It has been my experience that everyone *should* spend at
least a summer doing a stint in a factory.
Doesn't matter which one, but the time spent as a factory worker would
make you a lot more aware of the world around you. Why? Because I honestly don't think those
people who work in the front office (lovingly termed the 'suits') know what is
going on behind those production doors.
Now in the last 40 years of my working life, I've spent
about 18 or so of them in a factory setting of some sort. From making food, to metal parts, to plastic
trays, it's been made on a machine and my job has been to take what has been
produced from that machine, put it in a box or a cart and move it away.
My first job after high school of any note was at a factory
that made plastic trays. What was great
about it was that the shifts were 4 hours long, and you got a break of 15
minutes. Little did I know at the time,
but that was not par for the course in a factory. The work was not taxing, although a
little hot in the summer. To supplement that paycheck, I took a job in
another factory that offered mini-shifts.
The work was also not taxing and it supplemented life as a young adult
well. You never had to worry about OT -- it was voluntary and the hours were
set.
Fast forward 20 years or more and I decided enough was
enough. I had been dealt a bad hand in the Micro Lab as one food factory and
NEEDED income. Let me tell you a bad, sad little secret:
Age discrimination is alive and thriving in America.
The HR people will bring you in for an interview and you can
tell the exact moment when you are deemed too old for their position. The look on their face is both sad and
priceless. And then there's the lame reasons why you didn't get the job. I was once told that I did not show enough
respect for the interviewers because they took me into the facility where the
instruments were that I was expected to run.
Because I went over to that instrument and took a look at it, it was
considered a disrespect of the interviewer, who TOLD me it was OK to do it.
My response to the recruiter when told of this was,
"OK, so you have them put me in the room with the pretty lights and then I
can't get the job because I looked at the pretty lights? That's so lame."
But back to factory work. Some of the biggest issues I have
with it from going back to this kind of work is telling of a new mentality of
the Suits:
1. There was a comment made at a benefits meeting about how
work was your 'Second Family' Yeah, no.
I've got one family, and my job is my JOB. Not family. I treat my family better than that.
Perspective needs to be changed back to 'It's your job. Do it well and you can
go back to your family
2. Breaks: 2 - 10 minute breaks and one 15 minute break for
lunch. Except here's the deal: Break
starts once you step away from your machine. So if it takes you 5 minutes to
walk to the breakroom, and 5 minutes to walk back...........you've just taken
your 10 minute 'walking break' and 15
minutes for lunch? Really? again...........you start it when you walk away from
your job, but this time you get a whole FIVE MINUTES to eat food, pee and get
back to it.
Honestly, 25
years ago, we got 15 minutes for a break and it started when we got to the breakroom. And just because you cannot
think that hiring a person who's job it would be is to relieve people on their
machines so they can take a proper break, isn't a reason to make them work 8
hours with a 5 minute lunch.
3. Honesty in
the job description. I was interviewing
for this job and the interviewer asked if I was ok with 'Some Saturdays"
which I thought meant, maybe 2 Saturdays a month.........tops. NOPE! It means EVERY SATURDAY
FOR THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE.
Had they
been honest, I would've passed on the job.
6 days a week, 48 hours and I've got
commitments to the farm and to
the work here and that takes more than 4 days a month to take care of. And with the sunset being so early now, no
work can get done out in the frozen tundra in the dark.
4. What's
with the wonky shift hours? So the
interviewer "First shift starts at 6:30. Can you deal with that?" Yeah, except it
really starts at 6 :15. You need to be
standing in front of a board - clocked in, wearing the steel toed boots (purchased by you
before you even earn a paycheck) Safety glasses and Earplugs - by 6:20 or you're fired. So ...................First Shift starts at 6:15...........be truthful about
it.
And
getting up at 4:30 am to be to work by 6 so I can be ready by 6:15 is a
bitch. I'm a night owl and this is really messing me
up physically and mentally. I feel 50 iq points more stupid because I cannot rest properly.
My digestive system isn't working and I feel nauseous all the time. Not helping the attitude at all.
5. Making rate
vs, putting the info into the system.
Ok, do you want me to make rate or do you want me dicking around with your
Plex system? Plex is an inventory system that is supposed ; to
be able to track your parts and your employees with great precision, BUT at the
cost of productivity.
I've seen more time wasted trying to get that stupid inventory system to
work properly so that an employee can
get back to cranking out parts.
And labels have bar
codes, which should make it easy to do this, right? no. Not a bar code reader to be seen! ONE TIME
I was able to use a bar code reader to save time for the job, but even then.........the label
printed half-assed so that the bar code reader couldn't read the #.
The manufacturing realm of workers are a great bunch of
people: hard working, honest, smart, and helpful. It's the 'Suits' who bring down a factory
with their attitude. They think that
every employee that works on the production floor is there to dime the system
somehow.
In the case of this factory, they contend that production is
lacking and that the employees need to work every Saturday because they can't
hire enough people. It's down to the ones working to make up for the lack of
the other workers.
Except it isn't.
It's poor planning, plain and simple. For example, I can 'plan' on having an income
of $200,000.00 next year and then spend the next year complaining to my
employer that I'm not making enough per hour to cover that. I know exactly what
my boss would say: "Your plan is unworkable. Change it."
But these guys have made a plan with X amount of workers and
they're about 20 people short per shift, so its on the ones working to make up
that lack because.............why?
No, it's not. If you cannot get an extra 20 workers, then
reduce the plan. Don't make it the worker's fault that you cannot plan
correctly. You'll lose MORE workers by
over-working them. I'm not into spending more time at a job than I was
promised.
And that's one very good reason WHY the 'Suits' should spend
at least a Summer working as a factory worker.
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