Workplace Rant....What to do?? Kinda Long...Sorry

[64 SRT8 Dart]

See first paragraph " I think you are very lucky and perhaps dodged a bullet.."

History has never been kind to whistle blowers...

Really? A whistle blower? lol

By pointing out the obvious....that persons keep screwing up. The nonconformance reports and rework reports beat me too it.

 

[fishmens67]

The news was told to our area in the shop that I would be the new trainer for new hires and for anyone that wanted training on welding, fitting, blueprint reading, and other processes in the area.....then my boss said "possibly the whole shop" which surprised me, lol.
Supposed to get a pay increase, we'll see though.

be careful, you may be training your replacement. a raise is a good thing,
good for you and good for your boss, you get more money and your boss gets a low paid trainer. your skill is the only ammo you have, be careful who you share it with. it wouldn't be the first time someone unknowingly trained their replacement. watch your back.

 

[grassy]

Fishmens67,

We used to call it promote up and out......

64,

by dumping on this dude, you are also dumping on this dude's boss...company politics can be nasty..

Regardless, very please you got a raise...more money now to spend on the car...

 

[DUSTERDOWNS]

Like the man said Be Nice It Is Just A Job--Do your 8 and hit the gate-- The place will be there when you are dead and gone and forgotten--Bonus-- the man who pats you on the back usually has a knife in the other hand. You find more friends bent over the fender of a Mopar than at work. You can not change the mindset of the boss that is just there for the ride.

 

[Frankie]

...You can not change the mindset of the boss that is just there for the ride.

That's a 2 way street, too.

 

[Coronet 500]

I think I'll just say Congratulations!

 

[64 SRT8 Dart]

I don't completely disagree with you guys. I do have my suspiscions. Part of me says that my boss and the CFO are covering their butts cuz they know I have them recorded saying that the owner was wrong in saying what he said about wanting us to get pissed about others not doing their jobs.
The other part says that the CFO and I are on the same page with things. If people keep screwing up and costing the company money, then we'll both be out of jobs cuz there won't be ANY money to get paid with.

 

[Randy WM]

Unfortunately for union workers, their work ethic is stifled by the "Union mentality", and usually the lack of individual compensation for a job well done. Remember, as a union member you are part of a collective. Individual effort might be recognized, but, outside of the realm of a bonus, or an award, the individual can not be individually compensated, with a wage increase.

I haven't seen the unions deliberately stifle the work ethic in the union shops I've worked in, Verizon, Bell Helicopter, and my current employer. Maybe that's a stereotype, or maybe it does go in those states where the workforces are more heavily organized such as in the midwest. I'm not going to proclaim that it does or doesn't because I've never worked in a union shop in the midwest. I can only speak from my own experience.

My original question was in response to the unions-protect-deadbeats statement. Like I said, I've seen and worked with those same deadbeats at non-unionized companies and was wondering who was protecting them at those places because those companies weren't any more inclined to get rid of them than the union shops. Your answer is true in the technical sense in that we SHOULD be held responsible for poor work performance, but it just doesn't happen. My position and my point was, based on my experience, is that being union or non-union is irrelevant when it comes to the willingness of some companies to address the problems with their deadbeats.

We've all seen the deterioration of that ethic with the advent of the UAW, and the issues that affected GM. Poor management, poor policy, and poor labor work ethic all served to do what most people thought was impossible. The undoing of GM. Argue it back and forth, the simple truth of the matter was GM was not getting the work and quality per hour that was needed to operate efficiently and present a product that was what the customer wanted, and had a reliability coefficient that would sustain sales. We know the result. It wasn't the fault of the union employees, and it wasn't the fault of management, it was the fault of both entities. There were no innocents in that fiasco.

Ed Wallace wrote a very good assessment of GM and Chrysler's problems back during the worst of the recession. GM took a major financial hit when it had to bail out its mortgage lending arm of GMAC to the tune of some $12 billion dollars (double that number by some analysts' estimates) when they took huge losses in the sub prime lending market. A separate company some argue, but still under the umbrella of the parent company GM. And GM took the hit

Most of us are more familiar with Chrysler. Daimler Benz stripped them of about $9 billion dollars before dumping them with next to nothing.

It's tempting to say "Those are large corporations, so that kind of money is a drop in the bucket to them." Ummmm....no it's not. Those types of hits will drive nearly any corporation into bankruptcy court. In our heyday in the late 90s, Delta had a $2 billion cash reserve. So when a company has to fork out 12 times that number, a chapter 11 filing won't be long in coming.

Another issue at GM was the excessively large number of what's known as non-value added employees, that is, employees who are not directly involved in the assembly and the sale of the final product (like those involved in the GMAC debacle). Even corporate labor consultants will admit that's true when cornered. I can attest to the fact that in my visits to the Detroit area, I've yet to meet one assembly line worker, though I met plenty of GM employees with very prestigious sounding administrative titles who don't design, build, or sale the cars. I'd be hard pressed to tell you what it is they do (or did). In short terms, GM was top heavy with those kinds of employees.

The fact is, I've met more assembly line workers here in the DFW area who work at the local GM Arlington assembly plant. The reason Arlington has remained open all these years as an assembly plant outside of the Detroit area (and continues to thrive) is because it is efficient. The local workers will tell you they love their jobs. The pace of the operation and their work environment simply does not allow for people who can't or won't keep up. The Arlington workers tend to bristle at words like slacker, deadbeat, etc..... Now, I'm not naive. They've got their less-than-motivated workers they have to deal with, I'm sure. But that's what I've been driving at. Work ethic issues are more of a widespread problem than many are willing to admit to, and it's not exclusive to union shops.

