With any luck, I’ll be unemployed by Saturday

Well, not totally unemployed. I’ll still have that store I own with my brother, but that’s not making any money yet so I barely count it. My job, the thing I’ve done from 8:30 til 5:30 every weekday for the past seven years will cease to exist with just a few swift flourishes of pen. You see, if everything goes as planned, the company I work for (and own some infinitesimal portion of) will be sold to a massive company that makes its bread and butter munching up small companies like ours. It terrifies me and excites me and basically has me turning circles in my own head as I try to plan ahead. We’ve been working on this deal for just about a year, during which time my family could make no real long term plans. With such massive change looming on the horizon, I was hesitant to commit too much of anything. “Just another month,” I’ve been telling myself for far too many months, "and the deal will either collapse or go through, either way, I’ll know how things sit.”

Uncertainty sucks.

Actually, in the spirit of full disclosure, I guess I won’t be truly unemployed right away. There will be wrapping up to do. The corporate equivalent of folding up the chairs and pulling down the streamers after a wedding reception. It’s not work I’m looking forward to, a bit depressing actually to box up everything and close the lid. But, I’ll be around for that for a couple weeks after the stores and employees are all gone. And then? Well, first I’ll need to spend some quality time with the company JET and I own together since I’ve been negligent on that front recently. I’ll focus my energies and hope we can start turning a profit off that business before the financial cushion I get from Saturday’s sale dwindles down and my daughter starts wondering why we’re using old newspapers on her bum instead of diapers.

To tell the truth, I’m actually kind of looking forward to this aspect (no, not the newpapered bum, the working in our store.) JET has done a wonderful job of running everything up there in my absence, but taking more of an active roll in that investment will be good for my stress level. Plus, even though I haven’t been spending as much time as I should have with that enterprise, I did work at it. It was a second job that took time away from my wife and daughter. It will be nice to have just one occupational focus. Who knows, maybe it will give me more time to write.

What’s that? You noticed my lack of recent blog posts? Yeah, between the race toward the sale on the one hand and handing the year end financial duties for the JET partnership (W2s, W3s, 1099s, 1096s, 941s, 942s, etc, etc, etc until you start tugging at your hair and scratching at your eyeballs) on the other, I’ve been spending enough time staring at my computer screen that when the day is done, no part of my mind finds it desirable to spend even one more second typing. I’ve even been rather absent at quite a few of the sites I usually made a point to visit and converse on. I look to remedy my rudeness when things settle down.

Anyway, that’s about all the time I have to spare. I need to get back to telecom transfers so the new owners can take over our accounts. It’s not thrilling…but it’s one of a million things that need to get done before Saturday if I am to make my goal of being unemployed.