THEY CUT OUR BUDGET

RECENTLY MY WORK CUT OUR BUDGET FOR OTHER PLANS, NOW WE HAVE A HARD TIME GETTING STEEL AND TOOLING THAT WE REALLY NEED TO KEEP THEIR MILLION DOLLAR MACHINES RUNNING, I THINK THE ACCOUNTING DEPT. DOES NOT HAVE A CLUE AS OF WHAT WE NEED, HAS ANYONE EVER HEARD OF THE MACHINE SHOP HAVING A BUDGET, I THINK THE SAID IT WAS AROUND $65,000/YEAR.
THAT IS NOT ENOUGH FOR A 10 MAN SHOP ALSO WE ARE IN NEED OF NEW MACHINES PREFER CNC.
COMMENTS, SUGGESTIONS?

Cutting the budget in the machine shop is one of the oldest tricks in the book. However, the company profits are probably down so they need to cut costs someplace and your department sort of stands out.

I'm fortunate to work for a place that is profitable. The plant manager is wonderful about letting use buy what we need. He feels one needs to spend money to make money. I personaly order what I need, even new steel scales and calipers at the company expense!! He knows I'm just as tight with the company money as I am with my own so he never challenges anything I buy.

You will need to sit tight untill this stupid recession is over.... When that happens things should return to normal, I hope.

The place I work has already downsized twice and that is painful for everyone. Hope you don't go through that experience. I always drove home with tears in my eyes the days they downsized and I still had a job. They have already decreased our profit sharing and health care benefits. The easy money jobs are going to be a thing of the past along with loyal employees.

More and more people are turning to self employment including myself. It appears the big shops just can't make it. To much overhead. I meet lots of people with shops at home and doing well. Others find work on the internet like Ebay.

Bed time,
Jim

It could be that your accounting department has a very valid point about needing to cut the budget. If you can creatively get by on the buget they give you, that makes you a hero and the reward for all heroes is to turn their heroics into the ordinary. Next time perform extra-heroics. Part of the problem with heroics.

Perhaps they have a real necessity to cut the budget. But the accounting department has a budget, I am sure. It would save a lot of money to outsource that work from the company. Perhaps you could point out how much money could be saved by doing that. Cost less, fewer employees, simpler to manage. Bet you could save a lot of money that way....

Good Luck....

-- jr

?

KWITCHERBICHIN

At least you have a job for a while. I know shop budgets cut so fast and far the workers were out on the street before coffee break.

Maybe you could look around for work for your company, maybe you could take a pay cut, maybe you could find better and cheaper ways to do the jobs you have, maybe you could find other ways to save money in small ways all around the shop and stop blaming everyone else for your plight.

The accounting dept has their guidelines and think the shop people are just primadonnas for wanting caviar instead of kippers. I really get disgusted with the wimpering that goes on. Alway blaming "THEM" and "THEY". Well, look in the mirror and see both looking back at "YOU".

We American workers have to accept a lot of the blame for the mess we are in because we are greedy, self indulgent, have blinders on and won't look at the writing on the wall.

Unions that want a life time job for the workers and pay increases every contract is total bullshit and we can see the result. Greed and Avarice pure and simple. My "good union job" and a couple of hundred others in my position was eliminated because the union bosses wanted to drive Cadillacs instead of Buicks, a big fat pay raise and a large stipend when they retired.

CEO's that make millions a year can suck a company dry then run off to another company and do the same thing all over.

One way to get a company back on it's feet is to stop being adversarial between management and worker, grow up mentally, accept some of the responsibility and look for ways to be more efficient, stop sitting around whinning and get on with life. The job you save may be your own.

I watched one company I worked for gobbled up because NO ONE wanted to do anything more than just enough to get by. The waste that was generated was just plain terrible to see. Huge amounts of steel being cut wrong because of incorrect planning, not looking at newer methods of setup, no training and total hard headedness. Even management was 30 years behind the times. No one willing to try something new, obsolete machinery and even more obsolete ways of thinking.

Even today I see the same thing happening. Go to Walmart, Bi-mart, Home Depot, and listen and watch the employees. If you know what to look for you can see it all happening again.

