we ain't got no money, but we are still profitable

On the second day of my winter vacation I got a text from a coworker that our parent company was going to file for a prearranged bankruptcy.

Yay...great start to a two week vacation.

The beginning of January was fun. Everyday we looked at each other wondering when the bankruptcy would actually file. We'd take turns answering the phone and telling our vendors that we knew as much as they did. We spent countless hours working on spreadsheet after spreadsheet on the chance that we'd get money to pay our vendors or that bankruptcy was actually announced and we would be able to get goods shipped. We spent more hours in meetings trying to figure out how to get ahead of the game. We added, we dropped, we made priority lists, we bugged our vendors to tell us exactly where all of our orders were, we had wonderful conversations telling people we wouldn't be offended if they have to tell us they won't ship because they won't get paid. I had to tell owners of companies that I'm sorry that our company is putting them out of business.

Last Wednesday we finally heard that the bankruptcy was filed. It was official. We had two meetings on Thursday. One was with our acting President telling us that we cannot talk to our vendors about payment and the bankruptcy, all questions have to go to our VP's. This morning we had 5 head honchos come out to our company to tell us that they aren't planning on closing us down or moving us. Yeah....smart thinking....5 people to tell us something that we only needed to hear from one person...the CEO of the company. So the good news is that I still have a job for the next 90-120 days. If we are profitable I might still have a job afterwards.

One of my vendors called me and told me how she read the website that explains about the bankruptcy. She said that after all the legalese there was a disclaimer at the bottom of the page saying that even though we are going through bankruptcy that we are still a profitable company. Yeah what a great thing to tell your vendors that you just screwed out of paying what they were owed for the past few weeks to the past 6 months.

And the best thing out of all of this, it's time for self evaluations! And if we have good reviews we might get merit increases! Oh boy! A merit increase of $0 is something I can really look forward to!