Companies have lost touch

[Tight Lines]

I stepped down one notch when I took this job, to hopefully live a little more stress free my last 6 years. I knew the company ran a little kookie, so I just sit in the nutty meetings as everywhere seems to have them these days.

So they announce a training to help the management team with their professional and personal lives.

So I speak with the Operations Director who knows I am just coasting and don’t want to advance in the company. He gets it but the company doesn’t. Everyone should want the next level and more money according to the Development Director.

So I sit in this garbage married 24 years, debt free, stress free and a little chubby with a 38 years work history. I get to listen to a recent college grad, recently divorced, broke kid, living in an apartment tell me how to survive in this world and make good professional and personal decisions.
They thought this was important enough to fly this kid in from corporate?

This is why I left corporate and do what I do. I schedule the meetings, I help the companies figure out how to save money and integrate operations, and I don't have to sit in wasted meetings about nonsense listening to someone who hasn't done it. When I'm done I move on to the next pair...

I woke up one Monday morning at 5:30 in my last corporate gig and looked at my calendar for the week...35 hours of meetings, 2 breakfasts, 2 dinners, and a day trip. As I was looking at my calendar that morning over coffee I said to my wife, I'm done. I'm quitting.

Made the call on the way in to work and called an old colleague in PE and said "when can I start?"

5 months later I was doing what I love...

And I'm with you...I thought I might want to own a lodge, restaurant and fly fishing / hunting operation out west for retirement...but I don't think I could handle the clientele...

I certainly could not handle the tourist crowd like one of my buddies who rents boats in Destin to idiots...

 

[The Original Rooster]

I've read this thread with great interest because it sounds like a lot of what I went through for the last few years until I was finally laid off in December. My immediate supervisors, managers, and co-workers were great. We'd all worked together in one way or another for the past 15 years. Management above that was being progressively weeded out and replaced with folks who didn't have a clue about what they were doing.
I'm doing some part-time work right now while I get some online training under my belt to work local instead of for a national corporation. I'm looking forward to just being around normal folks again.
At the most (and maybe sooner), 7 years and a wake up and I'm riding that freedom bird home to sweet retirement.

 

[menhadenman]

charles hugh smith-The Lifecycle of Bureaucracy

 

[Ruger#3]

Large companies are more prone to this bureaucracy. I’m presently with a small company and we don’t do any of this nonsense. I’ve seen it in my industry in larger companies before. The bottom line is much closer to every employee so nonsense is swept aside quicker.

 

[sbroadwell]

Oh yeah, the larger the company, the more of this stuff.
I went to work in 1977 for a little Swiss industrial manufacturer. US Sales about $3 million. When I left as the number 2 or 3 guy in the company in 2001, US sales were about $75 million, and they had gotten a LOT worse with the useless stuff.
The little family owned company I've been with the last 20 years doesn't have anything like this at all. We've grown 6X since I've been here, but I really don't foresee it ever getting bureaucratic. That's the only reason I haven't retired at almost 74. I love it, like the travel, and it's so much fun to actually decide what needs to be done, and do it!

 

[ClemsonRangers]

head down, lean forward

34 years so far

 

[livinoutdoors]

Im not sure i can even remember the last time i was in an office. It seems like some foriegn country where everyone is frienemies and goes to meetings.

 

[livinoutdoors]

Someday i'll visit one n see it all.

 

[Ruger#3]

We don’t have a physical office. Everyone is remote. I attend digital meetings. I go out into the operation and visit folks I see only online otherwise. We’re in a service industry so it works for us. There’s basic behavior ground tules everyone abides by.

 

[sinclair1]

Im not sure i can even remember the last time i was in an office. It seems like some foriegn country where everyone is frienemies and goes to meetings.

I have a private office but spend most of my time on a golf cart or on the floor of the warehouse. They are big down here near the port. Most over 1 million sq foot.

 

[basstrkr]

It's not just the "corporate" world any more, it's bled over into some construction work as well. I see it every day with the general contractors. They all know I'm an old school comundgen and I'm on my way out. I do not hold my opinions back. They're young'uns trying to do an adults work. It's mostly pathetic. They have absolutely no idea of what it actually takes to complete a project. I'm glad this is my last week, I'm through with this crap!

There There.

 

[oldfella1962]

I have a private office but spend most of my time on a golf cart or on the floor of the warehouse. They are big down here near the port. Most over 1 million sq foot.