This country will never go back to where it was after WWII because we were building a country. I'm afraid the future is very dark for the simple reason the jobs aren't there to sustain our level of living expectations, overpopulation it taking its toll, we are covering the land with garbage and generating more waste every day with our "throw away" mentality. You want to read a scarey book? Read Alvin Toffler's, "Future Shock" written about 30 years ago and compare to what's happening today.

Amen to that. Our shop is down to five guys, including our superviser and the welder. We all have to run multiple machines, and the boss wants us to crosstrain for everything. Hell the welder is even doing the janitorial and landscaping work. We ain't proud, we just want to keep our jobs.
Greg B.

its not that our company is going down the drain, it's an international company. we are expecting to triple in size in the next 5 years and already looking to building on and eventually moving across the street, there is plenty of work, new machinery is being moved in and set up all the time. one side of our building is going to be moved out and replaced with different machines.its just that the buyer does not want us to have new machines in the machine shop and automation dept. they say they are expensive. unlike these million dollar machines that make them money while we cost them money.
and thanks for your input.

[This message has been edited by CERT. (A) MACHINIST (edited 07-03-2003).]

Here is something else you might think about. Your expertise is in machining, NOT, the ecomonics of running a company and expanding in a world ecomony. The accounting department is stocked with people with more of a clue than you have. The simplistic "the buyer doesn't like me" is for high school.

If you are multinational and the company is continually expanding then 65 large is chump change. There are other factors you know nothing about at work. Be glad you are positioned in such a company, you may have a future after all. BUT, you need to continually upgrade your skills and education to make yourself profitable for the company, THAT is the bottom line. You had better cross train into as many other fields as you can because you are just a very small piece which can get lost without anyone noticing.

Do the very best job you can and continually look out for ways to save costs, have a good outlook and personallity, you don't have to be a kiss ass to be a good employee, that again is high school garbage and short sighted simple mindedness, use the suggestion system almost every company has or be a hero and suggest the company implement one. That could raise your stock a few points for a few days anyway. Save your money, be frugal in your spending, look down the road 5 years and don't think you will ever retire from that company. Set up your own retirement system, be optimistic but remember the world doesn't care if you live or die.

I worked well over 40 years and never had a job that lasted over 2 years and most only 3 to 8 months. I made a lot of money off suggestions, became a foreman on several without licking Luthers boots, but I would quit in a heart beat, stomp ass, teach, or write you a recommendation for a raise equally as fast. The hardest part is growing up and not letting average pull you down or let being "one of the boys" kill your future.

Wait a minute!!

"shop people are just primadonnas for wanting caviar instead of kippers. I really get disgusted with the wimpering that goes on. Alway blaming "THEM" and "THEY". Well, look in the mirror and see both looking back at "YOU".

I only wish to maintian my dignity. I worked my ass off going to college then serving an apprenticeship and going back to college some more. Sorry If I find myself used as a doormat "as unacceptable".

I'm still mostly a peon. I make few descisions that affect the company or the
U S economy. The CEO's do that and their greed is their driving force. Remember some peons are jsut trying to survive.
Jim

Well, Jim. It didn't take long to take a partial statement out of context. And ME TOO.

I have 5 different college degrees ranging from Psychology to Quality Control to Biological to Diesel Technology AND a Union apprenticeship. I began a family while going to school and working 3 part-time jobs on many occasions, with lots of help and support from the wife who worked and raised kids also. I might add that hers was the tougher job. I have more time in the college classroom than many have in the chow line, to re-phrase an old saw, and on both sides of the line, i.e., management AND blue collar.

My point was STOP WHINNING and get on with life. If you think I was picking on you that is YOUR whine. That is the attitude that kills any incentive and is nothing more, again, than blaming "THEM or "THEY". You can't be a doormat unless you want to be one and just surviving isn't a viable solution. Busting your ass is part of the job description.

