Employees With Specific Knowledge How To Use Their Machines Decide They Won’t Be Reapplying To Their Jobs After New Owners Laid Them Off
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
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Private equity funds compete with each other to show max profits in minimum time. The businesses they buy are for slaughtering not milking
I was thinking the same thing - get a business for a write off - bankruptcy for profit.
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These owners don't realize that a company is only as valuable as the employees who work there. Especially given how highly specified the work is. The longevity of the staff there (average 18 yrs,) is sooo rare. Having them reapply and cut wages and benefits but adding work backfired on there. I'm guessing the manager had no previous experience. I hope that business failed miserably!
The reapply thing is kind of just a formality I think. I've went through a company selling to another, we all had to reapply. We understood that they wanted to retain everyone because it makes their life easier, but we still had to "reapply" anyone that wanted to make the switch was kept, anyone that didn't took the layoff from the other company. It worked out well for me as I had 104 hours of vacation that the previous company had to pay me. Then the new company went back to my original hire date so I immediately got that vacation time back. My pay plan got better but insurance went up a little due to the fact the new company was much smaller and had way less employees enrolled.
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So many of us have stories like this. Mine is similar. Boss sold the company. His hand picked favorites stayed on And got $10K checks. The rest of us were fired. I worked 47.5 hrs a week for 6 years and never got paid overtime. Got a new job, told it was 36 hrs a week with benes. Great! My first week was 46 hrs, second week 50 hrs. I asked this boss if he was hiring anyone else. He said, "Not at this time". So I quit. I will treat my employers with as much truth, loyalty, and respect as they give me.
In countries with strong unions this couldn't happen. In most cases in Spain you get 18~22 days severance payment. Older workers could get up to 45 days. I'm no commie lefty freak but this is what happens when workers don't have right and/or are not united.
Wouldn't have mattered as this was a sale. In the US these dudes get nice unemployment. As with most of these stories, i am pretty sure its fake anyway.
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My place of employment was sold to an investment company and things remained the same except for the name that signed the paycheck. A year later it was sold to a company that had a 'meeting' where we were given employment applications to fill out and sent back to work. A week later we all had orientation with new uniforms, company I.D.'s and such. It wasn't until payday some salaried workers found out they were now on an hourly rate. Now 16 years later when the new folks mention how I have tattoos and a wild beard which are a no-no in the rules the supervisor just tells them I was 'grandfathered' in.
It is gospel for way too many employers that employees are liabilities, not assets. They like to call themselves "job creators" to justify paying ridiculously low -- or no -- taxes, but the truth is the last thing they want to do is hire more people. It's more cost effective to overwork the people they have or to outsource or automate.
Our company was sold after the old owners managed to sell a computer program for a crapload of money. The guy who bought it thought that the value was in the accounts he purchased. Nope. First the IT guy left and found a better paying job with better hours. Then my husband left who was the only other person that knew how to do web programming and intranet maintenance. The salary he offered for a replacement was laughable. When the two top managers left to work with clients that offered more money, his company started falling apart. He had to sell his house, boat and other items to keep financing it and his wife left him shortly after. Owners need to realize the value of their employees before assuming they can be replaced.
I worked for a company that would fire long term employees before they could retire, and hire people off the street that knew nothing about what the long term people were doing. Everything fell apart, and the company got sold. They had to give the remaining employees a nice raise not to leave. I left anyway.
"...and hire people off the street that knew nothing about what the long term people were doing." Ah, how sensible. I wonder which business school taught them that? 🙄
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“Typical boomer mentality.” Damn generalizations. I’m not a boomer, but most of my clients and many of my friends are. Couldn’t ask for kinder, more generous people.
I'm not a Boomer fan at all, but this is not a boomer trait. This is typical of business including the owners who showed their colors. I have never seen a company purge it's long term employees and succeed. These employees bring a pile of benefits many of which are not quantifiable. Losing them always costs time and money. I truly hope both the past and future owners fail miserably.
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I blame the old owners who sold the business to a bunch of greedy blood suckers. They sold out knowing exactly what was going to happen to their current employees and did it anyways.
