The Gun Counter

Here is a WTF moment that I need to vent about a bit.

Last year I started a new job working for a rather large European based manufacturing company. Same job on paper as I have been doing (engineering management type stuff) but a different industry and so forth.

I knew I was walking into a bit of a mess (companies don't usually hire ourside for this type of job unless there are problems) but I thought it was a good oportunity for a few different reasons. Anyway, it turned out there were a ton of problems at the plant and I was right in the middle of trying to fix quite a few of them. It sucked (way to many hours working) but some good progress was being made, we had some victories and I was getting some good feedback and all that jazz. They even announced that I was being promoted into a sort of Operations Manager type position, so that was is cool.

So a few weeks later, we are doing a big rearrangement of the Assembly Department trying to increase the efficiency and meet some other goals and I am in charge of a big portion of it. It is a big sweat-Ex. with lots of bigwigs from corporate there and whatnot, very aggressive goals and timing - but that is life. My part of it is going well, my team gets the first line moved / rearranged and in production everyone is happy with it. We are working on the second one and have a lot of it complete when one of the bigwigs (a board member type guy who is like 2nd or 3rd in the company) comes up to me and tells me that he wants me to get the line running within the hour. I try to explain to him that part of what we are doing is combining two of the machines into one (which cuts out a lot waisted effort by the operators) and that because of this the controller for the combined machine is in pieces being rewired/reprogramed, i.e. there is no way in hell that it is going to be running in one hour no matter what I or anyone else does. This shouldn't be news to anyone because it is what we briefed that we would do, but he doesn't like the answer and kind of goes off on me a bit. No big deal but whatever.

So we finish the line and get it running, it works like a champ, meets all of the goals. I also get put in charge of fixing a couple of the other lines that the corporate guys were in charge of because they didn't work right, but that sort of thing happens.

Except that a few days later I get called in and informed that I am being let go! It seems that Mr. Bigwig didn't like my answer and ordered that I be fired even though my boss, boss' boss and boss' boss' boss all tried to talk him out of it and explained to him that what I told him was in fact true (I am told that his reply was that he didn't care). Technically I was laid off with a severance package and all because they couldn't fire me right after promoting me, but the effect is the same.

I have to say, this all happend about a month ago and I'm still scratching my head about the whole damn thing.

You really cant argue with stupid. At least not if you want to actually achieve something, as opposed to just keeping your position on the corporate ladder. As a consultant you learn this pretty fast, you can get kicked out of a project with a moments notice if one of the managers takes a dislike to you. I generally just always tried to do good work, so if/when it happens, everyone else will understand the real reason.
I't not fun when it happens, but in the long run I think it's for the better. Let them run the trainwreck on their own.


Company policy
Start with a cage containing five monkeys. Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and place a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the other monkeys with cold water. After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result; all the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water.

Pretty soon, when another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it. Now, put away the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his surprise and horror, all of the other monkeys attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted.

Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm! Likewise, replace a third original monkey with a new one, then a fourth, then the fifth. Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, he is attacked. Most of the monkeys that are beating him have no idea why they are not permitted to climb the stairs or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey.

After replacing all of the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no monkey every again approaches the stairs to try for the banana. Why not? Because as far as they know that's the way it's always been done around here. And that, my friends, is how a company policy begins.

We the Unwilling led by the Unknowing
Doing the Impossible for the Ungrateful
Having done so much with so little for so long
We are now capable of doing anything with nothing

W-O-R-K is a four letter word.

My place of employment has gone through a lot of changes. We're profitable, but not as much as our corporate owner wants us to be. We hired a new CEO a year or so ago, in order to shape the company to our owner's liking. We have cut to the bone, with several rounds of layoffs, and pay cuts to many hourly employees (I'm lucky, I didn't get a pay cut, I just haven't had a raise to speak of in ten years). The new CEO's strategy appears to be to hire more and more neckties; we have several more layers of management than before. The CEO hired a new VP of manufacturing. The VP's first move was to hire a director of manufacturing. The other directors now report to him, and the new director reports to the VP. Ironically, the new director's resume was heavy on six sigma, lean manufacturing, and all that crap. It's a classic case of too many chiefs and not enough indians. Lots of new Mercedes and Lexuses are appearing in the execs' parking lot...

And they'll soon be disappearing... Along w. the new, bloated, management...

I don't understand why employees need so much management, but they do. (Admittedly, I'm often dealing w. a pretty low end workforce) But, apparently, coming in every day, doing the same job, at the same time, still means you have to have a boss to tell people to do their jobs... And the managers need the same thing, which I really don't understand. They're intelligent, educated, and I, on most days, do little more than hang out in my office for a few hours, maybe take a nap -- but, if I'm not there, things don't run right -- for years, I've always told employees, of all ranks, "Do not hide anything*!" If there's an issue, tell someone, even if you're "sure" how to fix it -- I follow the same rule -- admittedly, if we were bigger it could be tedious, but it's just a matter of picking up a phone, or popping a head in...

And, yet, it takes...years, really, until an employee learns to say what the problems are, rather than try to muck through on his own...

*Referring to work problems, not personal stuff.

Vonz,

Sorry to hear about that. You got canned because you couldn't personally bend space & time! My prayers for you to find something better quickly.

We have a stuffed shirt who was trying to get my dept. to drop what we were doing and finish an initiative at one of the regional hospitals. Except we don't report up to him, he's on the same level as our director. Oh, and a former team member of ours who was at this regional hospital sat on this thing for almost 3 years. It can wait another 4 weeks.

Sorry to hear about your troubles. We got the news we were being outsourced 3 weeks ago. At the moment I'm applying for another internal position, the next level up from what I'm doing now. Hopefully I can find something else internal if this one doesn't work out.

Sucks, but all you can do is assess your options and keep at it.

Sorry to hear that, Vonz. Be sure to get good references from the bosses up to the level of the idiot who took a dislike to you. They will surely be glowing.

Best of luck finding an alternative.

I'm not allowed to run the train, the whistle I can't blow
I'm not allowed to say how far the railroad cars can go
I'm not allowed to shoot off steam, or ever clang the bell
But let it jump the God-damned track, and see who catches Hell.

Or my personal favorite:
The three most dangerous things in corporate America:
a programmer with a soldering iron
an engineer with a program fix
a manager with an idea

Thanks for the well wishes.

It is not all gloom and doom at the moment. I was only actually not working for slightly over a week and I picked up a contract engineer position that runs to Dec. plus I still have the severence coming in so things are safe through the end of the year at least.

I figuring that if I don't find something permanent by then I will probably volunteer for a deployment for the reserves. A year in Afghanistan would be a nice change of pace.

Vonz90 wrote: A year in Afghanistan would be a [strike]nice[/strike] change of pace.

There. Fixed it for you.