So Long And Thanks For All The Fish

Well boys and girls, after nine years I’m throwing in the towel at Engelhard…I mean BASF. The latter part of that sentence is the reason why I’m heading out. Just as I was getting use to the idea of staying with Engelhard until I retire, BASF rolled up in here and changed all that. Ever since the beginning of June, the stock symbol for Engelhard disappeared off the market. As of the end of July, Engelhard is no longer a legal entity.

In other words, Engelhard only exists on the side of my coffee cup. We’re a 100% BASF Catalysts LLC now.

The whole name change isn’t the main reason why I’m leaving…it just makes for more justification. The main reason is job security and advancement. Everything in BASF is centralized and standardized. Most of their IT support work is contracted out through Siemens. When they take over a company, most of the IT people are “sold” to Siemens and then farmed back out to the site they used to work at. Sounds fun right? As for the IT folks that get rolled into BASF, they typically become application admins and integration experts. I met one BASF IT employee who had spent the last six years doing nothing but working with new acquisitions. In other words, not much room for me to make use of my CS degree.

Then there’s the whole pride thing. I’ve spent the last four years building and managing our Windows 2000 domain and network. I’ve got a good handle on what’s going on, who has what, and most of it all on paper. I just don’t think I can handle watching a mac truck roll in here one day with all new computers preconfigured for BASF’s network (Novell) and software. There goes all that hard work down the drain almost over night. They’re also going to rip out all of our manufacturing systems, about 4 different ones, and replace it with one catch all system.

Aside from not knowing if I’ll have a job a few months, everything I know is more or less rendered useless…overnight. That doesn’t sit well with me.

All this one top of the fact they won’t announce their plans for Engelhard employees until next month. So we’ve been sitting here since the end of May without a clue as to our future. That doesn’t sit too well either.

Part of me really doesn’t want to leave. I’ve been here for so long and everyone is like family. I can just about recognize the voice of all 250+ people here when they call me on the phone. There are people here that went to school with my parents and brother, and I went to school with a lot of their kids. They’ve seen my graduate from high school, get an AA degree, and everything else that’s gone on in my life. Seriously, I have like six surrogate mothers down here. I’m really going to miss everyone.

Well, that’s why I’m leaving. Stay tuned tomorrow to find out where I’m going and what I’ll be doing.

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