Last Wednesday evening my company officially went into administration. All staff were called into the office on Friday. It was fun at first, seeing everybody. We were all downstairs - twittering, nervously laughing, catching up with people's news. Then our 'meeting' started and a tense silence immediately descended. A young chap - early to mid 20s whippersnapper by the looks of it and clearly a bit nervous introduced himself as being from the administrators. He called out 10 people's names and asked them to go upstairs, the rest of us, about 25 or so, stayed put. It was a real X-Factor moment. A few guffaws of sub-hysterical laughter, and a couple of people shouted out bets on our group being the ones to go. Then Administrator Chap said something like: "As you know, the company is insolvent and that means all of you in this room are being made redundant with immediate effect." Pin-drop silence. It was so sudden and to the point. Then you could feel the change in people's attitudes immediately. To anger. A huge, rising swell of anger.
It started to get a bit messy. Administrator Chap asked if there were any questions. Of course there were some questions. Sensible ones at first - about P45s and letters and government claims and forms. Then some more questions. What about the other group - were they redundant too? How come they get to keep their jobs? What would they be doing? How did complete newcomers decide who was necessary and who wasn't? Where were the directors? Why weren't they here to face their staff? Why couldn't they come down and speak to us for a few minutes?
Then a few people stood up and started to make comments about what had been going wrong at the company. And how the staff believed it had been sorely mismanaged, citing a flurry of examples and frustrations about work, and why it had been so crazy bad. And how they
knew who was responsible. How 18 months ago the new management had bought a 'healthy' 'profitable' business and decimated it. Who was going to hold them accountable? Could staff write to someone and give evidence of 'wrongdoing'?
The mood was getting emotional and ugly. And it was going nowhere fast. A lot of empty speculation and unvalidated accusation followed. Administrator Chap did a pretty good job of giving honest answers where he could and facing the flak. They obviously trained him well. In a sense it's totally understandable - everyone had just officially lost their jobs. I just shut the hell up and waited for the first opportunity to get out of that room.
What I learned from that day was that I'm none the wiser. I'm none the wiser about what really happened at the company before I joined to make everyone so bitter about it's untimely demise, but I'm also none the wiser about what happens to a company going into administration. For the whole month of not being a part of the team any more but just sitting at home and twiddling fingers I had somehow believed that at the end of it I would learn a bit more and get some answers to all the questions flying around my head. What do company directors do during the notice to appoint period; what were the options to save the company; who were they talking to and about what; what does going into administration' really mean; what can and can't a business do during this period; what parts of the business would be considered as valuable and saleable, and which ones weren't; how could anything be salvaged from the wreckage?
I realise now I know nothing. I was still on the outside. That month of limbo had been spent just waiting for news, but still I felt a part of something as there were a whole bunch of us also waiting for news. But then, cruelly and swiftly, all ties were severed. We were told to hand in our keys and go. End. Of. Story.
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