Bankruptcy: Not quite a four letter word, but as I found out recently, it’s close.
There was a strong industry reaction to last week’s news that Norwood had filed for bankruptcy. To start, it was nice to see people show concern and wish the folks over at Norwood well. It has to be more than a little unsettling to have your employer make such an announcement. Actually, that last comment was a stupid understatement, I just hope everyone is surviving and the company and its employees come out better on the other side of this.
On the negative side, there seemed to be a lot of anger that the company had to take such an action. I don’t know if it is bailout fatigue, or what. Maybe it’s that people are tired of companies getting “off the hook” on debts when many individuals are seeing personal and small-business debt skyrocket (along with credit card rates—what’s with that?). To be fair, the negative comments were mostly aimed at the idea of bankruptcy, not Norwood and certainly not at the employees effected by this.
For me, my first reaction (after my initial reaction of “what”) was to wonder what exactly filing for bankruptcy meant. Don’t worry, I’m not going to try to sum it up in a sentence or two. I’m not an economist or even the most business-savvy blogger on the block. But if you do want to know, here’s a link to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)—the place I went to find out the who, what, where and why of Chapter 11.
