moved into a friends back room, and he got me on where he works. Things are going well. I'm learning a new trade; or actually, expanding on a trade that I was already familiar with.
So. That's my last several months, in a nutshell. It's great to be back.
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