Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

[cheesy]

Originally Posted by TominMO

"So, with this cluster, I called Harold and gave my two week notice this morning. He said he's not going to try to stop me but wants me to hold off on making it official until a conference call he and I are having with Al's boss on Monday."

This is a company that fully deserves to be burned to the ground. Zero excuse for chronic horrible builds. Management is not doing its part by firing everyone culpable for letting junk go out the factory door. Another company will pick up the orders when this one finally implodes.

The new CEO, who is Al's boss, has both business and engineering degrees. And he's not afraid to come out into the field and crawl under equipment with us. I had breakfast with him at the hotel Monday and Tuesday. We discussed where the problems are in the organization. He has a laundry list of people who he wants to point to the door. He couldn't do it when Al was his boss but he can do it now.

I understand there was a loud intake of breath and gnashing of teeth by the inmates when he was promoted to CEO. Before his first week was out, he canned the incompetent CFO.

My leaving will put Jason and Seth in a bind, and I don't want to do that, but five years of hearing promises of improvements and seeing squat for results has me saying enough is enough.

Back on the subject of busting balls, the new guy complained to me that I was nicer to the guys in Beaufort than I was to him. Told him that there is no hope for those guys, so why waste my breath with them.

[cheesy]

I’ve been laying low this past week, due to exhaustion and an absolute crappy week.

I despise working with transits, mostly because internal politics get in the way of getting things done. I’ve passed the point of caring and tell the clowns that I’m not here for your BS. Either let me do my job or fix it yourself. There is usually many eff bombs dropped during the conversation. At least the guy running this shop knows that calling my boss to have me fired doesn’t work as a threat.

Anyway, I was supposed to fly down to the customers place in Miami on Monday. I had a 2:30 pm flight that was supposed to get me in at 7pm. Board the plane, back out the gate, and…sit on the runway for 90 minutes due to a ground stop a MIA. Come back into the gate, deplane, and now sit until 7:30. Finally leave and land at MIA at 11 pm. Sit there until midnight before we get a gate. In the meantime, I’ve lost my rental car reservation two hours earlier. Now I have to stand in line at the Avis counter for 2 hours. Finally got to my hotel at 2:30 am.

I’m supposed to be at the job site at 8 am. I’m up at 6:30 and hit the local Cuban breakfast joint for caffeine and food. I arrive to the gate to the job site at 7:30 and meet up with a security guard on a power trip. It’s hot, it’s humid, and I’m in no mood for BS. I told her which extension to call and I was blocking the entrance until she did. I mostly heard “yes sir” on her end.

Meet with the customer, he and his crew had already worked the night shift, which is why we were meeting at 8 am for training. Long story short, we didn’t get on track until 1 pm. It’s 97F, there’s no shade, no breeze, the machine was not properly set up in Beaufort (no surprise), and I had an audience. I fought with the machine until 3 and got it to somewhat work. Customer was satisfied with that.

Cleaned up and met with some of the guys I’ve known at the shop for the last 27 years. Running joke is that I have more seniority than everyone else there. I get a late lunch then drop the rental off at MIA.

Get on my flight back to ORD, back out the gate, sit on the runway due to another ground stop, go back to the gate, get off again. Wait for three hours until this flight is canceled. The next two flights that AA booked me on get canceled. Book a hotel room for the night but can’t get a ride to the hotel. Cancel the hotel room and spent the night at MIA. Sometime during the night, the morning flight I was supposed to take through Philly was canceled. AA booked my on an early afternoon flight with two stops. At this point it was just get me the hell out of Miami.

I ended up getting home 24 hours late. I got maybe six hours of lousy sleep in 72 hours, and because MIA is laid out so poorly, I walked 18 miles between Monday night and Wednesday afternoon.

Bleah! I go dark on Tuesday for a week.

[bigdano711]

Man, I do not miss the grind one bit. I put 10 years into the financial district of downtown SF. Went from messenger making $8.50 an hour to database administrator making $60K a year. Walked away from it as a junior systems administrator with the goal of becoming sys admin who works 90% of the time remotely with a pop into the office once a week for a status report. At that point I'd be well into 6 figures. The unending BS had me thinking such horribly violent thoughts that I HAD to walk away.


Good call putting in the 2 weeks. Maybe take a leave of absence for a year and see if anything changes?



For me, I was walking to work one day. Had just got off BART and the crowd was gathering at the street corner, people waiting obediently for the light to change. I had the traffic patterns down and knew I could J-walk this street, walk up the hill a bit and I'd be able to J-walk again, thus avoiding the crowd. When the last car sped through the intersection and had just passed me, I stepped off the sidewalk and out into the street as I looked right (all one way streets). At that moment, the WALK light came on and the entire obedient crowd moved as one. It was the most saddening, surreal thing I've ever witnessed in my entire life. In that moment I realized that I was one of them, I just thought I was smarter. By being a part of it, I was part of the problem. An accessory to this crime that happens every day in big cities all across these United States.


