Part 2 of 2

As promised, here is the big work update. A few interesting things were brought to light recently, so I want to start the story back at the end of 2009 and do this chronologically.

As the end of 2009 rolled around, Optelecom knew it was in trouble. They were losing money, and had to face some tough decisions. Eventually, the choice was made to shut down the manufacturing department in the US (keeping the one in Europe), but that would still cost them a lot of money in severance. In order to cover that cost, they decided to sell my tiny department to Nufern, who had expressed an interest in acquiring the department at some point earlier in time.

The president of Nufern had to sell this idea to the parent company and his board of directors. After what I imagine was a lot of sweet talking, they agreed, and he brought an offer to Optelecom. It seemed that Optelecom had a way to make a horrible situation much less awful- three jobs would be saved, and the rest would get comfortable severance packages to soften the blow. But it wouldn't be that easy.

Quick side note: One might assume anyone with a tiny bit of common sense would know that everything in business has a budget. You don't need an MBA to realize that Nufern had a specific dollar amount that they were willing to spend on this acquisition, and that somebody with a fancy financial degree had spent a lot of time analyzing the various aspects of the transaction to arrive at this number. Pretty obvious, right? Ok, continuing on...

It was now January. Nufern had made their offer to Optelecom, and the next step was to get the head of the department on board. Nufern decided to offer my Old Boss an employment contract. It would put his salary, benefits, and obligations on paper. Everything would be clearly laid out for everyone's benefit. I don't know the specifics of what his contract said, but I understand it was nearly identical (except for the numbers, of course) to the one they would eventually offer me.

They brought Old Boss in, and told him Nufern wanted to buy the department. Optelecom could not at that time mention anything about the situation with manufacturing, so all he knew was that Optelecom wanted to get rid of the department. This should not have come as a shock. The company had been moving farther and farther away from fiber products, leaving us in the dust. We were the red-headed stepchild of the company, and we knew the new CEO had very little interest in us. But for whatever reason, he balked. How could they do this!? He worked there for over 20 years! He was livid. He read over the contract, but instead of seeing it as a small bit of security, he saw it as some sort of stranglehold.

Old Boss became severely defensive, and told them he wanted to consult a lawyer- not a crazy request by any means. But Optelecom was looking to make this deal quickly since they knew the layoffs would need to happen soon, and they wanted to give people as much notice as possible. Unfortunately, Old Boss had no way of knowing this, and decided to take his time. He consulted a lawyer and later told me that the lawyer had told him Optelecom was desperate, and reminded him that contracts are negotiable. Now, I don't know if this was also legal advice or if it was something he inferred, but Old Boss decided to exploit that little fact.

Old Boss apparently demanded a pretty incredible amount of money. Like a really huge amount. Nobody has mentioned what that amount was, but I get the distinct idea that it was obscene. It's true that he was a pretty valuable asset, but I think he regarded himself as absolutely irreplaceable. I also think that he came off as super arrogant to Nufern, and put himself in a bad light. Nufern came back with a counter offer, and he refused. They tried again, he refused again. It was his way or the highway. Nufern, now frustrated and angry, chose the highway.

It was late March when Nufern pulled their offer. They were furious. Old Boss left them with no choice but to go back to their parent company and board of directors with the bad news, and hope they could fix it. Optelecom was running out of time, and had no money for severance packages. Everybody looked bad. It was a mess.

Eventually Nufern came back with a new offer, much to Optelecom's relief. Old Boss was specifically excluded in the deal, and because they were not getting him, they offered a lot less this time. I don't think Optelecom had a choice but to accept their offer.

It seems to me like Old Boss didn't really think his choices through at all. I don't think he intended to screw everyone over, but that's what would have happened. Remember that Side Note above? Well, if Old Boss had gotten what he wanted, there would have been less in the pot to go around- I certainly would have been out of a job, and probably my coworker too. I know he was partly upset about the idea of having to relocate, but there is nothing that says we have to. The worst case scenario: work for Nufern until it's time to move, use that time to think about the next job. Now he has no job, no raise, no bonuses, nothing. And if Nufern hadn't made a second offer, I feel quite certain that Optelecom would have laid us all off and sold our equipment to the highest bidder. How he failed to see that, I'll never know.

Old Boss stormed in one day, put all his personal belongings in a box, and talked about how we couldn't trust Optelecom. My coworker and I asked if we were all being laid off, but he said he couldn't say either way. Over the next week or two, we were brought in on the sale of the department, and given the option to sign contracts as well. I learned that all three contracts were essentially the same. We were all offered raises, bonuses, benefits... the only downside was that Nufern offered less vacation time. In my case, I got 5 weeks total of paid time off with Optelecom, and they offered 3. When I mentioned it, they bumped it up to 4 weeks to lessen the blow. I also asked for a bigger raise, knowing that Old Boss wasn't going along for the ride. Old Boss encouraged me to ask for the moon, but I didn't feel comfortable starting off a new business relationship with extortion. In mid-April, Old Boss left for vacation.

On April 12th, the deal was done. I became a Nufern employee. On the 13th, my coworker and I met our new bosses and learned a bit about the company. I had a really hard time understanding what it was about this company that made Old Boss so upset. President: super nice. New Boss: awesome. And the best part? Going from a company where nobody gives a shit about you, to a company where you're an integral part of their future. I haven't felt this appreciated at work EVER. It's making me sad that I won't be moving to Connecticut. About a week later, Old Boss came back from vacation and was promptly laid off.

The coworker and I had a chance to visit their big facility in CT, and it was great. We only flew up for the day, and were kept very busy the entire time there. First we were greeted by everyone in the lobby, and I mean everyone. There were donuts and bagels and coffee and chit-chat. We met a boatload of people, and got a bag of shwag and our super keen laboratory notebooks. Fun side note: the CT facility is only about a 45 min. drive from Webs. Nice. There was a tour, and we got to see where they make the optical fiber. The building is state of the art, and beautiful. My coworker and I both marveled at how clean it was- they have full time janitorial staff. We can't even get someone to vacuum our lab. Before we knew it, we were back on a plane with all our shwag and a ton of paperwork to fill out.

New Boss is just fantastic, and frankly, I think he's a better boss. He's more professional, and lacks Old Boss's tendency to be a bit of a drama queen. He's very matter-of-fact. He's not afraid to admit when he doesn't know something- but he always finds the answer. I love that his emails are straight to the point, and that my response can be too. No flowery prose needed! But he's still fun, and has a good sense of humor. He's understanding when things go wrong, but at the same time expects us to do our best so that things don't go wrong. It's just so much easier to work for him.

So here I am. It's working out well so far. The news about manufacturing came out, and they had about 6 weeks notice. I feel lucky to have escaped their fate, and hopefully everything will continue to go smoothly.