Well that went well

I haven't discussed my present state of employment yet. A few years ago (late 2020), I was unemployed, and due to a few coincidental factors, found myself doing maintenance work at a small engineering company in Chamdor. 2 Days a week, because that's all the owner said he could afford. It was no problem for me, at least I was working. He had got very sick, was permanently on oxygen, so could no longer move around as before, and needed someone to help with maintaining / fixing the machinery. It's all very old equipment, and so calling in a service provider was either very expensive, or useless, and no one wants to make parts for these old machines anymore. His wife was working with him, doing all the office work.

This soon became a 3 days a week job. I proved I was worth the extra money, and learned a lot from him as well. I also got involved with assisting with the production when there was a bit of a backlog on the line. This gave me invaluable insight into the operation, and possibilities of the place.

Soon after Covid restrictions were lifted, he got the virus. I started to work full time. Then Kevin died. It was tragic, sad, and a major problem for his wife. She approached me to sign on permanent to run the whole operation for her.

And I accepted. It was a good period, we did well. She trusted me enough to leave the place in my hands while she went overseas for 3 months to visit her kids!

Then she found a buyer - in fact, he was the owner of our biggest client (95 % of our business). I'm not going to get into all the details here.

Business still went well, as long as my client was getting orders, so were we. Then he put both companies on the market. And after some time found a buyer - for both. So now I had a new boss, and again he owned both the company I run, and my biggest client. He's an African guy, nice enough, but has big aspirations of boing the CEO of his own Corporate.

Problem is, he bought a small to medium sized company - Yes, they turned over between R40 and R60 million a year, but still not a corporate. 

And in the past 6 months, since he took over, my order book has dwindled to ZERO! It used to always be around R800k to R1.2m, and turning. We would invoice on average around R600k a month.

Since he came on board, we haven't even managed to cover wages each month. And this month, March 2025, we have hardly invoiced R60K.

The problem is this- first, he changed part of his company name, which means that the accounts with the current service providers fell away,  so any purchases of material is C.O.D. (and in the case of most, pay upfront)! This will continue till the New Co qualifies for a 30 day account. This has killed his cashflow!

Secondly, his aspirations of "Corporate" means he has been using the service of two ladies for HR Consulting (R50k per month!), his methods have cause the GM to take his early retirement and so has a new GM (African dude with attitude), he's had to employ a new Sales Manager (old one left after much abuse), and he has employed a Financial Consultant. He has a new costings manager..... All of these are massively expensive overheads, who add nothing to the bottom line! But they need cars, credit cards, garage cards, fat salaries.....

He's run out of money. Because he has spent so much on  stuff that does not sell. And now has applied for additional funding from wherever they get money (black empowerment funding company who's name now evades me).

Because he has no more money, he can't order material, so we cannot manufacture. And when his money is approved, he will need to place order for material. The turn around at the aluminum extruders, and plastic injection molding guys is 4 to 6 weeks. Which means, even if he places the orders on April 1st, we might get material by the end of April, and we can start delivering by the end of the first week of April. But that's still 5 weeks away!

 I Digress. Today we were surprised with a visit from the 2 HR ladies, as well as the new GM for ENB, and FM for EBM. They asked about how we run the company, do the invoicing, etc. I explained how I had created a massive spreadsheet that I now use for pricing of new products, and that our running costs for the past12 months is R2.36 per person per minute (also from my spreadsheet). And how the pricing is cross linked to other spreadsheets (like wages, price list, etc.). They were impressed enough to ask me to share it with them! Also put them in their place when they asked an=bout the old material we still have in stock. It belongs to the previous owner - they said well then make him fetch it asap. I told them that's now how it works. I have spoken to him, he asked for a few weeks to get his warehouse in order and make some space. And I agreed. And that's how it's going to happen.

Then a walk through my operation, the GM said he had seen where the welding was being done by robots at another factory - and I said yup, by me a R2.5m machine and we can do it here as well. In fact, with about R20m, I could automate most of this place, and just keep about 5 people employed. But I would rather make them like I do, and keep 15 families fed! He's an African guy, and seemed to agree with me after all.

At the end of the day, the visit went well, I think they going back with some good things to say about me to the boss man. Either way, I do what I do to the best of my ability, and to the benefit of the Boss, and more importantly, the employees.

More on this as things develop.