I went straight to my boss with tears in my eyes and quit that day. No two weeks, no leave of absence. I can not be a part of this...whatever it is...any more.


Was going through a divorce, cashed out my 401k, bought my first motorcycle ever (1991 Harley Davidson FXR) and found God on it. Eventually got the hell out of California altogether and found Heaven in the Rocky Mountains. Listen to some John Denver, you'll know what I'm talking about.

[cheesy]

Originally Posted by bigdano711

Man, I do not miss the grind one bit. I put 10 years into the financial district of downtown SF. Went from messenger making $8.50 an hour to database administrator making $60K a year. Walked away from it as a junior systems administrator with the goal of becoming sys admin who works 90% of the time remotely with a pop into the office once a week for a status report. At that point I'd be well into 6 figures. The unending BS had me thinking such horribly violent thoughts that I HAD to walk away.


Good call putting in the 2 weeks. Maybe take a leave of absence for a year and see if anything changes?



For me, I was walking to work one day. Had just got off BART and the crowd was gathering at the street corner, people waiting obediently for the light to change. I had the traffic patterns down and knew I could J-walk this street, walk up the hill a bit and I'd be able to J-walk again, thus avoiding the crowd. When the last car sped through the intersection and had just passed me, I stepped off the sidewalk and out into the street as I looked right (all one way streets). At that moment, the WALK light came on and the entire obedient crowd moved as one. It was the most saddening, surreal thing I've ever witnessed in my entire life. In that moment I realized that I was one of them, I just thought I was smarter. By being a part of it, I was part of the problem. An accessory to this crime that happens every day in big cities all across these United States.


I went straight to my boss with tears in my eyes and quit that day. No two weeks, no leave of absence. I can not be a part of this...whatever it is...any more.


Was going through a divorce, cashed out my 401k, bought my first motorcycle ever (1991 Harley Davidson FXR) and found God on it. Eventually got the hell out of California altogether and found Heaven in the Rocky Mountains. Listen to some John Denver, you'll know what I'm talking about.

I’ve been listening to John Denver since he was part of The Chad Mitchell Trio because I’m that old. And I concur about the Rockies. Visit every year and have hunted in Wyoming. I could live there, my other half couldn’t. Too far away from the grandkids.

My rants are a treatise on a grand idea going south because of incompetence, ineptitude, and greed. The fact that the fix is obvious but no one seems to be able or willing to fix it is beyond frustrating.

I’d probably drink more if I didn’t have this outlet.

[Darkrider]

Man, Capt.Fromage it has been a wild trip following your saga thus far. It puts my own situation in perspective. I am glad i pulled the plug on working for others in 2019 when i was punted from Paladin. It has had its highs and lows but overall i am glad i am working for myself nowadays.

[bigdano711]

Originally Posted by cheesy

I’ve been listening to John Denver since he was part of The Chad Mitchell Trio because I’m that old. And I concur about the Rockies. Visit every year and have hunted in Wyoming. I could live there, my other half couldn’t. Too far away from the grandkids.

My rants are a treatise on a grand idea going south because of incompetence, ineptitude, and greed. The fact that the fix is obvious but no one seems to be able or willing to fix it is beyond frustrating.

I’d probably drink more if I didn’t have this outlet.

Whoa, the Chad Mitchell Trio, you say? I learn something every time I come here!


Wyoming has the best hunting. People come from all around to hunt here. I wonder why? Could it be the fact that the population of the entire state is 578,803? Less is more? Less is definitely better. The SF Bay Area alone is over 7 million.


Biggest thing I've taken down is a bobcat with my Ruger 10/22 at about 25 yards. Sucker was getting too close to the house for comfort. Probably the best shot I ever made...in one ear, out the other.


I should do the right thing and go back to page one and read it all....but MAN that's a lot of reading.

[cheesy]

Since I vented my spleen the last time, things have been pretty quiet. It’s mostly been chasing down part numbers from my big comfy chair, with an occasional field call for troubleshooting, no wrenching. Which is what we agreed to.

The last couple of days, even though they were in the big comfy chair, have been facepalm worthy. It started on Wednesday when Harold texted me, asking if I had e-copies of some motor car manuals because a customer was looking for parts. I did and sent them to him. An hour later, I get another text saying he doesn’t understand the manuals, can I work with the customer on this. Because I can’t really get fired, I texted back that he should have spent less time trying to be the top sales guy and more time doing his job as the head of service, but yeah, I would handle it.

I called the customer and asked for pics of each part they were looking for, possibly with the manufacturers part number, knowing we’re not going to have them in stock. With those numbers I can locate a U.S. supplier and not wait 3 to 6 months for delivery from Europe for a $10 part.

