HI EVERYONE,

I just need to vent and ask for your advice.  I have been working in the same bakery for the passed 2 years now and love my position and the people I work with.   I was made manager about 8 months ago to help out my boss who is getting burned out of the business.  I bent over backwards for her, the business and the staff.  It is a very small group of us as well.  I had heard from the cracks that she is selling the business now for the last 2 months from a very very good source.  Everything is starting to add up and I can not believe she did not pull me a side and explain everything that is going on.  What would you do?

AThat's a tough question. It's really none of your business, what she does with hers, so she is not obligated at all to discuss it with you. You are an employee, not a partner. When the time is right, I'm sure she will approach you to have the conversation. She may be trying to figure out herself, how she wants to handle it.

I would not take this personally.   She may still be making up her mind and there may also be legal reasons she is not saying anything.  Even though you are a good employee, there is no obligation for her to share this information with you.

In the corporate world businesses are sold overnight and no one but the CEO and his lawyers may know until the next day.

You don't even know if it is true.  Maybe you should ask her in person.

Thanks for your advice.  She has always made comments to me like, '' I WOULD SELL THIS PLACE IN A HEART BEAT IF THE PRICE WAS RIGHT."  or she would tell me if someone would give her an offer as well.  She is burned out from the business and it shows terribly.  There is only 8 of us and some of us do depend on this job as well.  I could see if this was a big corp. but its not.  Call me old fashioned I guess.

if you tell your employees you are going to sell, some of them will quit--it would be hard to find replacements in the meantime if it was common knowledge that the place is being sold--and then sometimes employees can survive a change of owners--sometimes they don't want to either ;)

me, i'd dust off my resume if you truly believe the information--you need to be loyal to yourself first--

edited to put a comma between 'sell' and  'some of them'  hahaha

Maybe she wants YOU to buy her business!

Thank You everyone for your advice.  The person that will be buying the business would make a wonderful owner/boss.  I just feel betrayed.  I am taking this way to personally, I know.  I really have made this business thrive in the last 2 years and I feel this is the thanks I get.  I could actually see her not even telling me until she hands the keys over to the new owner.  Oh, well I'm just venting.  I just don"t know what I'm gonna say when the day comes.  Thanks everyone!

Don't panic.  Start looking for another job just in case.

If you feel close enough, ask her about the plans.  Perhaps you are part of the discussions of the purchase.

Good advise has already been given.  Just know that you are in the stages of grieving.  Be careful of your words and actions while you are still grieving.  They could come back to bite you.  Sorry this is happening to you.

1.Denial—This can’t be happening to me!

2.Anger—How could they do this to me? This is where you mentally list every fabulous thing you ever did at work and rail against these weenies who don’t appreciate you. You obsess about the slacker in the next cube who survived when you didn’t, or the idiot boss who chose to save the one who is better at playing politics than he is at actually doing the work. It’s normal to spend some time in this phase, but some people get stuck here and can’t move forward. That’s really self-defeating, because that pissed-off attitude is a HUGE barrier to getting hired someplace else.

3.Bargaining—Maybe if I just… Not everybody does this, but some employees try like crazy to keep their jobs, even after the ax has fallen. Some look for a job within the same company, even when it’s clear that the company itself is in bad shape. Others offer to take pay cuts, take on extra work, go part time…anything to stay with their current organization. Once in a great while, this actually works, but I’ve found that even when employees manage to hang on, there are often bad feelings that make it a miserable experience.

4.Depression—I’m never going to get a job. This is a normal feeling in any job search, but in the current downturn, I don’t know many people who aren’t spending a good bit of time in this stage. Even great candidates are having trouble finding jobs, and it’s difficult to avoid feeling completely overwhelmed by the situation.

5.Acceptance—Well, that sucked. What’s next? The fact is that you WILL find a job. It might be a while, but it’s incredibly unlikely that you will be unemployed forever. You will get through this. We will all get through this. In the meantime, you will experience the joy that comes from being able to grocery shop in the middle of the day—and that does not suck one bit.

A

As you say you are taking this way too personally. It happened to me but my boss was so ashamed and sad to lose his business he just couldn't tell me. It was the end of his dream and hard work as we'll. I went out on my own, kept many clients who loved my work over the years and made new ones through them. Sometimes a crisis is the setting for a new drama good luck