But you called it, what happened at GM was a fiasco and everyone had to take a bite out of that sandwich.

 

[cjh]

So recently at my place of work we've begun emplementing a new program/idea to help the company make more money so we can actually get bonuses and more raises. It's called "Ownership Thinking."

Each individual employee is supposed to take the mindset of "owning" the company and figure out ways to cut costs, increase quality, and increase efficiency so in the end we get more money. Part of the process is also to weed out "slugs" or people who don't pull their weight or cause many issues with production, rework, etc..

Well I'm pretty vocal when it comes to these things. I let my supervisor know if our 2nd shift has messed stuff up or just shafted us on the jobs by wasting the hours given for each job.
Just let me say that absolutely nothing has been done about the guys who constantly screw up!! Some have been there for years and continually screw up, screw hours on jobs, and retain nothing they've learned in years and have to be reminded time and time again!! VERY frustrating and a waste of company time, money, and resources. Our supervisor constantly makes excuses for them. He gets mad when he see's their screwups but then becomes all buddybuddy with them when they come in.
He constantly rides those of us who are proficient at our jobs to hurry up and get the job done and that we're just more skilled and quicker at the jobs. We have to give 150% to make up for them only giving 50%!!!
He's told some of my coworkers that he's tired of me "complaining" about the lack of work and screwups that 2nd shift constantly puts out.
He's flat out told me I'm being negative and we're a team and we are "all" responsible for the work!!!

Well, yesterday at the plant meeting, the owner blatantly said, "I hope to hear and want to hear of you guys getting pissed about others not pulling their weight. We need to get work out and we can't if others aren't pulling their weight and wasting hours on these jobs."!!! This was sweet sweet music to my ears!!!

After the meeting I ran into the CFO and he asked me how I was doing....so I let him have it about our night shift and how our supervisor makes excuses for the screwups and the 2nd shift supervisor isn't even a leader and just got the job because no one else wanted it. Told him everything about how much they screw up but there's no consequences and some have been doing it for years!!! There's a ton more but it would be extremely long!!

So, I come into work today and my boss is all fired up. The CFO had discussed with him what I told him yesterday. My boss then told me that he, I, and another lead were going to have a meeting after the 1pm break.

Let me just say, this meeting was the most insulting meeting I have ever sat in. My boss told me that if I have issues then I need to come up with solutions to the issues in order to bring them up. Get this...he then says he knows all the issues and has put steps into place to "fix" these things but I told him there haven't been any results, in which he responds, "Exactly." He made no sense at all.
So let me get this straight. You want me to come up with solutions to issues that you know exist, and have already come up with solutions for in order for me to bring these issues up!! WTF!! No joke friends,lol.
Further, the most insulting part, he tells me that according to "ownership thinking" I'm a "terrorist" to the company because I discuss rework/hour issues with fellow workers on company time!!! S#!T hit the fan at that point.
Then, I bring up that I'm doing exactly what the owner is expecting us to do and he responds saying that "the owner was wrong in saying that and should never had said what he said."!!!!!!! That really pissed me off.

The gist of the meeting....somehow by me taking initiative and action on what the owner wants, I'm now at fault and a terrorist to the company. Something seem outta place here??

Here's the kicker: I got the whole conversation recorded on my iphone! Sucka!
So, the dilemma; should I try to talk again to the CFO and ask if he is agreeance with my supervisor and explain a little of the meeting to him, this would tell me if I could trust talking to him again.

OR

Just go straight to the owner and explain everything to him and if need be, let him hear my boss bashing him on the recording??

OR

Just drop it and forget it and move on??

Oh, the solution to the problem: He asked if I could start "training" these geniuses as according to the boss, that's what they need. BS Not after one guy has been there for 5yrs and cost the co. tens of thousands of $$$ no exaggeration.

This is just eating at me as I've been there for over 7yrs now, started at the bottom as a Weld1/Fab1 and have continuously improved, learned, trained to be a Weld2/Fab3. My boss tells me my quality is below no one and I get 95% jobs out on time. In the recording/meeting he says that I'm one of the top guys and technically a "go-to guy" for jobs. He then has the gall to say this S#!t to me, aaarrgggh!!!

Rant over, thanks FABO friends!

The same **** goes on at my work place too......I don't bother anymore....I just do my job to the best of my abillities, and say nothing.
I've been hauled over the coals a couple of times for speaking up....not no more.....they can just wallow in their own ****.

 

[coffeedart67]

Unless there are $s coming your way, keep your head down and mouth shut..no one is going to thank you .. ever..for pointing out what you see... I think you are very lucky and perhaps dodged a bullet..

When I worked for Imper oil, we had something call "coin your idea". If you saw something that could save the refinery monies, you gave it to the boss in writing. When the company implemented your idea, you were kicked back 5% (I think..I left them in '83) of the savings for the first year. There were a lot of happy folks (including management and the company)

Rather than dumping on others, you were showing the company how to be more profitable. I should not that we were not unionized and we didn't want to become so...we were paid better than another refinery down the road from us...

We had something similar, but they gave you $20, but most of the time, they would either find fault with the ideas or dismiss them altogether, then 3-6 months later they(management) would come up with the same idea, with no credit to the original thinker.

 

[grassy]

We had something similar, but they gave you $20, but most of the time, they would either find fault with the ideas or dismiss them altogether, then 3-6 months later they(management) would come up with the same idea, with no credit to the original thinker.

Too bad..we had guys that were making hundreds of thousands above their regular pay..and I am talking1982...the company loved it...