At some point, I would have to go down to Hunt Valley to turn in my key card and parking pass, not to mention pick up the two boxes of personal effects I had in my cubicle.
I’d moved from my office to a space in the old Diamond Select Toys offices in early June — just three months ago, but it feels like ages — and I didn’t take much to the new cubicle. A box of books, a couple of knick-knacks, a Scotland flag, a National Cathedral calendar. Even with being brought on by Ad Populum at the end of June, everything about it felt contingent and transient. I didn’t see a reason to “make myself at home,” because I already didn’t expect to stay.
I told Chuck Parker yesterday I’d be either today or tomorrow, I wasn’t sure which, and he said that was fine.
The box of books was packed and taped — I’d never unpacked it after bringing it down from my old office at the north end of the building to the new office at the south end — and the rest took a single standard Diamond shipping box. I left some stuff — a desk fan, a small lamp, a Captain America statue I’d salvaged from Mike Schimmel’s office when he left in May — including a dozen-ish boxes of herbal teas. I have a sufficient supply at home, I’ll be fine.
I said some good-byes to the skeleton staff that was there, and it was hard. There were hugs and there were tears. “No not fear to weep,” said Gandalf, “for not all tears are evil.”
Diamond, what remains of it — and I am speaking here of the active distribution business, not the “estate” — will not last much longer, maybe not even until the end of the year. At least one of the Brand Managers in Purchasing was let go yesterday, and the Purchasing Team was already depleted from departures, by choice or not. The company — maybe division is a better word — isn’t developing new business, isn’t trying to develop new business. There’s no active desire to generate new revenue, just a resigned state of affairs in monetizing what remains in Olive Branch. This is not a viable business model over the long-term. It’s about extracting what value can be bled from the stone now, and when no more value can be wrought, wind it down and shutter it,
To the few who remain, please look to leave sooner rather than later. Diamond Comic Distributors II is living on borrowed time.
I thought today, driving home, that Alliance Entertainment, who had won the bankruptcy auction for the assets, probably dodged a bullet when they withdrew their bid and the consultants went with the back-up bidders instead. I thought about a situation where Alliance had won the auction and taken ownership… and then the estate said, “Oh, wait a minute, you don’t own any of the consignment vendor merchandise, neither do the vendors. It all belongs to us.”
I took a few last photos from the parking deck next to the offices and headed home.
It was a pretty day. Leave tomorrow ’til it comes.
