DarkEdgeX's Journal: Bankruptcy and Employee Incentives

My first journal entry, and strangely, my first rant about my current job.

I started with this company over a year ago, and about 6 months ago, everything went downhill in a fast sort of way (stock went from $52+ to nickles and dimes in 6 months). We were told that things were fine and that the company was seeking new money to give us a shot in the arm, and then that fell through and 90% of our staff was let go, and the remainder (including myself) were told we'd receive "employee incentives" (very specific incentives) for staying on, and a payout of our vacation balance. This was an incentive to keep us around since they were going to file for bankruptcy protection in an effort to re-organize and sell off constituent parts of the company as 'working entities'.

All good so far.. now it's been 6 months or so since all this happened, the milestones for when we'd receive our bonuses have come and gone, no checks and no vacation payouts. We're still getting bi-weekly paychecks, which is "a good thing", but whenever news of our status is given it's in short controlled bursts with nary a whim of when things will really settle down or when we'll see the money we've been promised. Job security aside, the money would be nice simply because it'd buy me time to find a job that I'd really enjoy-- not grab the first thing a recruiter throws at me and hope I'll adapt. (FYI: I imagine I could make do for 3-4 months on the promised bonus-- that's being thrifty and whatnot.) Taking the job security into account, I have sleepless nights wondering when and if this whole thing will fall out from under me, and worse, the stress of it all is finally affecting my work to a point that my co-workers and management are noticing; so now I get the joy of wondering when/if we'll either a) be sold and re-hired at the new company or b) let go altogether because the portion of the company I'm involved with can't be sold. To boot, my faith in ever seeing that employee incentive cash is dwindling by the day, and the combined fears of being let go (be it for poor productivity, bankruptcy or being sold but not being re-hired) and NOT seeing said bonus (because it didn't work out, whatever) is giving me a damned migraine.

Bleh, anyways, I've decided for now to just go one day at a time-- the stress is still affecting my output (if you can call it that, I get work orders and nothing gets output, so it's hardly output then huh?), but I've put my resume back out there to get a feel for the job market and how it's changed since the last time I went hunting. I guess in the coming weeks I'll decide if I want to abandon ship or if I want to stick it out and try to make it work.. nothing particularly interesting is holding me here, just my general fear or not being able to find anything else and that if I DO quit (or get fired) I'll lose out on those promised incentives.. We'll see.