what's up?

August 29, 2008
What’s up? Some of this, some of that. I think you are all aware that I closed Dixie General last week. It had been coming for some time and a brighter person would have closed it quite a while ago. Fact was, I needed the job and just wasn’t willing to loose it. There were a lot of other considerations, most of which were my concerns about what would happen to my employees. Most of them had been with me since before I took over the company in 1996. A couple of them were my children and several were my closest friends from church.
In my conversations with my employees when the decision was made to close the company, every one of them expressed their concern for my well being and that I had been under way too much stress for way too long. Most expressed a concern that they would come to my office one day and find me slumped over my desk. None of them expressed any anger with me over the circumstance they found themselves in. There were a lot of tears and “what are you going to do?”s from everyone but they all had an attitude that said “whatever it is, it will just have to work out”. They will never know how comforting that was to me. I was so afraid they would all blame me and hate me forever.
Good counsel and advice from Pastor and my closest friends helped me see that I had in fact done all I could do and that what was left was a business decision, plain and simple. We could not go on any longer.
After consulting with an attorney it was decided to take the company into bankruptcy. Between debts and tax issues I had no other choice. In order to protect me and Andrea, I had to declare personal bankruptcy as well. I don’t recall having ever done anything that runs so contrary to my personal fundamental beliefs. My attorney has tried to convince me that the law is there for my protection as well as the next guy. Still hard to swallow. Andrea is not involved in the bankruptcy. Fortunately, last year we took the Dave Ramsey financial class and worked for the last year on eliminating debt. Our only debt is our house and the cars. I am going to give up the Town Car and start driving the pick-up I bought for Dixie. I think we can pull that off until I can get back on path and generating some income again.
It has only been a week and a half, but I am still closing details on Dixie and cleaning my office at home so I have a decent place to work on whatever comes up. I am having a little trouble adjusting to not having somewhere to go every morning. I am still getting up and working on a to-do list each day, it just doesn’t take long enough.
Andrea and I are ok. I really can tell the difference in my stress level. I am happy to have that era in my life behind me, I just would prefer to have everything else lined up and settled. Perhaps for my next entry I can fill in some blanks.
Thanks for your concern and your prayers.
Uncle Westy