Former United Furniture employees share stories of mass layoff

Nov. 23—The email from United Furniture announcing that the entire workforce had been terminated arrived in Denise Alomari's inbox at 10:56 p.m. Monday, but she didn't see it until Tuesday morning.

And even when she saw it, she didn't believe it was real.

"I thought it was a hack, but then folks started calling and I realized it was real. My heart just dropped," Alomari said. "I went to work (Monday) and it was everything as normal. Nobody said a word. There was no hint about what was going to happen."

Alomari worked in customer service at the United Furniture office in Verona six years. She said the company was "callous and impersonal" to fire people by email in the middle of the night.

Now she has a desk full of personal items that she can't retrieve because the doors are locked. And she's not alone.

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How employees learned of layoffs

Jeff Jones, a line supplier for United Furniture for more than 30 years, did not see the message Monday night from the company saying some 2,700 workers had been terminated.

Jones learned of it when a coworker messaged him.

"I was sound asleep (when it happened) and was checking my email early in the morning from a coworker. His message was pretty simple. The first one was we're out of a job. I found the email and read it. We're just all devastated. We didn't see it coming," Jones said.

Others, like Mike Dempster, never saw the email before heading to the job.

"I went into work this morning, but when I got to the gate, they turned me around. I was not entirely shocked, but it looked like our work was picking up."

Dempsey, who worked for the company for 18 years, said it was especially hard because of the time of the year it is.

"They did it right at the holidays. They should have given everyone notice ahead of time," he said.

For some, the news was doubly hard because both husband and wife worked for the same company — like Doug and Jennifer Smith, who worked at the Furniture Wood Vardaman plant, and Jeremy and Melissa Smithey, who worked at Belden.

Melissa Smithey said the text from United woke her up at midnight.

"It hit me like a ton of bricks, and I could not sleep afterwards," she said.

There were signs of trouble

Jones said the company had reduced hours recently but said what happened Monday night was still unexpected.

"I've been with the company through several owners and names. We've always bounced back. In the email they made it perfectly clear there's no bouncing back from this," he said.

In hindsight, however, Alomari said there were some rumblings that the company was in financial trouble. During the October market in High Point, North Carolina, several people asked United CEO Mike Watson about the rumors of bankruptcy. She said Watson just brushed the rumors aside.

"We heard that bills were not getting paid but just figured that was the economy and things would pick up," Alomari said.

While the bulk of the United employees had no idea the entire workforce would lose their jobs days before Thanksgiving, some higher ups in the company saw the writing on the wall and got out while they could, she said.

"Several vice president-level people have left the company in the last several months," Alomari said.

Workers determined to bounce back

Montel Harris, who worked at the Nettleton plant, said they had just set everything up for people to come back to work after the holidays.

"And they tell my my job was closed. I've been there seven years, and they don't give me a notice ahead," Harris said.

But he wasted no time trying to bounce back. He was at an Ashley pop-up job fair in Pontotoc Tuesday morning.

"I don't need an unemployment check, I need a job," he said.

Despite the bad news, Jones is keeping a positive attitude.

"I told my coworker that informed me that right before we got off for Thanksgiving holiday. Everyone got their Thanksgiving turkeys. I guess that turkey was our severance package," he said.

Jones said he and other coworkers have received a lot of well wishes and support, including people passing along job opportunities to consider. Right now, he sad he was calm.

"I think it's the calm before the storm. Right now it seems surreal. We're going to bounce back and hit the ground running," he said.