I managed to do just that, U.S. suppliers were Grainger, Digikey, and NAPA. I put that all in a nice email to Harold, Al, and Eric, also stating that there were errors in our manual, two different relays were listed with the same part number and needed to be corrected by Europe.

Al forwards the email to purchasing. Purchasing has a question and Al passes it on to me.(buck passing is a custom in this outfit) I look and I’d made a typo. It was with the two parts sharing the same part numbers. I corrected it and explained the error, then sent it back.

JHC, I spent the next half hour with the fcukwit, explaining that the manual was wrong by assigning the same number to two different parts, not that I am requesting the same part twice. Two different manufacturers part numbers through two different suppliers. It’s not rocket surgery.

Al is copied on all the emails going back and forth between me and the fcukwit. He remains silent. I forwarded the email chain to Al’s boss, Eric, then followed up with a phone call to Eric. I asked Eric to read the emails back to me. He did, sighed, then apologized. I told him that the fcukwit needs to be either given a come to Jesus speech to get his head out of his ass, reassigned to pushing a broom, or booted.

Whether anything gets fixed remains to be seen. On the other hand, I did get paid well for this week’s headaches.

[cheesy]

Hoo boy, I'm gonna have some gossip tomorrow. Involves ineptitude plus lying from a manager and possible litigation from a customer. I'll get the whole story at breakfast in the morning.

Film at 11.

[jacaquarie]

Sir Cheese

You are the very reason I check this site on a regular basis.
I did my 35 years in the corporate world, feel your pain. My experience has been only about 10% of the corporate employees are good at their jobs. About 50% make some effort not to do any more harm. About 20% can not keep themselves from breaking what works. The remainder choose to make active efforts screwing up at every opportunity and create opportunities to screw the pooch.
Every day i was reminded of MARCHING MORONS by Cyril Kornbluth.

Carry on

Arthur

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marching_Morons


https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5123...-h/51233-h.htm

[cheesy]

The gossip wasn't that good because of a vow of secrecy regarding the litigation. I didn't take that vow. In a nutshell, tho, again it's about another new 360 rushed out the door and the customer is pissed. The production manager swore everything was perfect on the machine when it shipped. What I learned was that the 360 was throwing all kinds of codes before it was shipped. The production manager had the engine supplier come in and clear the codes. That's it. No corrective action.
Per the supplier, the software provided with the euro engines does not play well with the US DEF systems. They told the PM that a few years ago. He denied that they told him that and the supplier provided a doc that the fcukwit signed off on. The supplier has offered to help mitigate the software issues but it's coming at a Phenomenal Phee.

One other facepalm worthy item has caused a loss of respect and faith in the new CEO. When the sales guys would put on puller schools at the four big railroads, we would not charge for them. The schools took about a day and the sales guys would provide a catered lunch or something along that line. We'd usually end up with sales of $3-5K in parts at the end of each school. Say each sales guy does ten schools a year,(very low number) that's $30-50K per sales guy. Multiply that by 5 and that's $150-250K for very little outlay. Add the one on one schools the service guys do, that's an extra $50K per year. So what does the new CEO do? He announces that the schools will no longer be free and each school will cost the railroads $1200 up front.All four railroads said that's a big 'Nope' and your pullers will be phased out and be replaced with the competitors pullers. So, 20 years of goodwill and relationships out the window due to narrow vision.

I keep telling Harold to walk away and let the ship sink.

[TominMO]

"I keep telling Harold to walk away and let the ship sink."

Bingo.

[cheesy]

So, the MM(Mexican Moron)is gone.

I don't know the whole story but I understand that things have gotten worse with him since the last time I was down there. Even Harold doesn't know the whole story, which is something. What we could piece together was too much stuff up his nose, not being where he said he was, not showing up when he said he would, and A LOT of expenses he could not account for. It seems like I may have been the only one stateside that knew he had a ghost guy on his payroll when he didn't have a payroll.

I feel bad for the other guy, though. Mexico is a big place and it's all his now.

[bigdano711]

Sure wish companies would bring manufacturing back to the U.S. There's this idea among conservatives that capitalism is a great thing. It is not. It leads straight to greed. So many companies were doing well and wanted to do better, so they decided to use China and Mexico and Taiwan and other foreign countries to set up manufacturing and use their slave labor to increase profits. Sickening.

[Sport Rider]

well, we could always just pay more for our products when they are made in America. the buying public drives business for cheaper product via price competition. that in turn drives business to source parts/products from cheaper sources. it's not the company's greed. it's the public's doing. Maybe the government should be in control of everything. History has shown us that's the best way to run a country. <endsarcasm>

[cheesy]

This thread looks like it may be winding down by the end of the year.

I thought Harold was reticent when we were talking about certain things last week. Today i found out why. Corpulent has hired a replacement for both Harold and Al and they are working at pushing both out the door.

Harold always said that I couldn't fully retire until he did. Looks like neither him nor Al have a choice now.