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Then, of course, in bad times, there are auction sales. during the 1970's and 1980's, I would go weekly to pick over the bones of former competitors who went bankrupt.
Same thing in the office furniture business. I remember having a big conference table in the warehouse that had been bought by one of those "broadband network" operators, who had gone toes up, before we could deliver the table to them. I can't remember right now how the company got rid of that table. I almost remember the company having a furniture liquidation sale in the warehouse one day around 2002, to clear out the stuff from customers who had gone bust, or refused to pay the storage bill. During the Carly Fiorina era, HP built a flock of offices around metro Detroit. We installed all the furniture. Then HP tossed Carly, and shut down all those redundant offices. We were paid a second time to take all the furniture out of those spaces. iirc, the furniture, only 2-3 years old, went in steel scrap. Incredible waste in the office furniture business. One day, I saw one of the warehouse guys taking a couple speedpacks of brand new, in the box, under desk, PC holders to scrap. I rescued a couple. Turned out, I never used them, so I donated them to Salvation Army. Seems they were immediately snapped up by someone, because I never saw them on the shelves in the store.
During the dot.com period, vast amounts of unopened network equipment was sold for a pittance on E-Bay
Nothing new under the sun department. My grandfather worked as a car/truck mechanic from the 20s to retirement around 1960. I remember him talking about other mechanics he knew, during the depression. The guys would lose their job, then pawn their tools for a pittance, for booze money. Then, if they did find a new job, they couldn't take it, because they didn't have any tools.
Steve
