Walkout At Work Last Week

Good for you.

I would have pointed out that 4 months was a long time but it once took me 12 (and I was being verbally abused a few hours a day almost every day), so.

_{Jack - They were very surprised and sorry when I left.}

Your lucky with the Balkan boom. But how do you hire with fast food paying $12/hour and bennies. I bet it was tough to get anyone to start work.

I just hope this $ does not screw up every town and county government in your side of the state, to buy into living beyond their means. As once this settles down, the value of real estate should go back to where it was. So hopefully the tax burden does not get 20 years of municipal bond spending.

Sounds like your financially secure, and will have fun not showing up for the 12 hours of stress.

In a way I am happy to be out of there but I do really feel bad in some sense having done it. By my standards its not the least bit professional of thing to do.

What I find rather bewildering is that I and the rest of our crew have been making continual comments to our immediate and upper level management about if things don't improve this would likely happen. Yet when I made the call to let someone above our immediate management know there would be no crew on the work site that day and why he acted like this was a complete surprise and mystery.

About a month ago he himself had been here to meet with all of us and stop us from leaving at that point. Granted most of what he did was make promises that we knew wouldn't be kept and sing praise about how hard our site manger works and what not and which non of us believed or agreed with being that we see what little he does all day every day.

Our site manger only works 5 day shifts a week, no weekends, never answers the phone when he is not at work, never works when football games are on TV, will only work with one other person and that's mostly because that employee does all of his job for him, never properly trains the new hires, and has a temper tantrum whenever anyone calls in sick or with medical related reasons and shuffles everyone work schedules around to fit what ever days he doesn't want to work even if they were marked for holiday or vacation time off.

This same guy BTW. http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/78461

The rest of us work 5, 6 and 7 shifts a week with me jumping back and forth from two day shifts over to 3 - 4 night shifts and back every week because our manger will not work with anyone but the one guy which was well known by all of us being no one else would stand for him sitting and watching TV all day while there was physical work to be done that was the primary part of his job description which he didn't like doing.

In the end a bunch of promises were made of which non held up, new guys came and went and we all said we had enough.

What I have been pondering on now is being that they had a hard enough time getting anyone to come and work there what are they going to say to new applicants?

I mean if you are short handed as is and having trouble getting people to come and work for you what can you tell someone who is applying after the majority of the previous work force just walked out one day that is going to make them want to stay and work for you?

When one guy leaves its probably him who has the problem but when over half of the crew leaves in one day it more likely the company.

Sounds like a big house of cards waiting to fall to me.

"Sounds like a big house of cards waiting to fall to me."

I suspect that's pretty much what happened. At least I got out before the whole deck came down on my head this time!

"Maybe this is a sign that "The times they are a changing". For the past ten years or more, managers have had the attitude that "If you don't like this job, I can find ten people out there that are begging to take it." Not any more. Experienced skilled tradesmen, technicians, and engineers are suddenly in short supply as the US economy is starting to recover. Meanwhile, this last generation have been too busy playing with their I-phones to learn any useful skills or work ethic."

I have been suspecting that for some time now. It has always bewildered me how so many in management positions assume that they are more important than the people doing the actual work. The best managers I have ever had knew who makes the money for the company and treated everyone as so.

To me it rather easy to see who is most valuable/critical to a companies survival. A manger can disappear for a week before anyone notices they are gone but a single floor worker shows up 20 minutes late one day and everyone is aware they are missing and the whole work process start grinding to a halt until someone physically takes that persons place.

In a way relating to the local oil industry boom here I am rather glad that the vast majority of the companies here are out of state big business who have zero interest in playing the "good ol boys buddy buddy" system that been holding everything at a standstill here for the last 30+ years.

It gives every person who has any reasonable work ethic the ability to tell off their old boss and walk out the door to find better treatment and working conditions elsewhere. Believe me there are a lot of small and moderate sized businesses here that lost their whole work forces, many being guys that were 20 - 30 year long term company men, in short order due to the high demand for skilled workers who want to be paid fairly for what they do.

In a way I get the impression that a large percentage of the new generation of workers have a certain understanding that the concept of the boss is always right is not good for the company or their careers in the long run especially if that boss continually does stupid selfish stuff that hurts the company for his own gains.

Adding in that social media now gives everyone that was considered to be at the bottom formerly with little to no say the opportunity to communicate between each other about what companies have good standards and work forces and which have drooling idiots with bloated egos and no brains running things.

I also think that much of the newer generation does have some levels of diversified educations now that makes them able to question why they get billed out for $140 an hour to the customer but only see $14 an hour of it going to them and from that come to the inevitable question of how many other butts am I carrying in this company and why and whose jobs are justified and whose are pure BS.

I feel rantish today. Maybe I am finally getting caught up on my sleep?

I hope my earlier comment was not taken as a critique of mass resignation. As you know the hell you were living with. And I retired by announcing it one day, and the next using 5 weeks of annual leave up to the actual date.

I retired 6 years before I intended. And it was my group head manager that drove me out. He's only been with the company 10 years, came from GM electronic operations assembly St. Louis. Has absolutely no avionics system/safety domain skills. And he is surrounding himself with gross incompetence as this makes him look good, and it's not his fault we don't have quality people. Very similar to an earlier thread a few weeks ago (your comment). I got tired of extremely negative reviews as the previous 25 I was exemplary. So his plan worked, to drive me out. I'm on day 5 of voluntary retirement. As well the incompetence all the way to VP, only the department head gets what we are there to do. And as I indicated, I want no part in moving high skill jobs off shore.

I just assumed you had 100K acres of ranch land out there, 10 acres per cow type quality. But that's probably a little further west. I think I saw your user name on some farm type blog sites.

