Black Thursday - Corporate Destruction

It's Monday and I should be at work.

I should be but I'm not because I got laid off on Thursday. Laid off with about 30 to 35% of the other employees I worked with. After 24 years with the same company, I am now going to be forced to "sign up" for un-employment for the first time in my 37 year's of working.

WHY??

"We're not making any money" they said.

I find that hard to believe considering that we worked 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, from October of 2003 through 2004. That's the most I have worked since I have been employed there. Almost 200 hours of overtime. (Just so you know, I didn't work straight through. We had 4 rotating shifts. We would work 7 days, then off 7 days.) 12 hour shifts.

The "family owned" business I worked for was bought out two years ago, by a $5 billion a year "corporation", which was our competitor.

That's when the trouble started.

They started making changes. They started having lay-offs every 6 months, and our 250 plus employees started dwindling fast. They kept telling me that my job was secure. We ARE going to sell your machine later but it WILL be replaced with a newer and more modern one, knowing they couldn't tell me the real truth because we were working 7 days a week and they needed me. Well, my machine, along with 3 others have been sold, and WILL be re-placed. In Hong Kong, El Salvador, or Mexico.

When we were bought out, the ONLY thing that changed was the MANAGEMENT. We still had the same people, the same accounts, and were working more than we ever have. How were we losing money? How did they run an $85 million company into the ground so fast? To me it's totally the managements fault. Bad news is, I'm the one in the un-employment line.

I guess the Six Sigma bullshit and the bulletin board about how much money we were saving was a "crock". It said we saved $3 million last year, you said we lost money. I guess the big "corporations" can make it say what they want to on paper to justify their means. Say they "project" to make $25 million and only make $22 million, that is a $3 million "loss" to them, even though the $22 million was more than they made last year.

Justify their means.

It cost me my job.

I believe it was the plan from the beginning so I probably should have expected it.

What better way to get rid of a competitor than to buy 'em up and shut 'em down.

Thanks ASSHOLES!