So if i start and build a company and have an opportunity to sell it for a nice profit, i am a bad guy?
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I need update on this story... Did the business went under? Or they start calling former employee and offers benefits?
There are currently very few phrases that more consistently guarantee an absolute shitshow of a Charlie Foxtrot more than "Private Equity." Private equity is what you get when a mangy flock of vultures gets transformed by a Genie into MBA-wielding finance bros - at which point the mange ticks abandon them because, while the ticks might be parasites, they do have *some* self-respect.
Now is the time to negotiate! If the new owners don't want to pay you for your expertise, wait until they go out of business and go in with your colleagues to buy the company at fire sale prices. Then go forth and be the kind of business they should have been. Your Success will be the best revenge
The employees automatically qualify for unemployment benefits. Therefore, all of them can take their time looking at their options without a lapse in income!
They qualify because they would get laid off from the previous company. Unemployment would only verify that the company sold and people were laid off. But the new company could potentially screw that up for them by saying they refused work.
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I love it. I hope they sink like a stone without those employees with specific knowledge. Every now and then, greed has consequences. 👍
The old bosses in my opinion probably cared about the people if their average worker has been there 18 years... so obviously very little turnover, but maybe the owners were also getting really old and got good deal and couldnt negotiate to keep old positions. So they were looking after themselves and got the retirement money. The equity firm is the bad guys here.
Or the business could have been passed to a new generation that didn't want to deal with it. I'm sure the new company planned on keeping most employees, they would need them.
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2022 and STILL so many mentally old people haven't udnerstood that workers are not a liability, they are the very esssence of a company. UNless you run a fully automated factory with absolutely no human employee, you depend on your employees much more than they on you. Why is that still so very hard to understand for some people???
Chances are, if this story was true, the equity group had a lot of millennials associated with it.
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The UK does many things wrong but we have fundamental workers rights many of which I took for granted until I started work for an American owed company. It doesn't need Unions to sort this out it needs decency and respect for your employees
I'm supper happy to know the new owners will take a huge loss in bankruptcy...
They will probably find the people.they need, or upgrade the processes
Load More Replies...
One man was the only employee, who still knew how the machines worked and how they were repaired if necessary... some of the machines were almost 100 years old. When the Junior - Chef took over the business, that employee was the first to be laid off... 2 years before he was due to retire. He was sad, but got the severance pay, that was contractually guaranteed to him. After a few months, the new chef noticed his mistake and asked the employee to "help out" and instruct a new employee for "a few days". The pensioner registered a business at short notice and let his former boss pay very well for it. He was also always called, when the machine wasn't working. Overall, the employee cost the company 3 times as much, as if he had continued to work there for the last 2 years, until retirement.
Sounds like a "Right to Work" state. Sounds like a company with management that forgot to remember that other people's sweat created those profits. Even in worker supportive places, keep in mind that most enterprises will have a "Help Wanted" sign up before your obituary is published.
Investment is gambling, and I do so enjoy watching the greedy burning to death. It honestly feels like you're watching life punish them for being horrific human beings, IN REAL TIME.
Long story short since I ran out of available words. A large portion of us left and started our own company. To hell with them corporate d***s. We won all of their big contracts and are doing great. So I guess the better people and service won, didn't we ;0)
Close story here, big company called Zones bought our company Nfrastructure. They ruined everything good about our company. The proper raises, benefits, out of season raises just because you did a kick ass job, Xmas party, thanksgiving turkeys and pies. The list goods on. Not only that but when regular raise to me came around we went from 10% raises to maybe 3.5 and that's if you fought for it .
Bob of Bob's Red Mill did it right. Didn't want to sell his company to some corp when he retired. So he and his employees got together and made it an employee owned company. Don't know the details, but it is still a great place to shop and eat.
The new owners did no research! Like what was the niche, how it worked, why it worked, their reputation in the work community, why such great employee retention. Could they make it work better and how, expand it a little more, make sure employee retention remained good. If you do your research, then you stand the best chance to make it successful once you take over.
To Donald Key: you're making a mistake lumping boomers as one. We are just as different as millennials whom I'm sure you wouldn't treat as a single individual. Age really has little to do with it, I've kept a company alive thru thick and thin all the while you would castigate me as a boomer. I'm 71 and we are proud of our company.
