Gabriel Mizrahi

and led to a general sense of distrust toward the new company.

For example, I had a week of PTO scheduled over the holidays prior to the merger, the old company paid out our PTO balances, and under the new company, we were given only three days of PTO to last from October through December.

I got sick and had to use two of those three days, leaving me with the choice of either missing my family's Christmas gathering or attending without pay.

While I understand that transitioning to a new company is never easy, the new company's policies and culture feel impractical and incompatible with the established culture at our branch.

My colleagues at this branch are equally frustrated.

While I'm relatively new, they've worked together for five years and have already survived transitions through three different companies.

Our branch has a group of well-rounded skills, we work exceptionally well together, and we could realistically operate as our own entity.

I've heard growing concerns around the office and morale does not seem particularly high.

This led me to consider the idea of purchasing the branch as a group and operating it as an employee-owned entity.

The challenge is that none of us have experience with something like this and I'm unsure how to even bring the idea up to my colleagues or where to begin.

We have a solid, loyal client base that has stayed with us through two company transitions

and their biggest complaint has consistently been having to work with technicians located in other states.

Some clients have even threatened to leave if they were unable to continue working directly with our branch.

How would you recommend bringing this idea up with my colleagues or gauging their interest in such an arrangement?

Is this something that seems worth pursuing?

Signed, leading the charge to go all in and enlarge.

Yeah, a little Game of Thrones with Ethernet cables.

Yeah, I agree.

And as for bringing this up with your colleagues, I would maybe get together with them or at least the ones you're close with and you trust.

Maybe you start one-on-one with a couple of the most trusted colleagues before you go to the rest of the group.