One Door Closing

Today was the last get together at my place of employment. All the manufacturing equipment, inventory and historical records have been shipped to the new location in Mn. Only us office types remain, and tomorrow is our last day of work, here, forever. Eight have accepted temporary employment at the new location and the rest will be unemployed as of end of day tomorrow. This operation will be shut down, and the company will be nothing but history.

I was pleasently surprised when the company president gave me a kick-ass letter of recommendation. I didn't ask for one, because I didn't think he was all that impressed with my method of management. I'm more the leader type and he's more of a dictator.

This is the first place of employment where I expected to stay for a prolonged time. I was expecting to be here for another 5-10 years, but the economy said different. Despite being the lone profitable group the last 2 years the operation is being merged into another out of state.

The worse part of the whole mess is leaving my fellow workers who have become like another family. As an engineer, my work here was not a challenge, but I was enjoying the challenge of building the engineering department and mentoring the younger guys. I'll miss that a lot.

It's said that when a door closes a window opens. On the bright side is my second interview next week with another company. They seem very interested in my broad based experience, at least enough to ask me back for a tour and more discussion. The term used was "more detailed". If this works out I'll be working in a new industry for me and doing a wide variety of tasks. I've always enjoyed being a generalist.

If it doesn't work out I'll not fret. The Boss and I can live a few years without employment if we need, though we'll have to make a few life style changes.