Cup of Coffee

May 3, 2011: Redundance

48 Comments

On one hand, I want to wring my company's neck and say it isn't worth it to bring in a thousand new outside people to do my job at every store much worse than I do. On the other, I'm getting too old to fight corporations.

48 thoughts on “May 3, 2011: Redundance”

  1. its sad that I cant remember the last time I woke up and the sun was shining

    3. Sun's shining in Omerha. So nice this morning I drove the GT6 to work.

        1. Yeah, as in '67 Triumph. We also have a Spitfire, a Herald, and a Morris Minor Traveller. All in various stages of mechanical and aesthetic viability.

          1. Too cool. I've lusted after a Dolomite Sprint for years, and Mrs. Hayes recently indicated she wouldn't be adverse to a TR3 at some point, as if I'll ever make enough for that to happen. A Spitfire or GT6 would likely be welcome substitutes, though.

            1. A good friend of mine (and my main mechanic) has a TR3. Those are sweet cars, but Spits are way more affordable.

  2. to bring in a thousand new outside people to do my job at every store much worse than I do.
    Ouch. If there are any links to news reports about this corporate decision, I'd be curious to read more about it.

    During college, I spent two summers as a temp at a certain large Mining & Manufacturing co here in our home state. During the second summer, the Asian Debt crisis hit, and to improve some metric, all of the temps at all of their factories nationwide got laid off. Which was pretty ridiculous. Several factors led our factory's parts to be in temporarily high demand: there was enough work for us to work 12-hour shifts (which was optional). Once we temps were laid off, the full-time workers were forced to do longer shifts, at their higher wages (plus whatever 401k matching and anything else that us temps didn't get) and it was no longer optional. So I kept working as much overtime as I could between the day we learned of the layoffs and our last day on the job. I would have worked more than 60/week if they would have allowed it. (After 60 hours it became 2x wage instead of just 1.5x).

    It was then that I discovered some corporate decisions really are worse than "penny-wise but pound-foolish." This seemed to be penny-foolish as well.

      1. I wouldn't say that. Corporations are much less accountable than the government.

    2. I won't get into too many specifics, because, duh, but more and more as I learn about how this decision is going down, it looks eerily similar to a decision by one our main competitors that saved a tiny amount of money in the short run but accelerated their going out of business because customers were flying blind with employees who had no clue.

      Oh well. Seven years with these guys is plenty, if it's really going to come to an end.

  3. Wish I had something useful to say here, but the only "real" job I've ever had was pretty tough to get laid-off from. It literally took an act of Congress to downsize us. That being said, it sure seemed the brass knew how to throw good money after bad. When given the opportunity, they incited "neck-wringing" sentiments among the troops at least on par with the leadership in the public sector.

    1. I've had two jobs in large companies - one in Bismarck and one in Fargo. Both had significant layoffs. The one in Bismarck made sense because demand had dropped significantly for their product and they needed to get lean. The interns were safe because we were cheap labor. The one in Fargo was done more to send a signal to shareholders. Shareholders like to see companies shedding costs, and layoffs are apparently a good way to show that you're serious about shedding costs.

      The work atmosphere is eerie when layoff happen.

      1. My previous employer was sold from one company to another shortly after I started, which seemed like a pairing that made sense. Then we suddenly found out the plant I was in was going to be shut down. It actually made some sense as the plant I was in was woefully inefficient in general. We found out many months in advance, however, so it gave everyone enough time to look for other work. But they did the laying off in shifts, so I totally understand what you mean by the atmosphere.

        The upsides are that I found a new job that paid better with a better health plan, and the lab equipment I had was sent to Buffalo. So after I left, they needed someone to go there and train the people how to use it, which was me on a consultant's gig. So I made bank and got to me the Hitman.

        1. My brother worked for Sperry before, during and after the merger with Burroughs, creating Unisys (or "Sperroughs" as they called it). I think he survived through 4 or 5 waves of layoffs before they finally got him. That was a tough environment to be a worker-bee in (he was an analyst).

          1. I had a friend at Unisys as well, although he told me to use the full name, The Financially Troubled Unisys, like everyone in the media did.

            1. My dad's been at Unisys for quite a few years (longer, in fact, than he's been married to my mom, which is saying something). He figures he'll work until they lay him off or the company closes, then he'll retire.

    2. Are you coming up to the cities at all this year? I still owe you a Twins game.

      1. Hopefully, yes. Given developments I'm going to have considerably more to do this summer than originally envisioned, but I'd like to get up there, maybe twice, for Twins games.

      1. hmm. some helpful gentleman seems to have steered them to your site.

      1. Where did you get this info? I don't see anything about it. Revere's Twitter this evening just mentioned he was just chilling out.

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