From the start, Noble Rogers loved working at Simmons. bThere were picnics, March of Dimes walks, Christmas parties, and we always had Halloween parties. It was a really family-oriented company,b Mr. Rogers, 50, recalled. bI told my wife that this was a great place for me to work. A great place for me to retire, to make a living at.b For a long time, it was. For 22 years, Mr. Rogers worked at Simmons, the bulk of those years at a factory in Mableton, outside Atlanta. After operating the coiler machine for the companybs Beautyrest mattress, he moved into maintenance and kept all of the plantbs machinery humming. Over the years, as Simmons passed from one private equity firm to another, and as Mr. Rogers became president of the local union at the plant, he saw little difference on the plant floor. Then, in the spring of 2008, when the slowing economy had begun to hurt sales, Simmons laid off the night shift at the Mableton plant. And on Sept. 18 that year, it gathered employees in the cafeteria to say that the plant was closing. bSo many people were hurt because they thought this was a great company to work for and they planned on spending the rest of their lives here. Their families were here. They bought houses and cars here,b Mr. Rogers recalled. bAfter this happened, people were really struggling.b Between the closings and other cuts, Simmons let go of more than a quarter of its work force last year, said its chief financial officer, William S. Creekmuir. Mr. Rogers, who received his union-negotiated severance package of two monthsb pay, said he and other union representatives had tried to get a little more for workers, particularly those who would have been eligible for retirement. Simmons had a long history of giving retiring employees a bonus of $20 for each year worked and a free mattress set, Mr. Rogers said. bThey wouldnbt give us anything,b he said. In the months after he lost his job, Mr. Rogers nearly lost his home to foreclosure and struggled to pay his familybs bills. Mr. Rogers, who eventually landed a job at an air filter company and picked up part-time work doing maintenance at an apartment complex, said Simmons bore little resemblance to the company he once loved. bThey stopped the picnics. They stopped the Christmas parties. They stopped the retirement parties,b he recalled. bThat showed you the type of people I was working for. I just didnbt realize it until the hard times came like they did.b For now, the Golden Age of private equity is over, the financiers say. In a speech to an industry gathering last spring. Mr. Schoen said that bankers and bondholders were reluctant to lend more money to the buyout kings. bWebre in a brave new world,b he said. bWe canbt go back to where we were, at least not in this investment cycle, and probably not in my career.b But some private equity investors are searching for profits in the detritus of the buyout bust. Simmons hopes to emerge from bankruptcy in the hands of two new private equity firms. One is Ares Management, which owns the mattress giant Serta. Under the plan, Simmonsbs debt would be more than halved, to $450 million, in part reflecting the losses suffered by its existing bondholders. Simmons and its remaining employees face an uncertain future. Some in the industry predict Ares will eventually merge at least part of Simmons with Serta, jeopardizing more jobs. bSimmons has been a cash cow. Itbs made a lot of people a lot of money,b said David Perry, executive editor of Furniture/Today. bBut therebs a growing question in the industry of how many more times can this be repeated. How much more juice can be squeezed out of the orange?b