A New Start

Tonight is a bitter sweet night for me.  I just a few hours I will no longer work for the company that has been my employer for the past 29 plus years.  The plant where I work is being sold.  We have known this day was coming for the past two years but only in the past few days has it become real to me.  I think it is due in part to the fact that tomorrow I will get up at the same time, go to the same office and work with the same people.  However it will be different.  I WILL be working for a new company and have to learn their ways of doing things.  My old company has been a major part of my life for nearly half my life.  I have some really good memories.  They gave me the hope of a new start after I had been unemployed for almost 5 months and was out of money and no way to provide for my family.  They supported us in 2009 when I was sick and out for nearly half of the year.  The only thing we heard was how can we help?  They provided a regular pay check and good benefits.  I have some bad memories too.  The lose of friends.  Long stressful days.  Elizabeth keeps telling me we can’t really say hello until you first say good bye.  So in part this is my good bye.  Thank you for all you have done.  Thank you for the chance.

This is not the end of my working career.  I still have a few years to go.  I enjoy what I do and want to continue.  The plant where I work, BP Texas City Refinery, has gone through a dramatic change over the past few years.  We keep getting bad press.  True we deserved some of it.  But I work with thousands of people who have poured blood sweat and tears into making our plant a much better place.  And in large part we have succeeded.  I really believe we have turned the corner and are about to start a much better chapter.  I am excited about the future for our plant and for Elizabeth and I.  Wish us luck as we start this new adventure.