Polishing Up The Resume and Looking For Work

I've been working at a Restoration Company in Lafayette for a little over a year.  My role was General Manager and we were General Contractors that specialized in Water Mitigation and Mold Mitigation.  We also did reconstruction projects involving remodels, fire damage, flood damage, roofing, etc.

My boss owned the franchise that had locations in Baton Rouge and Lafayette.  Three weeks ago I received a call from the owner telling me that he was about to go into a meeting with his staff in Baton Rouge and wanted me to hear the news from him.  He had decided to close the doors of the business in both Baton Rouge and Lafayette.  Therefore, all of us were losing our jobs effective October 31st.  Trick or Treat?  It was not a treat.  I had to let all my employees know the bad news. 

Let me rewind a bit to tell you how things got to this point.  Back in August of 2016, the Baton Rouge/Denham Springs area experienced disastrous flooding.  This flooding caused thousands of people to lose their homes.  It was a catastrophe, to say the least.  For a company that specializes in water damage restoration and repair, you would think that this would be great for business!  In actuality, the opposite is true.  Since we are General Contractors, all of our subcontractors left us and immediately found work directly from the homeowner.  I really can't blame them.  There was more work than workers.

This necessitated us in having to hire new, untested subcontractors and we quickly found that there was a reason that they were unable to find work on their own.  They did shoddy work.  Their poor craftsmanship resulted in us having to hire other subcontractors to come in and fix the work and the materials (paint, drywall, etc.) had to be purchased a second time.  This slowed down the ability to finish work which slowed down payment and all of this resulted in cash flow problems which became insurmountable.

At 51 years of age, this isn't where I thought I'd be - filing for unemployment and looking on Indeed.com and the Louisiana Workforce Commission for work.  I'm also getting my resume out to as many friends that I can.  First and foremost, I'm praying that God directs me to the right job and that I'll have wisdom to hear His voice.  I know He's in control and I know we are going to be okay.

At times like this, I like to do a post-mortem and see if I can learn anything from this.  I learned that I like jobs where you rise or fall based on your own merits.  I am definitely a team player.  However, our "team" consisted of people that did not live by the Golden Rule, they did not have integrity or a commitment to quality.  This forced me to constantly try to go behind them and do my best to 'clean up their messes.'  In the end, the subcontractors were our undoing and it cost all of us our jobs.  I am very far from being anywhere near perfect, but I do have a strong customer service focus, and I had to repeatedly apologize to our customers.  This was very uncomfortable.  I don't regret the last year.  I have grown as a person.  I've learned about construction.  I definitely have thicker skin than I did a year ago! I've learned to ensure that your team is committed to quality and customer service and the bottom line of the company.   I'll keep you posted as my employment situation changes.