Okay, I guess Now It Can Be Told.

For anyone who's read my tedious ramblings going back to Sept. 2007, you may recall that the owners of the chemical plant where I work laid us all off while in the process of selling the plant. The sale did not go through, and a small group, including me, were brought back in to run one part of it. We've been doing that for a year and a half, and now the plant really has been sold.

I still have my job. Don't know particulars yet - it looks good for my pay rate to continue as-is. There's one funny thing: I talked to the president of the company that bought us last year before any of us knew this would happen. He had interviewed the plant manager where I worked in Memphis, and he called to talk to me about him. They didn't end up working anything out, but they liked each other, and that plant manager had told this guy that I was the best lab manager in the world. He didn't, this man told me, confine this statement to North America. So I have a tremendous build-up in place. We'll have a one-on-one discussion tomorrow - well, one-on-two, it'll be him and the new plant manager.

It's kind of strange. Normally in a job interview, there are two decisions being made: does the company want to hire the candidate, and does the candidate want to work for the company. I asked a lot of questions about the about-to-be-previous owners (not that I or anyone else knew what was about to happen, they didn't either or they wouldn't have paid for my relocation). Now this is a done deal, although we are of course free to walk away if we want. I hope it doesn't turn out to be another mom-and-pop. Sometimes I fear that that is my destiny.