One of my major pissoffs was union people doing just barely enough to get by and making the same money I was while I was doing a quality job. I don't claim to be anything special, don't want or expect any special treatment and I don't give a good flying F*** about a pat on the fanny and my statement was observations from 50 years of work covering everything from janitorial to aerospace, high steel and deep mining, counting birds and blowing big holes in the ground, and other things on both sides of the law.

AS I said before I would write you a recommendation, teach you everything I know or kick your ass with equal enthusiasm. Getting out of this mess we are in is going to take strong minds, strong backs and balls big enough to take what comes down the pike and hand it back with 100% interest, sorta like a modern variety of the people that crossed the ocean way back and not the silly fools that like to dance or want wall to wall security. I don't hold out much hope but now and again I see a glimmer.

There are lots of good people left out there. You and I won't hear much from them because they don't have time to spend pissing around on the internet blowing smoke, they're too busy getting on with building America or at least that is what I hope is happening.

Well JANYOOWINE;

I'm just saying, "don't blame this mess on the peons". We maybe 10% to blame with our financial irresposibility with our meager salaries and buying Chinese crap.

90% of the Blame goes toward the politicians
and the CEO's. There are not enough labor unions left in this part of the country to make a difference one way or another. I have never been a union member but still think organized labor is not all wrong. CEO's didn't pay us for holidays and vacation becuase they wanted to. The Unions forced them and the non-union shops went along to remain non-union.

Furthermore, the next politician that objects to all this imported crap is going to get my vote regardless of party affiliation. We need to make foreign investment less attractive not better. In addition, I would like to see a politician put a damper on the frivelous law suites that make health care, manufacturing, fast food cost so much. This is crucial not just a pipe dream.

JANYOOWINE, You should encourage the peons to become politcaly active not to be better slaves. Place blame where 90% of it belongs
and not point just point out the guilty parties because we all are. Just about everyone I talk too says they no longer do one job but 3 or 4 and do it for one paycheck. Then you say "stop winning". Well, you stop, your killing me.

End of rant,

Respectfully submitted,
James P. Glass

Just about everyone I talk too says they no longer do one job but 3 or 4 and do it for one paycheck.

What exactly is that supposed to mean anyhow? Sounds like a phrase that I would only expect to come out of a union shop. "Not my job". As far as I am concerned, if you work (or at least draw a paycheck from) company "A", you better do whatever is needed that you are able to do for the benefit of that company.


We maybe 10% to blame with our financial irresposibility with our meager salaries and buying Chinese crap.

90% of the Blame goes toward the politicians
and the CEO's.


Boy, certainly don't take any personal responsibility! 300 million of us in the US alone and another 30 in Canada. All those meager salories add up REAL fast!

While I may agree with the polatition end of it, the CEO's are not to blame. Their whole job is to find a way to make the most money for their stockholders within

1) The peramitters that the law allows

2) Employees can and are willing to do

3) The customer dictates.

If the pollatitions leave the gates open, and the governments on other shores are easy enought o work with, AND the fact that all of this CEO's competitors are going there, this CEO HAS to go yonder! All this assuming the customer is willing to buy foreign.

Put the blame where it belongs.... on Joe Public (you and me?) and the gatekeepers! NOT the CEO's!

Think Snow Eh!
Ox

I have no room in this shop for primadonnas who feel it is beneath them to do another job.
The last month was not the busiest as far as orders go. Besides production work, what did we get done?
We serviced machines
Cleaned and organized the shop
Replaced damaged wood on the building
Did some painting
Busted up an old concrete slab and removed it
Trimmed two avocado trees
Patched the asphalt in the parking lot
Fixed a leaking toilet
Replaced ballasts and bulbs on OH lights
Cleaned windows
Mow the grass and trim the hedges(weekly)
Work in the garden
Repaired fences and barbed wire
Sweep and mop the floors
And there was probably more.

I didn't ask the guys to do anything I wouldn't do. I was right there alongside them working.
I could hire people to do this general labor at lower prices than I pay my machinist and operators. But I didn't, and these guys received their full paychecks. The alternative was to lay them off until the work came in.
We are jamming on the production now, but in a couple of weeks they may be wielding a paint brush or broom again.

It works for all of us, your way may be different.

Les

I think you only are getting a part of the story here....

