Novel shows behind-the-scenes look at corporate mergers

Corporate mergers are messy business and they change the lives of everyday people, but everyday people don't headline the merger and acquisition news. In "Pink Slips and Parting Gifts," author Deb Hosey White provides an insightful – and sometimes comical – look at the human fallout of corporate risky business.

By the time Easton Company CEO Jeffrey Elkins entices a major competitor to buy his Fortune 500 company, the corporate jet is waiting and his parachute is platinum. In 13 weeks, the deal of a lifetime transforms a handful of quirky executives into multimillionaires, propels a workforce into unemployment and dispatches unsuspecting retirees into poverty. In the background, security guards dance naked in mall fountains and a homeless man inherits the sofa from the executive suite.

"An estimated one in five corporate employees has experienced a merger or acquisition. 'Pink Slips and Parting Gifts' is their story. It's a fictional peek behind the curtain at the joys, the pains, the absurdities, the excesses, the disbelief, and the rejection," says White. "It is a human portrayal of how a merger affects everyday people – not just the millionaires – whose lives and livelihoods depend on one corporation."

The memorable cast of corporate characters includes a germophobic CEO, a marketing vice president turned Elvis impersonator, the Sundance Kid of Everyman Compensation, and a purchasing director nicknamed the eBay Wizard.

Indisputably relevant in today's economy, "Pink Slips and Parting Gifts" is the perfect read for anyone who has lived through a corporate merger as a manager, investor, or pink-slipped worker.

Approximately 343 pages, the book is available from http://www.iuniverse.com, http://www.barnesandnoble.com and http://www.amazon.com.

About the author
Deb Hosey White is a management consultant and retirement coach. With more than 30 years experience working for Fortune 1,000 companies, she has lived mergers and acquisitions from inside the conference rooms, cubicles and executive suites of corporate America. As a business communications specialist, she has written thousands of pages of corporate policy. No doubt those who toil inside corporate America will find her first full-length novel much more entertaining.