Not such a Good Day....

Yesterday was not one of the better days of my life. I joined the company that I work for just over 6 months ago on a job share position, working three days a week. My boss who I share with is lovely and we get on very very well. I have met some of the loveliest people that live on this planet who work for my company and there is a really great atmosphere there - many of the staff have been there for donkeys years - and even though we are in incredibly difficult economic times, we are making a profit, not a large one by previous years standards, but a profit no less.

Just over 2 months a go we had a series of audits - financial, health and safety and environmental (the latter ones are where come in). We knew that we were possibly up for sale and that as we had been sold to an investment bank a few years ago they wanted to make their money back.

So it was no surprise to us when we were informed 5 weeks ago that we had been bought by a competitor - A German company with a UK manufacturing base 'up North' that as far as we knew was not making a profit, although the German parent company (in Germany did)

The new bosses moved in, briefly, met all the staff and then we saw very little of them until yesterday when they announced that they are shutting our company (3 sites in the Midlands) and are moving everything 'up North' - timescale for the various sites is between Jan next year and December next year.

So effectively although it was nicely worded, nearly 400 hundred people were added to the unemployment figures. Oh they have said that their may be relocation packages, but I cant see many of the folks I work with de-camping their whole families and moving 2 hours away - if indeed they are offered the chance.

So the moral of the story seems to be, if you want to get ahead, buy up your successful competitors with foreign money to gain a well known marked place industry and consign yet another British company to the bin.

So, I am on notice of redundancy, date yet to be decided, but all they have to do is give me a months notice as I haven't been there long. My heart breaks for so many of the people I talked to yesterday, hard working ordinary people who's lives were turned up side down, who had got to go home and tell their families they would be losing, in some cases, their only source of income. As I said, I haven't been there long, but I will sure miss some of these people terribly.

Oh and just when you think it cant get much worse, Himself phoned last night to say that the contract work he had been lucky enough to get a couple of months ago, will now end next week, so both of us could be out of work. Doesn't look good for the mortgage......