The Takeover.....

Usually chairs are arranged in my office cafeteria when there is a meeting. Our CEO now and then likes to give us a nice little pep talk and try his best to motivate us. But this time is was unusual, no announcements, no e-mails still chairs were being arranged in the evening. It is not a secret that US is going thru a worst recession and it was very obvious to see some tension on every employees face. Like all other I was also curious, worried and surprised. I asked one of the ladies who was arranging the chairs whats the reason for meeting and she replied "I am also equally clueless as you are". Just a small act like arranging chairs itself caused lots of murmuring, rumors and fear on the floor.  

Next day morning I woke up, first thing I did was to login to my work e-mail. As expected there was a big news. My company had acquired a small startup!!!... pheewwwwww what a relief.... Our CEO wanted to speak to us regarding this news.  I went to work a bit early and heard my boss give details of the takeover. After the meeting I sat back in my cubicle and started thinking about it..... 

Why exactly did we acquire them??.. It was not for their technology. It was not for their man power. It was only to eliminate them from market. They were too good of a competitor and eating away bulky customers.  Our management that has frozen wage hike for its employees in the name of recession found some money floating around. It was time to spend it and they decided to do some shopping... All we were looking wasto  eliminate competition and gain their customer base.. Yes we did it.

Whats in it for me??... Apparently wall street loved this news and our stocks went up 20% in just one day!!!... That was good booost to my stock options (which is still under water).  It felt good to be in a company that is doing well in this gloomy economy.  We kind of added a new product to our line of products. 

Is there anything bad??... Oh yes. Only 40 employees from the acquired company will be joining us. I did get to see the list and all were 8+ yrs experienced people. The axe had fallen on the rest. These people were  handpicked. It is always sad to see some one losing job, but I was a bit happy that I was not at the receiving end. But is my job safe? My company is eating some big sharks share... so similar situation may not be very far away for me.  I am slowly getting unhappy with the kind of work I do but I have no alternative. Given this job market who would like to switch. 

I spent entire day just worrying and thinking. I went home, my lovely wife had made me tea and snacks. We sat in our little balcony and enjoyed the sunset while drinking tea. Thats when I realised "What the hell.. who wants to care for tomorrow. I have such a sweet lovely present. Things are fine. I am happy".