The "you and me business" is in the same boat. That boat has to deal with the following:

Taxes: Foreign companies don't pay any. Let's be honest here. I MOST CERTAINLY do not mean foreign based companies that make things in the US, either. They are not paying income taxes, sales taxes, unemployment taxes, FICA, property taxes, school taxes, or anything else resembling that. Even if they were paying "taxes", there is no comparison. Foreign includes HD, HF, Lowes, and the like - and they know it. They cause items to be created, and use offshore to drive it into the dirt. If you finance and control, you are the responsible party.

Legal system dues: We have 800,000+ lawyers. Even in a perfect world, they have to eat and that means legal work. This is far from a perfect world, too. Truth is, for the most part, they are behind and that is why the courts are clogged up.

Schools: Our kids go to, for the most part, good schools with dedicated teachers. I know that because of what all of the students from other countries say. I would not have it any other way. Our kids are not dumped on the street, aka Brazil or making matches for 0.03 per hour like India/Pakistan. But it costs....

Business rules: We have them - many placed don't. Look at the children and tell me we choose wrong.

**********************

In my list, I do not see one major problem caused by a union, other than just normal human relationships. Only the betterment of the fellowship. Look carefully, and you would have to agree....

********* villians? ******************

1. Govenment is indirectly isolated from the effects of oursoucing jobs. We need to "oursource" about 30% of government work to China. It is only fair, after all. And it is extrememly pratical. Telemarketing cost much less when based in India & they work for 5% what an average government person works for here. 1% of what a congressional aid makes. This is a great way to save money. Just as fair as destruction of our fundamental industries.

2. Patent law enforcement and UL/CSA enforcement. Sieze goods in violation of US patents at the border. Impound. Charge for it. Let the "improter" pay for fees and lawyers and storage charges. Think of storage charges as "the importer's property tax".

3. Import duty is a traditional government revenue. it up. Think of it as the altenative to school taxes and property taxes.

4. Extend coverage of worker regulations offshore. You make it for the US, you meet the saftey and job requirments for the US. No problem, right? We could even let hungry lawyers help out....

5. Prisons: Out of control. There is a real problem here with jobs for cons: there aren't any. Prisons are a big business and we pay. Does not have to be this way, either - does it?

***** there is a lot more to be said, but I think my point is made ****

-- jr

What I mean by more than one job.

My wife works in the Marketing department. 2 years ago her department downsized and she lost 3 co-workers that made between 50 and 80K a year each. Guess who does their jobs now????? My wife plus her original job, and see earns $30,000 a year.

I'm a Tool & Die Maker and an electrician. Plus I fill in for the engineers the company got rid of. I know all about doing more than one job and most other people have similar working conditions. 10 years ago all I had to worry about was the job sitting on my work bench.

I'm not even complaining or winning. My wife and I are very fortunate. But, don't blame the people working their butts off for jobs going overseas.
Jim

I hope what I said about running multiple machines at work didn't sound like I was complaining. Quite the contrary. I started in this trade as a stock cutter. I didn't know a lathe from a "chebytruk". Now, this may sound goofy to some of you, but there isn't a thing about machining that I don't like. I love running different machines at work. It makes the day interesting. And I think that being able to jump on any piece of equipment in the shop has kept me employed, since we went from a high of about 130 people and two shifts, down to about 30 and a four day week. I stay late after work to learn MasterCam on my own time, not because I trying to kiss up, it's just something that I wanted to learn. And the higher-ups do notice that sort of thing. With the economy the way it is, I don't think I'm going to get raise or promotion because of this, and I don't care. Machining is not just a job to me, I know that sounds weird. Hell, I've got a very complete machine shop in my garage. Besides to me, when I'm at work, I get paid to work. It doesn't matter whether I'm turning parts or pulling wire through conduit. I guess to me that the better I am at my job, the better the company is, and thus (hopefully) the better off I am. It's a circle that should go round and round.
The real point of all this is, the company owes me a paycheck for the work I do, but, it is the company that decides what that work is. And if I don't like it, then this being a free country, I can look for another job.
Greg B.