Watching your employer slowly slip into bankruptcy.

[Dinner]

Things aren't looking to good for the company I work for. They tried to expand to quickly and got over extended then they tried to branch out into new lines of work which they didn't have any experience in and ended up losing their shirts. Last year they lost millions so they ended up laying off just about everyone they could in an attempt to stay solvient including most of the IT staff. Now they've had a catastrophic crash of the server's harddrive in which some 50%-75% of all the project files were lost and unable to be recovered. Unfortunately, none of the files have been backed up in the last nine months because they'd laid off the IT guys who were responsible for doing that and the fellow who was maintaining the network didn't really know what he was doing.

This is really bad because several of the clients have paid for work which is supposed to be delivered shortly but now the company has lost most of the reports and data sets which were used to generate the final reports. Needless to say since they're in a cash crunch they don't have the resources to redo all of this work so things aren't looking good. It seems only a matter of time before another round of lay offs comes down the line and three of the executives of the company have already left for greener pastures.

I don't intend on waiting around to find out. I'm now in the process of sending my resumes to several of the other local firms and hopefully I will have a new job in short order. I'm going to stick with this job until I do land another job but it is getting nerve racking listening to the suppliers call asking why they haven't gotten paid. I can't wait to jump ship and find an employer with more solid footing.

[GePap]

That's why i work for government. It hardly ever goes bankrupt, and if it does, well, everyone is screwed.

[Zkribbler]

Great Ceasar's Ghost!! Run, Oerdin! Run, run, run! That company is screwed, blued and tattoed! Fleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!

And another company learns that it's employees don't cost it money; they make it money.

"Hey I got a great money-savings idea--let's lay off the people who do the work, and then we can watch our profits skyrocket."

[NeOmega]

I worked at a comapny that started out with very low management, in 1.5 years I would say management quadrupled. It started looking like it could go somewhere, ended up lookign like a bloated company, except it never really was very profitable to begin with.

Now it has layed off most it's staff, and from what I hear, only has six "managers" and a workforce of 100. (down from about 60 and 200)

[LordShiva]

There must be some way to profit from this unfortunate turn of events.

[Asher]

Originally posted by GePap
That's why i work for government. It hardly ever goes bankrupt, and if it does, well, everyone is screwed.

If you can't do, teach.
If you can't teach, work for the government.

[Dis]

Asher is my hero.

[Dinner]

I have very good prospects of getting hired at one of two local companies. The first was formerly a joint venture partner so I am familiar with most of their projects while the second is a small but growing environmental consulting firm who's biggest client happens to be a client I have spent years working with. Alternatively there is always just starting fresh with a new company but I prefer not to do that for no less reason because I am afraid I'd have to take a pay cut if I did. For the first two companies I am valubale because I have institutional knowledge and because I have contacts with clients they want.

[Provost Harrison]

Re: Watching your employer slowly slip into bankruptcy.

Originally posted by Oerdin
Things aren't looking to good for the company I work for. They tried to expand to quickly and got over extended then they tried to branch out into new lines of work which they didn't have any experience in and ended up losing their shirts. Last year they lost millions so they ended up laying off just about everyone they could in an attempt to stay solvient including most of the IT staff. Now they've had a catastrophic crash of the server's harddrive in which some 50%-75% of all the project files were lost and unable to be recovered. Unfortunately, none of the files have been backed up in the last nine months because they'd laid off the IT guys who were responsible for doing that and the fellow who was maintaining the network didn't really know what he was doing.

This is really bad because several of the clients have paid for work which is supposed to be delivered shortly but now the company has lost most of the reports and data sets which were used to generate the final reports. Needless to say since they're in a cash crunch they don't have the resources to redo all of this work so things aren't looking good. It seems only a matter of time before another round of lay offs comes down the line and three of the executives of the company have already left for greener pastures.

I don't intend on waiting around to find out. I'm now in the process of sending my resumes to several of the other local firms and hopefully I will have a new job in short order. I'm going to stick with this job until I do land another job but it is getting nerve racking listening to the suppliers call asking why they haven't gotten paid. I can't wait to jump ship and find an employer with more solid footing.

Sounds like they are on the verge of going under, especially the way they shot themselves in the foot with the first paragraph (actually that is pure ****wittedness). But are you sure it doesn't have anything to do with you moving there? I bet it was doing just fine before you moved there

[Pekka]

Well, they laid off IT workers and weren't able to manage doing some back ups for NINE MONTHS!!!

I think it's obvious you want to be changing the company pretty ASAP, because this company won't be going anywhere anytime soon, except the crappers.

It's like if they lost a lot of money because they didn't come to work for 6 weeks, because they forgot how.

[FrostyBoy]

I agree, look for another job, I bet the rest of the staff are planning the same thing.

It's a huge risk and pretty much a stupid thing to do to move into areas the company is not experienced with; major businesses like in the tobacco industry have tried to move into fast foods, etc, and failed miserably.

[chequita guevara]

I had that experience, except I was the IT guy that got laid off. About a year later, their new IT people were looking at the batch files and cron jobs I had set up, didn't know what they were for, and shut them all off. Within a few weeks, their var drives completely filled and their systems stopped working, so they had to call me back as a consultant just to turn them back on. They offered me a full time position, but I got offered a web gig in Florida for an extra $10K, so I went. A month later the old employer went bankrupt and shut down.

[PLATO]

Originally posted by GePap
That's why i work for government. It hardly ever goes bankrupt, and if it does, well, everyone is screwed.

Probably already is...

[Ecthy]

Originally posted by Asher

If you can't do, teach.
If you can't teach, work for the government.

This is how I feel about my prospects after finishing uni. I'd love to work in some think tank / private funded institute or something, but if everything fails I might go post-grad in some uni (teaching would be included) or *shudder* apply for State Department. Easy job for me to get there, but it means becoming a government clerk, which is the opposite of scientific work.

[pchang]

Not that slow

The slip into bankruptcy doesn't sound like its going that slowly to me. However, you get used to it when you work for start ups.