Flashbacks

I know, I know. I've been lax in posting again, after I said I wouldn't wait so long. I've been so busy with work lately that all I've wanted to do is come home, play with the boy, then go to sleep. Except sleep hasn't come, and I end up staying up until obscene hours of the night just to exhaust myself into bed.

Wow, you say, "I wish I had that much work!"

Trust me, you really don't. If you're freelancing, maybe you do, because you might actually be making that $100K a year we discussed earlier, start your own multi-national agency and retire early while someone else runs your business into bankruptcy.

But that's not the point of this particular post.

I'm skipping my usual "Same time, same bat channel"-themed blog today, because things have happened that are giving me enough heartburn-inducing sleepless nights to start another subject. We'll pick up the cliffhanger where it left off next time.

Last week, the company was bought out.

If this was my company, I'd be celebrating it, too. Nice exit package, no more debt, everything handed to you on a silver platter, just-sign-here-on-the-dotted-line please. But it's not, and I've been through this before. It was ugly then, and I really don't want to do it again.

That said, I still think buy-outs can be a very good thing. It can potentially enhance a company's profits, reputation and products. It also completely sucks when you're not in the area of the company that creates the product to make the profit and the reputation. The old adage is that the Marketing department is the first to go, and they're usually right.

Marketing shares this bane with Accounting, Purchasing, Customer Support and Sales. These are the areas that every company has, and therefore, are completely redundant. It doesn't matter if you have the greatest team on the face of the earth, populated by the greatest designers and staff ever to walk the face of the earth. You are not the Buyer, you are the Buyee, and so your people are expendable.

We keep being told that things won't change, that the company "culture" will stay exactly the same, that we're valuable to the company, that they have no plans to touch the management, etc., etc. You know what, I'll believe it when I see it. That's what they told us at the last one, too. Two weeks later, they'd fired over 50% of the company in what the old-timers still call "Black Monday."

In some ways, I'm optimistic. Unlike the last takeover, this one is not by a competitor. Everything may really stay as it is, after all, they're not changing the company name, the original owners are still working here, and no one's been sent home yet. On the other hand, we still have 60 days before the sale is considered final and approved by the Fed (yes, we are big enough that it requires an anti-trust ruling before the sale goes through), so that could mean that we're all gone in two months. Or, we could be just fine until the owners' 3-year contracts are up. I have to admit that I'd rather have three years than three months...

In the meantime, we're still slaving away and doing our jobs as if nothing had happened. What else can we do? Rant and scream and make ourselves a general nuisance? That's a sure-fire way to be let go, and well before any potential deadlines. I'd just rather know it's going to happen. Regardless, it's time to dust off the portfolio and update my resume. After all, four years is a pretty long time to have been in one place, and as much as I complain, it was a good run.

My only fear now, is that I've worked so hard that I've overqualified myself to be an artist at most of the local companies and agencies. I don't want to be stuck doing nothing but paperwork. If I can't spend at least half of my time designing... then it's time to strike out on my own, take all the side freelancing and start up my own again. I still have a few friends who would love to get back into the field... a nice little office and a startup agency...

Hmmm...