Sunday, August 3, 2008

Scary times ahead.

Well, I'll start by saying we had a pretty great weekend spent in Perry, GA with a bunch of car club friends, in what amounts to an air conditioned airplane hanger full of cars. We started off Friday with night of drag racing, then all day Saturday was the car show. LOTS of fun. I won a door prize worth about $700 in billet aluminum dress up goodies for the interior of our car.

Now the not fun. From the looks of things the company I've been employed with for the past 8 years has been taken over by DirecTV. On Friday there was a conference call that only higher ups were on, and shortly afterward we were called explaining that hiring packets with applications had been Fedex'ed out and if we still wanted a job we'll show up Monday morning at 6:30am to talk to the DTV hiring person to apply for a job. The pay is supposably "comparable". I think my team will keep their jobs, but I'm not real sure about middle management....namely me....and Al. So basically the last 8 years has been a waste as far as working toward retirement, or anything else for that matter.

I don't believe this was something the company was trying to do, but was forced. We were employee owned, so I'm not really sure how they did it without leaving themselves open to lawsuit. Oh, and I had right at $100k in stock options that according to the paperwork I was faxed is in jepardy. The old company is talking to, get this, "outside experts" on what to do about ESOP holders.

Lucky I have that nest egg to get us through these hard times....NOT.

Yeah, this could get ugly real quick.

Kathy, if you happen to read this, I'm not sure if I've got a check coming in the next few weeks. I'd rather stay out of jail during this "transition". From my computations I'm nearly done, but contact me before you call the state or anything, just so I know it's coming.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

We've been through the same thing and weathered it, but it wasn't fun at the time.  Just remember, if you lose everything else, you still have your family.

Anonymous said...

Shit, Jim.  I'm sorry.  I hope it turns out great, but if not, Mom's right.  We love you guys.

Anonymous said...

sorry to hear about your job....I will make no trouble for you.  thanks for letting me know.