Time for another installment.

Alex is out as International CEO. I do not know the entire story but the organization has been bleeding cash since before Beaufort. Beaufort only made it worse. Hopefully her Boy Toy Rudy went with her. What a jackass.

Apparently, in a move to get some cash, it was floated to sell the building in Beaufort then lease it back. Sounds like a desperate Home Equity Loan. I believe it fell through.

My protege, Seth, turned in his resignation. His last day is the 23rd. :shrug: That leaves Jason and Dean. And Dean does not travel. Two new guys were hired last month but, without prior experience, you can't hit the ground running in this gig.

Jason says he's just going along for the ride now, but I don't know how long before he says, "Screw This", and bails. He has more seniority with American Airlines than most of the pilots and flight attendants, he could probably go there as spokesman. Christ, they should name a plane after him. Preferably an Airbus, though.

Speaking of Jason, the honeymoon between him and Eric ended a while ago. Jason has been on a tear about the piss poor quality of the new machines that were delivered to California. Eric got sick of listening to Jason and sent his new engineer he hired to shut Jason down. Much to Eric's chagrin, the new engineer told Eric that the machines are terrible and he's lining up trucks to ship them back.

Back to Alex. I have no idea if she was canned or reassigned. She is a cousin of the owner, so who knows. Maybe she's a new hostess at one of his restaurants in Singapore or Hong Kong.:hehe:

I wonder what the timeline is for them to call you back as CEO/T-800? :lmao:

The end of an era has begun. Maybe it began with me.:shrug:

Jason tendered his resignation yesterday, effective May 10th. Seth's last day was Monday. Al is retiring by the end of August. Harold has decided that he won't stay past Al's leaving and may pull the plug by June. I've been on Harolds' ass for over a year for him to retire.

That leaves the four sales guys as part of the Old Guard, and I expect that to start to shrink soon, too. Bill, in Vegas, turns 65 this year. His wife was a LV vice squad Captain and has retired with a great pension. They have a condo in Panama waiting for them. So I expect him to retire, sooner rather than later.

Keith, Wade, and Scooter are all under 60, so I don't know what they are going to do. Possibly jump ship and go to a competitor.

Lord knows that the current management team cannot find its way out of a one door room to come up with a plan.

I have a year and a half till I CAN retire, and two years till I want to. We just had a bunch of cuts at work over the past 2 weeks. I'm hoping that I make it on that list at some point and am given a package to leave. :)

That's a good one. In the Army we said that a 2nd Lieutenant couldn't find his ass with both hands and a map.

Jason wasn't pulling for a pay increase like he has in the past. Last night he sent me a screen shot of his Countdown Timer.
https://i.imgur.com/KMpTjQJl.jpg

I had one, too, though less to the point. I still haven't spoken with him about what broke the straw but he said he'd get with me next week, once the shitstorm has settled down somewhat.

Jason and I had our chat. His reasons for cutting bait were essentially the same as mine, and that was piss poor quality control from the factory along with the major fcuk ups from the new French management squad.

Jason fell into a great job working as the Service Manager for Palfinger, which he starts on Monday. Another European company that we've both dealt with in the past. They head hunted him. More money, better bennies, less travel. Once he has gotten settled in, we'll get together with Harold for the old guy's breakfast a couple times a month.

Harold and Al are both pulling the plug at the end of August. Both guys were willing to die at their desks for old Claude Geismar, but they've finally realized that the current Geismar generation are just fcukwits and are not worth their health and well being.

I also had a chat with a former French co-worker yesterday. He was closer to the action than we were and said it was much worse than we knew. All the knowledgeable people in Europe were essentially forced to quit and were replaced, as Tony put it, with accountants and ass kissers. Apparently, that's the way of the corporate world now.

There still needs to be a company to get a pension, right?

Pension?:hmm:

It looks like the brain trust has left my company's email address live. An old customer, and friend, called yesterday asking for some info that Beaufort was too stupid to come up with. I had it in my old laptop and was going to text it to him. Then I thought I'd see if my email was still good, so I could just copy and paste. It was and made my life easier.

He called back and thanked me for the info. Then asked why they couldn't get it for him. I told him they have it but are just too lazy or stupid to search for it. I finished up with "I used to care."

Right where I'm at with my current employer. Been in my career path (CAD design, fabrication, & CNC Programming) for 25yrs now, grinding my way up to the top. Finally landed a role with a company that develops CAD software a couple of years back.

C-level management decided that, in order to show a better free cash-flow to shareholders, they'd push back merit increases by 6mo. Moved them from May to November.

End result, I'll have been working for the same level of pay for 23mo before even being considered for a merit increase.


F*ck with my pay = I stop giving a shit about work

Corporate ownership, boards of directorship with shareholder hierarchy, and public ownership (stock and fund share ownership-the sheep) reminds me of the movie "Other people's money". Danny DeVito as the corporate raider. That is the extreme, but there are many offensive practices below that. It is a system that can crush workforces when they are not included in the equation, especially when benefits are eliminated or trimmed back AFTER hire. It is demoralizing. You'd think the invested owners would recognize that this affects productivity, quality, workplace environment, and ultimately, the value of and potentially the survival of their company.

We've had four CFO's at the place since the move. The first two bolted because they still had some shreds of integrity left. The third one was dumber than a post. The current one seems to have a pair and has been standing up to the BS that comes out of Europe. The new international CEO is trying to stop the hemorrhaging caused by the previous idiot. Probably too little, too late.

A new rumor is floating around. The new US CEO, the new Harold, the new Al and the new Sales rep in the NE all came from the same company to GNA. The rumor is that they are looking to absorb GNA and the European branches into their old company. Not the worst that could happen and it wouldn't break my heart.