As I indicated before, I would have stayed in ND, but there were no EE jobs, unless you wanted to work coal power plant/distribution and frankly, I could not see this sort of design as a wanted career. Any of the jobs 29 years ago in Fargo were a joke for salary compared to anywhere else. I hope the boom will make this parity.

I do wake up smiling every day. Just got a taper attachment for the lathe, that I need to retrofit, as it was made for a different machine. I have a pretty good model shop of both metal and wood working machinery, and have so many undone things, that my retirement will be a blurr. And as I lived electronics at work, I might get back into that as a hobby, but all my hobbies are fixin broken stuff.

Have fun on the house remodel, I hope your young enough to still climb ladders with sticks of wood.

I followed what you were saying rather well.

I am only 38 but well educated in the B's hire C's or lower to make themselves look good at work. I wouldn't say I am exactly A quality but I do try to treat everyone as my equal and teach anyone anything I can that will help make theirs and my work loads easier.

Oddly enough that willingness to teach and try to find ways to make work easier for everyone seems to really rub some management people the wrong way. Not that I have ever had a problem with rubbing those types the wrong way anyway.

Right now as I understand it my old manager is getting to prove how hard of worker he is by working 12 hour shifts 7 days a week until more people get hired which could be a while!

I do have to admit I never was a good employee anyway.

I am too independent and unable to ignore the big picture that applies to what I do and not just focus on the paycheck and ladder rung climbing. I have never really been one to just work for the money so to speak. No thrill in it for me.

It's so good when one doesn't have to play the various games that are set out within organisations. Going to the HR office with a letter and the message, "Ever so sorry. I'm leaving." is so satisfying.

Another useful turn of phrase is, "I haven't been able to identify suitable alternative roles within the company that I can encompass with my considerable skill set." That one can be a tongue-twister and is worth a bit of practice before the event to get right, just in case one is asked.

Maybe this is a sign that "The times they are a changing". For the past ten years or more, managers have had the attitude that "If you don't like this job, I can find ten people out there that are begging to take it." Not any more. Experienced skilled tradesmen, technicians, and engineers are suddenly in short supply as the US economy is starting to recover. Meanwhile, this last generation have been too busy playing with their I-phones to learn any useful skills or work ethic.

As for me, I have just been laid off from the job (Manufacturing Engineer) that I held for the past eleven years. This lay off happened just as I was planning my retirement for the end of this year. For me, this was great! Now I can collect unemployment while I sell my house and prepare to move to my wife's house in Mexico.

However, to receive unemployment benefits I must be "actively seeking employment". So I posted my resume on Monster.com. Who would want to hire a 66 year old has-been engineer and tool maker? So I thought. Lo and behold in the past week, since posting, I have already received four interested replies.

So enjoy your time off while it lasts. I don't think it will last very long.

A friend of mine could not take it and simply said one day "I don't need to be treated like this", and left. Naturally, they fired him, um...for absenteeism. What comes out at the next placement interview is not the reasons why he left, or that he was part of a whole shift that left (surprisingly similar story to yours!) but the recurring question "so why were you fired?" He was between a rock and a hard place for about two years after that because HR really did not care to take on a person with a history of "being fired".

I really hope that this won't have such negative fall out as that! Sounds like you tried all the usual remedies first, and this was a "last straw". You seem like too competent a guy to lose...I wonder if your shift got together and formed a consulting company, if you would get re-hired on as consultants. Many advantages of going this route...for one thing, as a consulting team you would be subcontractors NOT in the chain of command.

Just an idea. Bad bosses and bad management teams are hardly a new phenomenon, and this is one way to deal with them.

I guess I have to give you guys an all around thanks for the support. So with that, Thank you!

As far as getting another job that's never really been a problem for me. I have a skill set that is easily demonstrated and in demand plus in this area bad management at a company gets known community wide rather fast much to their disagreement.

Like with this job when I apply for another I make it clear up front that I am not there for the money. I am there to feel useful and learn new things so treat me well and I will do everything I can to help but jerk me around too much or play petty office politics and I have fall back measures in place that will allow me to simply just not show up for work any more with out notice.

Right now my wife has just started here second week at her new drafting job and they love her there! Her starting take home pay is pretty close to what my pay was and I was paid rather well by local standards as is. Plus I have a fair amount of odds and ends misc work that I can use to make easy money when I am not working on the new house project. I have a shop full of odd surplus goodies that I can get around to testing and cleaning up and put on eBay plus 10 - 15 tons of scrap iron that needs to be hauled out as well.

That and having a good old dozer and backhoe tractor now can make for some easy cash this spring if I choose too as well.

Rumour has it a new sewer system costs around $10,000 to be installed around here now. I did mine in two days for less than $2000 in materials. Me thinks that with a little advertising and I can make quick cash all summer long if I want doing remedial dirt work!

Personally I just want to stay at home and be lazy for a while longer.

Just for a follow up its been almost a month now since the walk out and my wifes new job is going well.

She is to the point of getting steady paychecks and from what I am seeing of her take home pay she is making the same take home on 40 hours week that I did on 60 being she doesn't get taxed nearly as hard plus her insurance deductions are lower than mine despite having a better plan!

My odds and ends sideline work is covering my part of the expenses plus I have her putting money in the joint bank account that I now use to take us out to eat and spend as I please as she used to do to me! Much protest now though, Thats her money not my money , although when it was my money there was no issue with her spending it to take me out every week. Go figure.

To be honest with me not working it is costing us far less in general expenses since we are not running two vehicles to town 5 - 6 days a week and I make her take her own lunch to work whereas I tended to eat out when I had the chance when I was working. Those two things alone have cut about $400 a month off of the base living expenses!

Me thinks being lazy and self/unemployed fits me just fine!

BTW I don't miss the two 12 hour days followed by three 12 hour nights work week schedules one bit!