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Even a Train Wreck Can Be Slow

(Just my thoughts & opinion folks)

I quit working (at least for a company) 2-1/2 years ago.  It appears my timing was pretty good.  I'd hit my peak with the company and there was a sense that the company was either rudder less or had too many.  I couldn't tell.  What I could tell was that (in my opinion) top management believed in the philosophy that if you believe something strong enough and force (?) others to do the same that it will become true.  

It doesn't.  

Buy a bunch of small companies and mush them together, tell every one that they must be "ALL IN" (or else) and have middle management in echo chambers will produce great results.  

It doesn't.

My timetable was my own and I had my own plans.  I followed them and I left.  Turns out my timing was good.

I was there a long time (in Software engineering time it was forever) and saw the company change hands (or primary structure) about every 3 years.  People stayed the same and for a while times where good.  But life does not stand still, it demands change and this company did not.  

Same direction, just faster.  

Same people, no other opinions.

Same technology, hitting same limits.

During my last year I plotted out a timeline of current (long in the tooth) products and looked for change and replacements.  For me, it was not promising what I saw.  Product managers only stayed about 2 years before being pushed out (as the real power of direction lay with intrenched others wanting to hold unto power).  It felt like all ad hoc wishful thinking.

Nothing happens fast in corporate collapse.  It all takes time, but it will happen.  

Pushing to increase sales will only work for a short time unless there is quality product to sell, otherwise sales will stall and collapse.  Pushing and pushing sales while cutting staff kind of tells you something. 

From the sidelines I watch over the next 2-1/2 years as sales increase but so did debt.  The mothership (the large company that owned this company) appeared to take actions that its days where numbered as far as ownership.  Benefits where cut, promises broken and moral.... I'm guessing, was not good.  It had bought a big chunk of the company from a private equity firm years ago and now it was selling it to a different private equity firm.  

The cycle of company life is coming back around.

The company will live on.  Top management will be replaced in a year or so (I'm guessing) and staffing, locations, benefits, products trimmed to enable a return to profitability.  It will be shinned up and patched for the next time it's sold.

Interesting to watch from afar.


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