Work?

Work life at the moment sucks - big time.

Since our new owner took over the company, our turnover had decreased to 10% of what it was. The past two months have been a bit better, but still no where near what it needs to be. It has cost him in excess of 1.8 million to keep our doors open!

Some background - This company was owned by Mr. and Mrs. Hean. I started here working 2 days a week. Then out primary client (95%+) was 3BM SA, owned by Roger Mar1in. After Mr. Hean passed away, Mrs. Hean asked me to stay on and help run the company.

For some years prior, they had been trying to sell the company to Roger, who always indicated his interest, but never made an offer. After he died, Mrs. Hean told him she really wanted to sell. He delayed and played the game till she dropped her price to a ridiculous number. He seriously "stole" the company. But no matter, now our client was also our owner, as Roger owns 3BMSA.

Then Roger sold 3BMSA and Rhombic to a BEE buyer, an African guy who got funding from the IDC or one of those institutions. He didn't get enough funds to buy out Roger completely, so bought the company, and some of the existing stock. This meant that Roger still owned a lot of stock - probably around 40 million!

Now, Roger was well off, so could float 3BMSA on a monthly basis if funds ran short, Then when the money came in, he would be refunded. This worked well, the company had an average monthly turnover of around 8 million Rand! At a 35% profit margin, good business.

So the new guy takes over. Renames the place 3BM SGT - this means that all 3EBMSA suppliers whom they had accounts with, now see this as a new company, so go COD. New owner will have to first build up his credit worthiness before they will open accounts. And as he has limited access to funds, he struggles to get raw materials. And with no raw material, we can't manufacture for him, so clients don't get their product, and many go elsewhere! 

He gets onto Rogers bad side, so Roger firms up on his credit as well, meaning that even though Roger has in stock the products 3BMSGT needs, they can't get it till they pay for it! That's what happens when you burn bridges! His GM resigns on short notice, so he has to get a new one - they don't come cheap, and as he's also an African, comes with attitude, demands a new company car as he doesn't like the nearly new Pajero the previous GM drove. And I am sure a fat salary, company petrol card, expense account, cellphone, etc.

His sales manger gets worked out - so has to employ a new one - won't just promote the person in sales who has been responsible for 80% of the turnover for the past 5 - 6 years! Nope, maybe because she's white and female!

Then he hires in 2 African lady HR consultants - who everyone agrees adds no value to the company - and they can't be disposed of as he signed them for a 12 month contract! (R50k a month is what they getting paid).

Internally, they promote a clerk (African) into the buying position - including all purchases of products from sub-contractors, like our company! He has no idea what he's doing, and has to keep referring back to his old boss for guidance and assistance!

I finally learned that the new owner comes from a corporate environment, and his plan is to turn this small / medium company into a corporate! All that means is big overheads, expensive top management, a CEO position (for him), a board, and the glory of telling your mates you are the owner, and CEO, of a corporation! Seriously?

All this spending has left him in a situation where he can no longer buy materials like the company used to, so we can't manufacture. 

So, I now have a company I run, where out of the 15  workshop employees, only about 5 are working, The rest I am trying to keep busy! We have made "stock" with material that was on our floor, and Have cleaned and repacked the 3 workshops, and I even have a guy on the roof painting!

He's now also employed a financial consultant. Go figure - a bit late for that, and he's expensive - and I can't see how he's going to add value, other than he's now looking at my job description, which I supplied him with, to re-evaluate my salary which I told him I am not happy with. I know, wrong time as the company is doing so bad, well, he needs to know what I bring to the party, before they decide they can replace me with an African manager - then they will close the doors here! 

So, here's hoping they get the top up loan from the IDC they have applied for - here's hoping the IDC manage to get Eishkom to stop importing / buying cheaper Chinese imports (they not really much cheaper, and their quality sucks, but the guy in Cape Town who imports this shit is known to hand out brown envelopes to some of the procurement staff at Eishkom!)

If only get the fuse box business back, and get awarded the current tenders which are pending, we will do a minimum of 750k a month turnover, which is much more than we need to do to keep the company afloat, and I could by employing another 8 or so people, grow that number to between 1 million and 1.5 million Rand a month!

Some names have been altered - to protect myself!

End of rant - at least I have this off my chest.

Now for my next trick - sending love and peace to the world from my blog.