What Happened to the Gold Watch?

I was passionate to be working for the owner and loved what I was doing.
I was given the room to succeed and to fail and to make decisions on my own.

We had one golden rule before mgmt. change.

If it's good for the customer, good for the company and good for you then you probably don't need to ask permission.

Damn I miss those days.

 

I spent years working for an international marine salvage company, living out of a suitcase on ships, planes, and in places where I didn't speak the language or like the food. I was instrumental in taking the company from near bankruptcy to one of the largest salvage companies in the world. I had thought I would retire there in a few more years, but corporate policy proved stronger than company loyalty and I left with a big severance check and a lot of bad feelings. I still work with them on occasion, because monsy is much stronger than loyalty, but I do not devote any attention to lining their pockets, just my own. Their loss, not so much mine.

 

The Mr.'s company was wonderful when the original owners had it. They came in and knew everyone by name, knew their families, birthdays, provided awesome benefits, bonuses, and regular raises. And the company was making phat stacks. Everyone was making money, top to bottom. Unfortunately they weren't young men when they started it and things like cancer have a way of making you change your focus. They retired and sold it to a company out of NY whose only interest was flipping it. Benefits and half the labor force was cut to make the bottom line look good before selling it to an overseas company. Things got a little better but the previous labor cuts meant the division wasn't able to keep up with demand, and smaller companies moved in to bleed off unhappy customers. With nearly a quarter of their customer base gone, more layoffs came down the pipe, which of course resulted in even worse production but hey, at least the fat cats at the top still got their 7 figure bonuses right? Now with profits in the toilet and more customers leaving every day, rumor has it the Brits are putting out feelers to sell the division to a US based corp with a history of moving manufacturing overseas.

He used to have a lot of company loyalty. Not now. Now he and the last few workers who were there when the company began are quietly looking for new jobs. They've been forced to pull not only their jobs but a dozen others, with no raises in nearly 4 years now, and the other day he was told to write up how-to manuals for all the machines in the shop. They said it was for OSHA. I say it's writing on the wall.

 

Bingo! There is a very big difference. I worked for a big company once and discovered I was a number not a person. Getting recognized for your value is hard because the company is too huge and stockholders don’t care, workers are just bodies. When companies get big the real backbone- the ones that know the place inside and out are overlooked. I have spent the majority of my working years with small companies. Most people will never get rich working for a small company but they will become a part of something. My old boss who I haven’t worked for in almost ten years can still name my kids, knows their ages and remembers all because he was a good leader/boss.

Almost every post in this thread the writer stated loyalty was given but somewhere that loyalty was abused and not valued. Good leadership is key to growth and survival. Good management is the structure that helps hold things together and it filters down. The framework in a family, group or company must be strong and willing to acknowledge weaknesses. If everyone is not valued then there is a weakness in the structure, thus companies fail and companies lose key people.

 

I'm being head hunted by a much larger company, right now. Roughly the same pay and benefits. Very little incentive to move, except when my boss ticks me off. Problem is, I would be a much smaller cog in the machine. Even less input into how things are done.
As it is, THEY call me, when they run into a problem. I think I would get every hard job, they got if I did move over. Why bother measuring, if I can make it work anyways?
I've been with this company, for maybe 18 years. I'll remain here, until the boss either ticks me off too much, or I get an offer I just can't pass up.

 

I now work for a little mom and pop marine construction and diving company. They literally cannot afford such small amenities as paid holidays, retirement accounts, profit sharing, company paid health benefits, nothing but the time you actually work is paid for and that is on a day rate, no over-time, even on those days that take you off-shore for weeks or on the job-site for 12 or more hours a day all week, including weekends. I get paid additional monies for active dive operations, so it is to my advantage to keep us busy. My employee turn-over is painfully regular and nobody has any real initiative to produce beyond the immediate task.Most of my divers are right out of dive school, as our pay rates will not afford quality performers. Our equipment is old and sub-standard.I like the people that own the company, but have lost all desire to do more than maintain the status-quo. My salary marginally meets my requirements unless I decide to take a vacation or holiday off, then it is another matter entirely. Why do I stay here? My office is a mile from my house and I pretty much write my own schedule. I am at home almost every night. It's a paycheck that I don't have to invest too much of myself into. I am fortunate enough to have income from other areas as a salvage consultant and musician, so I really don't need to push as long as I am aware that if I don't keep my folks busy, then we don't have a job.

 

I was born po'
Naked and afraid
I intend too die po'
Naked and afraid of the government.
A simply plan for simple guy.

 

What changed? IMHO, major company owners got more and more and more greedy and found out they could get away with it. All that counts now is the bottom line. How much does the company make.....so the CEOs can have multimillion $ salaries while the workers almost starve.

 

I chalk it up to a move from a family business with a strong interest of maintaining relationships to a corporate structure that is interest n pandering to stockholders and the bottom line

 

Righthand no offense but I don't agree with this. ...it might have been true at one time that proven ceo's were in short supply. What I find now is that they all play on the golf course together and hire each other and right themselves big golden Para chutes that have to be paid whether they deliver or not. As an example just look at the banksters who virtually bankrupted this country we bailed them out and they got big bonuses. .. those guys didn't deliver and many of them just transfered overseas and went to work for a different bank. Their loyalty was to themselves and they negotiated great contracts that weren't based on performance

 

I know more criminals that I can trust
and no lawyers that I can trust.

 

I graduated from the same High School as my father, we had the same principal and many of the same teachers. There were 320 students from kindergarten through the 12th grade. I worked as an apprentice in the same sheet metal shop where my father began his career and had the same management and workers that were there when he worked with them. I left that job to volunteer for service in a little country over in SE Asia where a lot of my friends were dying but that didn't work out so good for me, so I went to work for the Rail Road. That job still had a tight-knit community, you're in it for life, feel. I watch government regulations and racial hiring quotas and set-asides slowly change that into a mill. I spent the rest of my life chasing ship salvage all over the world, many times in war zones because ships just generally do not sink by themselves. We were a tight workforce, a family of men that would do whatever it took to save lives, cargo, vessels...I felt special. Then I watched regulation, big business, whatever it was, just turn it into something that irrevocably became a mill. I didn't get my gold watch.

 

I think we are discussing two different things.

Small companies where the owner is involved is a very different kind of company than a big multi-national conglomerate.

In the big conglomerates the management hire each other. In smaller companies you can have trouble finding people who are good managers. But a multinational conglomerate is not the same as a small business.

In a small business, the owner typically gives a shit about their employees and usually attempts to keep business coming in the door. In MNC the management team isn't concerned with people or even investors. They are concerned with themselves and their personal contracts and who can get them their next contract that pays whether they produce or not.