Most of the time, employees don’t look forward to company reorganization because they don’t believe it will fix the issues and will just make their jobs more complicated as they will have to go through an adaptation process.
At least companies try to warn their employees about the upcoming changes so that everyone can prepare for them and know what to expect. Unfortunately, that is not what happened to Reddit user alldogzzarebeautiful, who was told about their company being sold and all the employees being fired on the same day the decision took effect.
More info: Reddit
New company owners tried to make the laid-off employees come back, but they faced retaliation
Image credits: Jaro (not the actual photo)
The Original Poster (OP) shared their story on the antiwork subreddit and the story immediately blew up. After 5 days of being posted, it was upvoted more than 62k times and nearly 3k people commented.
The Reddit user who chose the name alldogzzarebeautiful worked for a small family-owned manufacturing business. According to the OP, the business was successful and nobody was ever expecting to hear what they did on Monday.
The OP worked for a successful small family business and didn't ever think that it could be sold
Image credits: alldogzzarebeautiful
That day, they were told that the company had been sold to a private equity fund, which is a collective investment scheme, and it usually means big changes, like restructuring, selling of unnecessary assets and separating non-core businesses.
In the OP’s case it also meant laying off employees because the owners structured the sale as an asset sale. According to Mariner Capital Advisors, “In an asset sale, the seller retains possession of the legal entity and the buyer purchases individual assets of the company, such as equipment, fixtures, leaseholds, licenses, goodwill, trade secrets, trade names, telephone numbers, and inventory. Asset sales generally do not include cash and the seller typically retains the long-term debt obligations.” Unlike in a stock sale, employees don’t automatically transfer as an asset, so that explains why the OP and his colleagues were laid off.
But it was and the new owners announced all of the employees were laid off the same day
Image credits: alldogzzarebeautiful
Nobody was expecting this because as the OP said in the beginning, the business was profitable, and also, it seems that nobody mentioned anything, judging by the surprise to the news.
However, the company made it seem that they fired all the employees just for a technicality and they would all have jobs if they just reapplied to the company with new owners. It might have appeared nice at first, but due to the restructuring, the job descriptions were changed, putting extra work in them and some benefits were removed.
They also said that employees could reapply, but nobody wanted because they'd changed the job descriptions and deprived the employees of certain benefits
Image credits: Apartment Showcase (not the actual photo)
Image credits: alldogzzarebeautiful
Jokes on them, because nobody reapplied. The OP explained that the area has a lot of jobs to offer and because many of the employees were true professionals, having worked at that company for a big part of their lives, they will have no trouble finding a new job. In addition to that, many were thinking about retirement anyway.
The redditor witnessed that nobody wanted to work in the company themselves as the new managers put up a table with coffee and donuts and were waiting for applications, however, not only was nobody planning on filling them in, they didn’t even take any donuts.
The company was trying to save some money by making people do more than they already did and taking away benefits on top of that just did a disservice to themselves. Turns out that the employees have very specific knowledge of how to operate the machines that were built and maintained in the shop. Which means that hiring someone new won’t help.
This was a problem for the new owners as the machinery in the shop was built and maintained by the employers they laid off
Image credits: alldogzzarebeautiful
The OP isn't too worried about it because they have a plan and is certain their former colleagues will either easily find a new job or just retire
Image credits: alldogzzarebeautiful
Even though losing a job is scary, especially so suddenly and without any warnings in advance, the way the OP told the story gives an impression they are not too worried about it. They even shared a backup plan of putting more effort into their side business, which has potential to be successful, and allowing more free time that can be spent with their family.
The OP concluded by saying that they feel a strong schadenfreude, which is a German word meaning ‘pleasure derived by someone from another person's misfortune.’ Especially because the new owners brought that misfortune by their own hands.
As a redditor in the comments pointed out, “The new owners are finding out that the former employees were the true assets of the company and that they should have been highly valued.”
Image credits: alldogzzarebeautiful
In general, people in the comments were exasperated that the new owners thought that employees would just agree to reapply knowing that their working conditions would be inferior. Also, there were people who suspected that the buyers didn’t know what they were doing, because you wouldn’t want to make people leave a company that is a niche business with specific knowledge not a lot of people possess.
What do you think about owners selling their companies to private equity funds? Has this ever happened to you? Did it lead to layoffs and restructuring, or did the situation improve? Let us know in the comments!
People in the comments didn't understand the new owners' thinking and everyone understood they made a huge mistake with this decision
