This day has come again, and again (for a special day or Holiday), I am stuck in a far away place working. I have given nearly 30 years of my life, over 60% of my hearing, and an unknown amount of back and joint wear to this company and they have given my nothing by rhetoric, and a job. Oh yes they paid me a salary but more times than I can count, they have “stiffed” me on raises, “cut me back” due to business conditions, “riffed” me out because they no longer wanted to pay for specialist to do certain jobs then hire me back at a lower wage for a slightly different job, ignored my requests for update training or flat denied it along with countless other “management cost saving” ways.
When I hired on , a little over 29 years ago, the “Assistant Division Engineer” recruiting me said ” Being an engineer with this company, you will have over a Million dollars in your Profit Sharing in 20 years or less”. I think he truly believed that at that time. He for sure had me believing it, so I jumped on what I thought would be a great opportunity. It turned out to be one, but the opportunity was that I would be working away from family during all the important days and on call 24/7. I was blinded and stupid to think it was going to get better for nearly 20 years of my 29. I have no count on how many important days I have missed, how many holidays I have spent working and away from home, or how much I have missed in my life and my families lives, because I was tied to a job that had no room for anything but the job.
Shortly after I hired on the energy business went down. They kept me on for some strange reason. There was no profit, so there was no sharing. We had management that kept buying bad companies and we kept loosing money or just barely making money, but not enough for “sharing”. At least not at the lower levels. I think that all the top people continued to share huge amounts while those of us working on all those holidays or doing 100 hour work weeks, got our salary, oh yea we got over time cause the govt said they had to. Well some did, when ever you were bumped up to “exempt” you got a raise that seldom paid more than what you had been making on hours but you still had to do at least 80 hour weeks for a set salary?
The top managers used to publish how important the employee was and how important our families were but they don’t mean that. The importance is that we produce more with less every year so they can get their bonus. It is the typical “step over a dollar to pick up a dime” mentality in our top core. “Focus on quantity not quality” is also a great basis for nearly all big companies, ours included.
For those of us that travel a lot, it used to be a standard that if you had to change plans for a family emergency, the company would try to understand and help you out – and pay for the travel changes associated. That just recently has gone out the window. We just got notice locally that “You will be responsible for all travel cost changes if the change is due to personal reasons” ! So if you work 3 thousand miles away from home, you get a call that someone of your family is hurt, sick or died, you (the employee) will have to pay for your trip home to handle details. I would even guess that the company would now expect the employee to make up any and all lost time or expenses due to a need to be gone. Is this not “COLD and HEARTLESS” or am I missing something? Top that little notice with the one that followed that ” all noted excessive use of company cell phones and the IP-phone system, we have (which at one time had a flat fee cost per month for US calls from the far away) will be charge back to the “abusive individual user”.”
The top also says that “competency and training” are very important. i have tried to get into a two-week seminar to improve my base knowledge on a few items that would help our programs for more than 5 years. The few times that it fit within my “off” time to take it, the company has denied my request. Just a month ago they approved it. I set in motion the works to get the course paid for and get reservations for the stay to take this course. Then of a sudden, they cancel it because it cost money and we can’t afford it now. I will be out over $300 for my reservations because I am sure the company will now not pay for the deposits I had to make. Since I am in the training business for our customers it is strange that internally we can’t afford to upgrade our people but we want to sell the fact that it is necessary for our customer to do this? I think we have an “OXYMORON” here? Maybe I am the MORON?
I can say they have paid me and paid me pretty well comparatively speaking. But is that pay worth what I have missed in the past 30 years, including the broken promises, and what I have lost in “giving to the job”? (I have lost 65% of my hearing due in major part to working with large loud equipment). We all make bad decisions mine appears to have been leaving a job I liked that didn’t pay a lot and low potential for advancement, but would have gotten me to retirement several years ago with substantially less wear, tear and stress. Oh well, like I said, it is a HELL of a way to spend your Birthday!