The Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street This Week

It almost seems fitting that one year to the day after my employer filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection that our parent company is named #1 in the weekly "Dumbest Things on Wall Street" article. On the day after Thanksgiving 2004 our plant which is an LLC partially owned by the company named in the article (I am being purposely vague but it is not hard to figure out) filed for Ch. 11 bankruptcy protection after having shutdown on Thanksgiving morning. Prior to that we had operated 24/7 365 for nearly 5 years. Only taking outages as required to make repairs and perform preventative maintenance. If you read the linked article you will find that the mother ship is now also in dire straits. Many think it could join us in Ch11 within a few months. Would that mean we would then be in Ch22? All in all it is not a good situation.

I am actually amazed that I am still employed. If you had asked me a year ago if I thought I would still be employed at my current location a year from now I would have said there was less than a 50% chance. We have basically been shutdown for an entire year. We did operate the plant twice, once in April and once in September to meet some testing obligations. You would think that I was really bored at work, well not most days. We have lost about half of our staff, luckily none through layoffs as all have left on there own accord. We have lost some quality people and I have lost some good friends. Well, not lost but I don't have the pleasure of working with them daily. The staff reduction has been good on one hand as it has left those of us that remain with that much more to do. Equipment continues to need maintenance and equipment continues to break even when it is not used daily.

The most difficult aspect has been dealing with vendors. Amazingly enough they don't want to sell you anything using purchase orders when you are bankrupt. I basically have to run the entire facility using my company American excess card. My 5K/month limit doesn't go very far. Actually the worst part is not taking it personal. When the company you work for is bankrupt you feel as if you failed, even if it had absolutely nothing to do with your performance. Every time someone refuses to ship you a needed part because of your bad credit you feel like a dead beat. Sometimes it has a direct effect such as the letter I received today from the American Lung Association stating that the $450 pledge that my company had made to sponsor me in the Trek Across Maine had never been paid. Great, now I am stiffing a non profit. I may have to cough up the coin myself just to clear my name.

So where do I find myself one year after the Ch11 filing? I was promoted because of our staff reduction (but I also got to keep my previous job also because we can't hire anyone). I get to deal daily with employees that know they may loose their job at any given time (a great lesson in motivation skills). I wonder if I should be looking harder for a different job (I look casually) but the job outlook in my area is crap and I don't want to move. I wonder if I should change careers (not easy at 41) but this is all I have ever done. I think about going to school but I don't know what I want to be when I grow up. So I get up, go to the gym and feel good every time we get to Friday and I still have a job. How long can this last? Well one thing I have learned while going through this whole mess, one thing you can really count on is that lawyers and judges are terminally slow. If the future depends on a lawyer to act or a judge to rule, the future is a long way away and so far that has been a good thing.