This happened at the car dealership I worked at. One dealer group sold one store (the only one they had in the state) to a local guy who was already running 4 other dealerships. They made it clear they wanted to keep everyone, but we still had to pass all their hiring processes, it wasn't really a big deal. They went back to our original hire dates with the previous company so. Employees that didn't want to make the change took the layoff and we're able to collect unemployment. The only real change was health insurance got a little more expensive due to a smaller company with less employees (5 dealerships VS almost 200). My pay got better and it was a better place to work for, until I got let go for "performance" when the store went from having 200+ new cars available to celebrating if we had double digits available. I feel like these employees all over reacted honestly.
I worked for a Family Owned grocery store. We were actually an Employee Store Owned . The actual owner didn't bother to tell us that he was selling to a Major food chain. Well low & behold he got his BIG BUCKS & we got Screwed in the long run. I was FULLY VESTED & NEVER saw 1¢ of the money I should have gotten because the major food chain ran the stores into the ground. We all walked away with NOTHING. I left after being with them for over 10 years. I was told I was Topped out at my pay rate. With that being said I put my notice that I was looking for another job. As soon as I found it I told them that such & such would be my last day. They looked at me like I was joking. I had to remind them that on such and such a day I have my notice to so & so. I walked away and NEVER steeped for back into that store. A few years later I ran into the original owner and told him straight out. "Well I'm glad that you got your price. I hope you can sleep at night knowing that GOT NOTHING".
Lol d!ck move to shore up the funds value at the expense of the company employees. Sorry to say this but I think the company is bought to be dismantled and liquidated piece by piece, over months probably years. Yeah they do that when they have liquidity, but no where to put them.
The old owners are the assholes. Agree with the comment that said they are Boomers who just screw people over to take care of themselves. F**k them and the new owners
Assholes...with 18 yr+ employee tenure? Assholes for accepting an offer on the business they built so they can retire? Man, i do not envy whoever you work for.
Load More Replies...
Private equity funds compete with each other to show max profits in minimum time. The businesses they buy are for slaughtering not milking
I was thinking the same thing - get a business for a write off - bankruptcy for profit.
Load More Replies... These owners don't realize that a company is only as valuable as the employees who work there. Especially given how highly specified the work is. The longevity of the staff there (average 18 yrs,) is sooo rare. Having them reapply and cut wages and benefits but adding work backfired on there. I'm guessing the manager had no previous experience. I hope that business failed miserably!
The reapply thing is kind of just a formality I think. I've went through a company selling to another, we all had to reapply. We understood that they wanted to retain everyone because it makes their life easier, but we still had to "reapply" anyone that wanted to make the switch was kept, anyone that didn't took the layoff from the other company. It worked out well for me as I had 104 hours of vacation that the previous company had to pay me. Then the new company went back to my original hire date so I immediately got that vacation time back. My pay plan got better but insurance went up a little due to the fact the new company was much smaller and had way less employees enrolled.
Load More Replies... So many of us have stories like this. Mine is similar. Boss sold the company. His hand picked favorites stayed on And got $10K checks. The rest of us were fired. I worked 47.5 hrs a week for 6 years and never got paid overtime. Got a new job, told it was 36 hrs a week with benes. Great! My first week was 46 hrs, second week 50 hrs. I asked this boss if he was hiring anyone else. He said, "Not at this time". So I quit. I will treat my employers with as much truth, loyalty, and respect as they give me.
In countries with strong unions this couldn't happen. In most cases in Spain you get 18~22 days severance payment. Older workers could get up to 45 days. I'm no commie lefty freak but this is what happens when workers don't have right and/or are not united.
Wouldn't have mattered as this was a sale. In the US these dudes get nice unemployment. As with most of these stories, i am pretty sure its fake anyway.