Speaking of the port, I hear things occasionally about dredging the river further upstream to expand how far cargo ships can go. Is that going on or has it been done already?

 

[earlthegoat2]

Human Resources are neither human nor a resource.

Y’all are sounding like the whiney youngins you like to disparage so much. Your just older and close to retirement so you can actually do something about it.

 

[livetohunt]

I see your point. Completely worthless garbage. If you want to keep the job and coast, I'd just act like you're listening to appease them.

 

[sinclair1]

Human Resources are neither human nor a resource.

Y’all are sounding like the whiney youngins you like to disparage so much. Your just older and close to retirement so you can actually do something about it.

I did learn a few things here. Here I am crying about some little dude with no experience, giving me career advice I don’t want. Come to find out some people have pent up feelings their whole career to the point they would turn down advancement as a young man. They have more conviction than I do. Doing it at the end of your career is easy, but no way I would have stayed on the floor the last 36 years. I started in the trades where you can make a good career without being in management, but there the last six years is coasting because the body is breaking down.
Several friends dealing with it.
I complained and feel better, today is a great day and we will see what training is next on the way to the final six years.
The guys on the floor are in worse shape. They have to train the woke.

 

[sinclair1]

I see your point. Completely worthless garbage. If you want to keep the job and coast, I'd just act like you're listening to appease them.

That’s the plan!

 

[Baroque Brass]

Welcome to my world when I was in the Army! My crew gets back to Fort Rucker from Bosnia - keeping Serbs & Muslims from killing each other and similar trivial tasks - and we see "CO2 Training" on the schedule. We figure CO2 fire extinguisher training - makes sense! We show up for the class bright eyed & bushy tailed and find out the class is.....wait for it...."Consideration of Others" training. Of course we made the very obvious joke: "It's pretty (insert profanity here) INCONSIDERATE dragging us in here so early in the morning for this (insert profanity here) (insert profanity here)!" That was right around the time that the Army went "all in" on the avalanche of oxygen thievery. But wait, it gets better:

Years later my son joins the Army and he's at Fort Benning for Basic Training - not known for being too "laid back" and also Iraq Version 2.0 is still going on - definitely a time for a focused "warrior mentality." His Company is treated to a mandatory presentation of professional civilian corporate cheerleaders! A rainbow coalition of ethnicities, genders, "lifestyles" if you get my drift, physical handicaps, etcetera. They sing & dance and put on little skits about how we should all not get "stressed out" and pout when we get that inevitable "case of the Mondays" and if we just do our best, the world will just have to accept it - just "be ourselves" and everything will be great - ice cream & puppy dogs every day!

But for some strange reason when the show was over and the traveling troubadours got out of earshot, the Drill Sergeants provided very negative skewed profanity laced reviews of their performance - and suggestions involving the performers including "the horses they rode in on".

What they got against the horse?

 

[Baroque Brass]

The company just bought a Chik fil a lunch for the teams. A employee came to me that morning to say they couldn’t eat from a restaurant that supports bigotry. I sent them to HR

I’d have told him I hope he brought lunch.

 

[livinoutdoors]

What is the system of economics called when businesses are privately owned but policy and regulation are controlled by a central body?

 

[87Warrior]

I did learn a few things here. Here I am crying about some little dude with no experience, giving me career advice I don’t want. Come to find out some people have pent up feelings their whole career to the point they would turn down advancement as a young man. They have more conviction than I do. Doing it at the end of your career is easy, but no way I would have stayed on the floor the last 36 years. I started in the trades where you can make a good career without being in management, but there the last six years is coasting because the body is breaking down.
Several friends dealing with it.
I complained and feel better, today is a great day and we will see what training is next on the way to the final six years.
The guys on the floor are in worse shape. They have to train the woke.

I, much like you moved to the office the last twelve years I worked. The woke was worse in management than I realized. Found that there were several others in similar situations as me and just went along with all the bull just to reach a point where they could retire. Attend the meetings, bite your tongue and pass the time. The fresh out of college folks were the worst. Most were clueless as to how to run the plant but were valued for their wokeness. In a twist of fate, the operations were moved to other plants in a consolidation (the older guys saw this coming) move and these people were the first to be let go beginning with the woke plant manager ( a West Point Grad) believe it or not. The remainder of us took care of business through the closing. Fortunately for me, I was at a point that I could retire. Nowadays I help a buddy in his shop a day or two a week. Wife says if I were to return to a real job she’s gonna have to leave. Lol.