Context:
I was the sole “Graphic Designer” before they sold. I don't know if the new company already has a team or not. I did all the marketing (social, e-mail, flyers, etc.) & website maintenance (building products, updating graphics, etc.). I've been here 5 years. It was a train-wreck but I stuck through. We started with 7 employees in the department. Following COVID, it's been 2—myself & a shipping associate (we even lost our manager & he was never replaced).
2 years ago, I negotiated with the old owner to begin working fully remote. Eventually I came back partially remote (2 days a week) in order to help during the staffing issues. These past 2 years have been amazing & the department has been performing better than ever. But now they sold.
This was a fairly local retail store with 4 locations in the same state essentially. The new owners have over 30 locations from San Diego to Long Island. They already have their own socials & their own website as well of course—which I'd assume renders our obsolete, which is most of my job.
They are also based out of another state about 4 hours away from me, I'm assuming that's where a marketing/design team would be based if they had one. We've been given a point of contact with the owner, but it's just a store manager at one of our locations who doesn't really know anything about me, so I'm hesitant to bring this up to him. Everything about this new ownership has just been very ambiguous. No one has even come to talk to our department yet about how to move forward (it's been over a week).
I'm hoping you guys might be able to give me a bit of a gist of what to expect & what might be a good direction to take this (I'm not 100% worried about losing this job, I could figure something out). I did also “on-board” today so I actually don't think I'm getting laid off.
So here's my question: Should I ask about whether or not I can continue this partially remote schedule under new ownership? Or is it safe to assume that I can & hopefully they just won't care to make the change. I suppose I need to know whether they're absorbing me into their marketing team first or not—but what would you expect to happen?