Sailing the Sea of Uncertainty

It's been a crazy week at my work.

Last Friday, Qimonda, the customer who's manufacturing facility I work at, filed for bankruptcy. They are a European company so they filed in Germany. Since that time, things here have just been surreal. I'm still waiting for someone to pinch me so I'll wake up.

Prior to Friday's announcement, there were no indications they were planning to file. Was I completely surprised? No. I didn't need Dionne Warwick or her Psychic Friends Network to tell me the company was doing really bad. They were bleeding money at an unbelievable rate and there was no way they could just go on without additional financing.

Since they've announced their insolvency, they are under credit protection and are currently trying to reorganize and get some funding from investors. It's hard to believe this is going to succeed, but they're giving it their best. In the meantime, since they are insolvent, they can't buy materials to manufacture their products (DRAM memory chips), so they have completely ceased all manufacturing and lots people are just standing around not doing anything. It's just freaky.

They are trying to get it together. What is even more freaky is that there are a lot of folks here who are in denial of the situation and believe wholeheartedly this place is going to get bailed out and be back to running production (and losing money) within the week. That may happen. But there's a really good chance it won't.

So how has this affected me? Well, with our equipment shut down we have been able to get caught up on a lot of work we were putting off. And starting today, I'll get to leave work early. We've already brought our property and equipment down from their factory floor. Now we're just waiting to see what happens. Either we are going to go back to work here, or they're going out of business. They're having a large employee meeting this afternoon. I wonder what they are going to say. Regardless, we're prepared to wait until next weekend to give them time before we pull all our parts from their stockroom, gather our things, and walk out. It may happen sooner, but we just don't know right now. My customer is happy we haven't walked out yet. A lot of their other vendors and equipment suppliers already have. Qimonda owes a lot of folks a lot of money, including us.

I don't work for Qimonda. I work for one of their equipment suppliers so I am somewhat indirectly affected by this. Am I concerned? Yes. Am I really worried? No. Strangely, I feel sort of calm about the whole situation. I figure really only one of four things is going to happen:
1. Qimonda gets financing and we go back to work here.
2. Qimonda gets bought and we go back to work here.
3. Qimonda goes out of business and I quit my company to stay in the Richmond area.
4. Qimonda goes out of business, there aren't any good jobs in the Richmond area, and I stay with my company and relocate to somewhere else (somewhere probably not as nice as where I live now).

All four of those options are equally probable. I've updated my resume and have made a few calls just in case. We'll just have to wait to find out which one it will be. Right now I'm sailing on a sea of uncertainty. God is at the wheel and only he knows where I'm headed. I'm good with that. This is going to work out one way or another. Whatever happens, I know things are going to be ok and I'm going to be thankful. I already am.