Load More Replies... My place of employment was sold to an investment company and things remained the same except for the name that signed the paycheck. A year later it was sold to a company that had a 'meeting' where we were given employment applications to fill out and sent back to work. A week later we all had orientation with new uniforms, company I.D.'s and such. It wasn't until payday some salaried workers found out they were now on an hourly rate. Now 16 years later when the new folks mention how I have tattoos and a wild beard which are a no-no in the rules the supervisor just tells them I was 'grandfathered' in.
It is gospel for way too many employers that employees are liabilities, not assets. They like to call themselves "job creators" to justify paying ridiculously low -- or no -- taxes, but the truth is the last thing they want to do is hire more people. It's more cost effective to overwork the people they have or to outsource or automate.
Our company was sold after the old owners managed to sell a computer program for a crapload of money. The guy who bought it thought that the value was in the accounts he purchased. Nope. First the IT guy left and found a better paying job with better hours. Then my husband left who was the only other person that knew how to do web programming and intranet maintenance. The salary he offered for a replacement was laughable. When the two top managers left to work with clients that offered more money, his company started falling apart. He had to sell his house, boat and other items to keep financing it and his wife left him shortly after. Owners need to realize the value of their employees before assuming they can be replaced.
I worked for a company that would fire long term employees before they could retire, and hire people off the street that knew nothing about what the long term people were doing. Everything fell apart, and the company got sold. They had to give the remaining employees a nice raise not to leave. I left anyway.
"...and hire people off the street that knew nothing about what the long term people were doing." Ah, how sensible. I wonder which business school taught them that? 🙄
Load More Replies... “Typical boomer mentality.” Damn generalizations. I’m not a boomer, but most of my clients and many of my friends are. Couldn’t ask for kinder, more generous people.
I'm not a Boomer fan at all, but this is not a boomer trait. This is typical of business including the owners who showed their colors. I have never seen a company purge it's long term employees and succeed. These employees bring a pile of benefits many of which are not quantifiable. Losing them always costs time and money. I truly hope both the past and future owners fail miserably.
Load More Replies... I blame the old owners who sold the business to a bunch of greedy blood suckers. They sold out knowing exactly what was going to happen to their current employees and did it anyways.
So if i start and build a company and have an opportunity to sell it for a nice profit, i am a bad guy?
Load More Replies... I need update on this story... Did the business went under? Or they start calling former employee and offers benefits?
There are currently very few phrases that more consistently guarantee an absolute shitshow of a Charlie Foxtrot more than "Private Equity." Private equity is what you get when a mangy flock of vultures gets transformed by a Genie into MBA-wielding finance bros - at which point the mange ticks abandon them because, while the ticks might be parasites, they do have *some* self-respect.
Now is the time to negotiate! If the new owners don't want to pay you for your expertise, wait until they go out of business and go in with your colleagues to buy the company at fire sale prices. Then go forth and be the kind of business they should have been. Your Success will be the best revenge
The employees automatically qualify for unemployment benefits. Therefore, all of them can take their time looking at their options without a lapse in income!
They qualify because they would get laid off from the previous company. Unemployment would only verify that the company sold and people were laid off. But the new company could potentially screw that up for them by saying they refused work.
Load More Replies... I love it. I hope they sink like a stone without those employees with specific knowledge. Every now and then, greed has consequences. 👍
The old bosses in my opinion probably cared about the people if their average worker has been there 18 years... so obviously very little turnover, but maybe the owners were also getting really old and got good deal and couldnt negotiate to keep old positions. So they were looking after themselves and got the retirement money. The equity firm is the bad guys here.
Or the business could have been passed to a new generation that didn't want to deal with it. I'm sure the new company planned on keeping most employees, they would need them.
Load More Replies... 2022 and STILL so many mentally old people haven't udnerstood that workers are not a liability, they are the very esssence of a company. UNless you run a fully automated factory with absolutely no human employee, you depend on your employees much more than they on you. Why is that still so very hard to understand for some people???
Chances are, if this story was true, the equity group had a lot of millennials associated with it.
Load More Replies... The UK does many things wrong but we have fundamental workers rights many of which I took for granted until I started work for an American owed company. It doesn't need Unions to sort this out it needs decency and respect for your employees
I'm supper happy to know the new owners will take a huge loss in bankruptcy...
