The RISE and Fall of PMC

Dateline - August, 2007:
To start out with "It was the best of times..." is too cliche. However, when I began my brief career at Petry Media in Denver, I was excited. And two weeks into my tenure, I was flown to the New York corporate headquarters for a big powwow. I got to meet the entire leadership team - including Earl Jones (no relation). The energy and enthusiasm filled the place. Fancy dinners, a very nice gift for everyone from Tiffany's. It was all first class. As I learned, it had been a l-o-n-g time since such an affair.

Now fast forward six short months to February, 2008. . . I'm driving home from work, it's already past six, I get a call from my boss on my cell phone. I'm going to have to layoff 40% of my staff THE NEXT DAY! - I pull off and finish the conversation as I feel myself becoming ill. I finally gather myself and finish the trip up the mountain home. I tell my wife. I call my confidant and counselor. I called my boss back with a recommendation for an option other than the one he had proposed.

The following day as horrible. Tears, shock, disbelief... the beginning of the end.

We somehow made it through that, then there were others who left, others came back, others left and not replaced. The company limped along - losing more clients along the way - the economy didn't help - but the defection of station clients to competitors was the major factor. As a small regional office representing less than 2% of total company billings, we did what we could to replace lost revenue - could we have done more? Could we have been even more proactive and aggressive about finding new business? I suppose one can always have done more. But we got creative - we renewed relationships with stations whose business we had not been allowed to handle due to competitive situations - however, those competitors were now gone; so we added tens of thousands of dollars to the Denver revenue base - all on our own initiative. New York had their hands full - we had to do what we could do on our own.

The attrition of stations and dollars took their toll company-wide and the private equity firm who held the purse strings continued to pound on the management team in New York.

The FINAL STRAW:

Hard to believe - but I found out my office was being closed through the grapevine. I called my boss who then called New York for confirmation. One of the members of the management team flew in a few days later to confront us all personally with the tragic news and to present us each with our own customized severance letter. It was an even more horrific day than the one in February - the office closed early that day - nothing much was to be accomplished.

We had eleven days to shut down Denver operations, pack up everything - ship off files to other offices and clear out. We did it with finesse and style. Held our heads high and went out with pride of a job well done to the very end.

This segment of my saga closes 15 short months from where it began, stay tuned - in my next installments, I'll talk about job searches, networking, resumes, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and more...