WORK & WEEKEND UPDATE (COPY)

Well, I suppose I've been due for an update post for quite a while.  I hadn't felt like really writing about some things that have been going on.

WORK

Last week at work, I found out some things that are not good.  We had one guy already give his notice a few weeks back and he's going to work for a local competitor.  Then last week I found out one of our other guys is also leaving.  He's going to work for the same competitor.  Both of them left because they got better offers.  Our driver evidently found out that we were looking for a replacement, so he never showed back up.  That leaves 2 of us besides the boss and her husband that are still here.  And the other person is hanging by a thread.  She is ready to quit at anytime, it seems.

I usually stay out of office gossip and politics as much as possible.  I hear many things, but say very little.  This time, however, I felt I needed to know more of what was going on and why people were leaving to all go work for a competitor.  So I asked point blank.  I got my answer, for the most part, and I was glad that it wasn't sugar coated or that I was told some lie.  But the answer was not good.

My boss and her husband own either 41% or 49% of our parent company, so they have always had some say in what goes on.  There have been things going on recently that I've been aware of, but like I said, I don't say much.  Our parent company has wanted to get all purchasing in one central area in their location.  They cut all our overtime.  They haven't wanted to approve any raises or hiring new people for the most part.  They also haven't wanted to keep expenses down to a bare minimum.  It appeared that my boss's husband, who was in charge of another office at another location, suddenly wasn't in charge there anymore.  No one said why.

Now I'm finding out it's a possibility that the other partner (the one with the larger percentage of ownership) may actually be trying to force my boss and her husband out.  There's talk about the parent company being bought out by none other than the competitor that my co-workers are leaving to go work for.

Now the partner with the larger percentage of ownership does not like this competitor.  In fact, they hate each other, and the competitor has said if he has a chance to cut our parent company's partner's throat (in a corporate sense, not for real, obviously), that he will relish doing so.  So our parent company's partner does NOT want this deal to go through.  At any cost.  So it seems that they are 'letting' or even somewhat 'encouraging' the small satellite offices to fall apart, perhaps to make it not look so good as far as buying out our parent company.  If the company is bought out, the satellite offices, particularly this one, are done.  They will have no need for us.  And that means I'm out of a job.

But if they continue to let these offices fall apart by not working to keep the workers they have or not letting us hire new people or not allowing any overtime when we are as busy as we are, causing excessive customer complaints, then I'm still out of a job.  And there's not a damn thing I can do really.  I feel like they have done to us what they did in that movie "Major League" where they cut everything they could because they WANTED the team to fail.  Things have gone missing, deliveries have been routed to the wrong places, and my boss's husband's partner has said they are losing money from our office.  He doesn't see how that can be possible when we have so much business and are getting more and more new accounts each day.

So we've started tracking each and every little aspect of every job on the cost factor, so that he has some sort of trail to be able to prove that we are not losing money and to make sure we aren't getting over charged on things we shouldn't be.  While that might help, if they really want the office to fall apart, there doesn't seem to be much they can do.  When they lose all the workers and have to train new ones in the middle of the busiest time we've ever had, that just spells disaster. 

I was asked if I was next to fly the coop.  They haven't been able to give me my evaluations because every single raise has been denied by the parent company.  But there's more to a job than money.  Everyone else is leaving mostly because of better money that the competitor is offering.  I most likely will ride the ship all the way down if that's the way it goes, which is what I answered when asked if I was next to leave.

Obviously this bit of news has had me stressed out.  I have a job and people I enjoy working with, plus good benefits and I weigh all of that into consideration, not just salary.  And now I don't know how much longer I will have a place to work.  I'm sort of at the mercy of a possible hostile corporate takeover or someone just wanting the company to look as bad as possible to avoid the takeover.  Either way, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

SATURDAY NIGHT

We decided to go to No Name with some friends of ours.  I have video tape of the last couple of times I went.  It seems the video camera is a magnet for females.  Anyhow, I managed to get some interesting video the last couple of times, especially this past Saturday.  Of course I ran out of tape at the most inopportune time, which was when this one girl was dancing for another girl and you could tell she had done this before, but probably with less clothing.

I haven't had a chance to edit or do much with the video footage I've gotten, but eventually I hope to.  I just don't know if I'll be able to post anything unless it's an extremely short clip of something.  But we'll see.

Our other friend that was with us was helping me out at the pool table.  This guy is good.  He doesn't play in bars much because of the fights.  Even if you don't play for money, people don't like having the table run on them and he can do it.  When he was a kid, he had to stay with his uncle and anytime he was in trouble, he had to stay down in the basement.  There was nothing down there but a pool table.  So he played pool.  Also his uncle is extremely good and has beaten some world class players.  So I'm sure he picked up a few things there.  Then his girlfriend owned a pool hall, so he basically lived there for many years and played on the leagues.  He started out learning on a 9 foot table.  Most tables in the bars are 7 foot.  All the shots are shorter.  And he knows exactly where to put the cue ball after each shot, which is what he was trying to show me.  His cue that he would use is what they call a "sneaky pete".  It looks like a house cue, but it's about $1000.  Not that he needs it, because he can run the table just fine with a house cue.  I figure I can learn a few things from him.

MEMORIAL DAY

Yesterday for Memorial Day, we got up early and went to the beach to go surfing.  Saw some waves when we got there, but by the time we paddled out, not a damn wave was in sight.  Sat out there for half an hour or more and watched pelicans dive and get fish, big fish jump, and just enjoyed the salt water, sun, etc.  Then we called it quits because we were just tired of not getting any waves.  I hear as soon as we left, it started to break.  Isn't that the way it always goes?

We spent the rest of the day in the swimming pool with a friend who brought their kid over.  Then we had pizza delivered and ate outside by the pool.

After they left, I played 2 online poker tournaments.  Came in 13 out of 25 on the first.  And I came in 3rd out of 9 in the second, which netted me $18 at least.  There were quite a few interesting hands from those tournaments.  Either way, I had fun which was the whole point.

Well, guess that's it for now.