Hi there! Long time lurker, and someone mentioned this was worthy of posting here. This is going to be… a bit of a read.
I worked at an organic Distillery in Pittsburgh for about 4 years. The job was a blast, and I absolutely loved what I did. I believed in the mission and local history the business was built on, and absolutely wanted to see the company succeed. I was young, and had finally left customer service jobs for it. To me, THIS was career worthy. Boy oh boy, I was wrong.
When I started, the owners were so hands on and involved. They weren't the easiest to work for, or with, ritzy folks that came from money to throw at a business, they wanted things their way, or no way. If you could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that what you were saying was true, they'd bite on the idea… Most of the time.
They had the passion to GET LITERAL LAWS CHANGED to allow them to start it in the first place. They literally built a business on the back of the Whiskey Rebellion, which is fucking rad. They built the business from the ground up, and had become a serious restaurant contender in the city and started a bit of a movement on distillation in the area. They coupled with local colleges to do some real neat research, were local paper favorites, and constantly winning awards, even James Beard awards, before y'know… Recent controversy around that. They expanded into the Cider industry, and kind of fizzled a little bit, but… They had things going, and were even one of the few places to get alcohol in the area during the early days of COVID.
Cue vynil scratch
Until the last year I worked there… Thats when things started getting a little… Wierd. The owners took a hard step back, and suddenly were absent. Where there was once a “Write a proposal and send it to X” from directorship, suddenly became “We're not sure if we can do that, we'll need to wait two weeks until the next meeting to know if it's even possible.” I was too nieve to see the red flags, and continued as usual.
Until one day there is an email sent out “Be here at this time, we have a BIG, EXCITING, announcement!” Immediately the whole company starts to gossip “Maybe they're partnering!”, “Maybe they're opening up to get stock options!”, “Maybe they're announcing a new location!” All of these things and more were being gossiped about. Up until that meeting…
The owners are there, the whole staff is there, they've got coffee, food, the whole nine. And then…
In walks one of the scummiest people that the city knows, the owner of the local baseball team. Reviled by pretty much everyone in the city for raping the county out of money for… Who knows how long. Doubly hated by local baseball fans for his ownership of the team.
You could feel the air suck out of the room, and several people looked actually sick when he walked in the room.
We got the spiel from ownership of “We've worked tirelessly for a decade, and we're exhausted. This business is our baby, and we think this is the best course of action for the company. He has the resources to take this company to the next level!”
Scummy new owner starts off with talking head level of bullshit; “We're not going to change anything immediately!” and “We're going to be going around and talking to each one of you about your thoughts to improve, and how to make things even better!”
Looking back, I should have left right then and there. My partner is in college, and we're working hard to get her degree to help us build a life for us. I should have known things were going south, and started looking for a job that day. But no, I kept on slugging away, I loved this job, I had been here for almost half of the company's life. Surely they would listen to me, and hear what I have to say, right? I built and ran the systems that the company was working on the back of.
Immediately, new owner starts making changes, and starts mining away all of the fun that was to be found in work. They start cutting costs, new alcohol licenses are purchased, and there is just no communication about anything. My workload doubles, as others see the writing on the wall. I just keep on keeping on, waiting for my meeting to tell them all the plans I've held in my pockets that the old owners didn't want to discuss to really elevate this company to the next level. I was ready.
But that day never came… Work started to get more stressful… My 8-9 hour days, turned to 11, turned to me coming in to handle things at 2am, just to come back at 8am and do the same 11. My mental health took a serious hit, my relationship was was suffering. I was a shell of the person I was. I would come home, drink or smoke weed until I couldn't think, then get up the next day and do it all again. I was ruining relationships with the same people I worked with who I considered great friends. I was not in a good place.
I finally had enough, and with nothing in front of me, I quit. I coasted my last two weeks, and bailed. It took me 2 months of work on myself before I rejoined the workforce. I am thankfully in a MUCH better place now, and I learned a powerful lesson.
New ownership came in after the transition, pulled all the managers into a meeting and scorchingly blamed each of them for different issues that they were trying to get fixed since the old ownership had taken a step back. New ownership then had the stones to say “We're not providing any raises or bonuses until we can start turning a serious profit.One manager put in a two week notice, and was notified her last day was less than a week later. Another was so fed up he left in the middle of a HUGE meeting.
I learned later that the old owners bailed to the sum of close to $15m… I knew they were staying on as consultants, but I recently heard they are getting $60k/mo EACH. More than any single person underneath them was making during their time as owners.
That is when I really learned the lesson. The rich get richer, and step on the workforce. Know your worth, and pull your head out of your job and look around from time to time. Your gravestone will never say “Invaluable Employee”