They will probably find the people.they need, or upgrade the processes
Load More Replies... One man was the only employee, who still knew how the machines worked and how they were repaired if necessary... some of the machines were almost 100 years old. When the Junior - Chef took over the business, that employee was the first to be laid off... 2 years before he was due to retire. He was sad, but got the severance pay, that was contractually guaranteed to him. After a few months, the new chef noticed his mistake and asked the employee to "help out" and instruct a new employee for "a few days". The pensioner registered a business at short notice and let his former boss pay very well for it. He was also always called, when the machine wasn't working. Overall, the employee cost the company 3 times as much, as if he had continued to work there for the last 2 years, until retirement.
Sounds like a "Right to Work" state. Sounds like a company with management that forgot to remember that other people's sweat created those profits. Even in worker supportive places, keep in mind that most enterprises will have a "Help Wanted" sign up before your obituary is published.
Investment is gambling, and I do so enjoy watching the greedy burning to death. It honestly feels like you're watching life punish them for being horrific human beings, IN REAL TIME.
Long story short since I ran out of available words. A large portion of us left and started our own company. To hell with them corporate d***s. We won all of their big contracts and are doing great. So I guess the better people and service won, didn't we ;0)
Close story here, big company called Zones bought our company Nfrastructure. They ruined everything good about our company. The proper raises, benefits, out of season raises just because you did a kick ass job, Xmas party, thanksgiving turkeys and pies. The list goods on. Not only that but when regular raise to me came around we went from 10% raises to maybe 3.5 and that's if you fought for it .
Bob of Bob's Red Mill did it right. Didn't want to sell his company to some corp when he retired. So he and his employees got together and made it an employee owned company. Don't know the details, but it is still a great place to shop and eat.
The new owners did no research! Like what was the niche, how it worked, why it worked, their reputation in the work community, why such great employee retention. Could they make it work better and how, expand it a little more, make sure employee retention remained good. If you do your research, then you stand the best chance to make it successful once you take over.
To Donald Key: you're making a mistake lumping boomers as one. We are just as different as millennials whom I'm sure you wouldn't treat as a single individual. Age really has little to do with it, I've kept a company alive thru thick and thin all the while you would castigate me as a boomer. I'm 71 and we are proud of our company.
This happened at the car dealership I worked at. One dealer group sold one store (the only one they had in the state) to a local guy who was already running 4 other dealerships. They made it clear they wanted to keep everyone, but we still had to pass all their hiring processes, it wasn't really a big deal. They went back to our original hire dates with the previous company so. Employees that didn't want to make the change took the layoff and we're able to collect unemployment. The only real change was health insurance got a little more expensive due to a smaller company with less employees (5 dealerships VS almost 200). My pay got better and it was a better place to work for, until I got let go for "performance" when the store went from having 200+ new cars available to celebrating if we had double digits available. I feel like these employees all over reacted honestly.
I worked for a Family Owned grocery store. We were actually an Employee Store Owned . The actual owner didn't bother to tell us that he was selling to a Major food chain. Well low & behold he got his BIG BUCKS & we got Screwed in the long run. I was FULLY VESTED & NEVER saw 1¢ of the money I should have gotten because the major food chain ran the stores into the ground. We all walked away with NOTHING. I left after being with them for over 10 years. I was told I was Topped out at my pay rate. With that being said I put my notice that I was looking for another job. As soon as I found it I told them that such & such would be my last day. They looked at me like I was joking. I had to remind them that on such and such a day I have my notice to so & so. I walked away and NEVER steeped for back into that store. A few years later I ran into the original owner and told him straight out. "Well I'm glad that you got your price. I hope you can sleep at night knowing that GOT NOTHING".
Lol d!ck move to shore up the funds value at the expense of the company employees. Sorry to say this but I think the company is bought to be dismantled and liquidated piece by piece, over months probably years. Yeah they do that when they have liquidity, but no where to put them.
The old owners are the assholes. Agree with the comment that said they are Boomers who just screw people over to take care of themselves. F**k them and the new owners
Assholes...with 18 yr+ employee tenure? Assholes for accepting an offer on the business they built so they can retire? Man, i do not envy whoever you work for.
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