# Should Be An Interesting Monday Morning Meeting!!



## Buffalo21 (May 16, 2020)

My nephew works for the machine maintenance crew in a manufacturing plant in Utica, NY. He called today, to see if he could borrow the enclosed trailer, said yep, come get it. He then told me this story.

They had hired a kid, about 6-8 months ago, to start out as a grunt in the crew, basically fetching and toting, the nephew said after the shift Friday night, he got a call from the supervisor, who was foaming at the mouth. Apparently the kid was told to weld up this bracket, so the kid, put the broken bracket into a vise and welded it back together. Unfortunately for the kid, the vise was a Kurt milling vise on the best Bridgeport mill in the shop, there are multiple arc over strikes and slag and spatter all over the vise, mill table, DRO screen and the table scale. The nephew said, he stopped by the plant this morning, he had to see first hand, on the way over for the trailer, the mill table has burn marks, 5 or 6 weld strikes, some bird crap welds and some grinder marks, the vise has major jaw damage, and over strikes and spatter everywhere, burn marks on the DRO screen and it looks like he grounded the table through the tables DRO scale.

Apparently all of the maintenance crew members, received a sternly worded text, regardless of shift, they must be in a Monday morning meeting at 7:30 am, looks like heads are going to roll.


----------



## brino (May 16, 2020)

Buffalo21 said:


> Apparently all of the maintenance crew members, received a sternly worded text, regardless of shift, they must be in a Monday morning meeting at 7:30 am, looks like heads are going to roll.



OUCH!, brutal......

I am of two minds about this.....and there's not enough info to form a conclusion....

1) lack of surpervision
The "kid" was hired to lift and gopher. Presumably he doesn't know his axis from a hole in the ground.
Why exactly was he asked to weld something?
He *might *be the most innocent person in all this. Yet he will likely receive the blame.

2) full supervision, full training = the kid is not cut out for this work.
Was he shown how to weld?
Was he shown the value of a mill vise, a mill table and a DRO?
If so, he just doesn't care....and they are right to fire him....with cause!

I hope you can give us at least an edited version of the meeting minutes.

-brino


----------



## savarin (May 16, 2020)

Personally I think the kid is blameless, useless, but blameless.
If he's only employed as a gopher then why on earth would you expect him to be a welder.
Lack of training appears to be the main cause, a very common problem in my experience.


----------



## Shootymacshootface (May 16, 2020)

What part does the trailer play in this story?

Yes, total lack of supervision and too high expectations from an inexperienced laborer.


----------



## matthewsx (May 17, 2020)

Every problem IS A MANAGEMENT PROBLEM....

John


----------



## Nutfarmer (May 17, 2020)

Management blew it. If he hasn't been properly trained how can he be blamed. There are lots of things I wouldn't know better to do if I didn't have the training or the experience. For example how many people know not to put water on a magnesium fire? If you have done it once you will know better,but water is the most universal fire suppressant for most things. Don't blame someone else for your own short comings.


----------



## extropic (May 17, 2020)

Savarin said it well. The kid is blameless, useless, but blameless.

Does the Nephew need the trailer because:
1)   He expects the boss to say "Get that F-ed-up mill out of my building"?
2)   He expects the boss to say "You're fired. Get your tools out of my building"?
3)   To haul the go-fer's body to a remote dump site?
4)   Reason unrelated to the fiasco?

The story would be even better if the bracket was some inexpensive, hardware store piece.


----------



## Buffalo21 (May 17, 2020)

Trailer - the nephew needed the trailer, to move furniture for his daughter (great-niece). She and her boyfriend/fiancé have decided to set up lite housekeeping and do some practicing before before their scheduled April 2021 wedding. They are renting the small camp on the lake, so furniture is needed.

great-niece - she wants to make sure he is not a complete slob, can hold a viable job, pay the rent and utility bills and to see if she call live with him “until death do them part”

bf/fiancé - needs to see if she can actually cook, if there will be sex on a regular basis and to make sure she not a complete superficial b#tch.

nephew - gets the last of the 4 kids out of the house

me - hopefully the monthly rent check (I’m the landlord), is on time and actually clears the bank.

back to the main story

the kid is either

1 - a complete moron
2 - a self medicating unlicensed pharmacist
3 - a raging alcoholic
4 - a kid/nephew/cousin of someone in upper management
5 - useless
6 - uncaring toward company equipment
7 - all of the above

the nephew said he had not worked with the kid for 2-3 weeks, he was being used by a different crew, he is one of the 3-4 lead mechanics, and was working on equipment at the other end of the plant, when the incident occurred. He was unaware of any problems, until the phone call.

he said, no matter what happens, it will not be good, he said management seems to be looking to down size the maintenance dept. He said one of the crew actually said, this was probably staged, to have a purge of employees not part of the company’s long term agenda. The nephew said, he believes he is currently safe, but the fallout could effect his long term employment future.


----------



## T Bredehoft (May 17, 2020)

All scarry, management does what they want, in any case.


----------



## RYAN S (May 17, 2020)

Possibly the kid was not properly trained and supervised, however, I think we need more of the back story. It sounds like he was hired to “start out as a grunt”. I would interpret this as a form of an internship / apprenticeship where he was expected to grow in his abilities and responsibilities. Before we completely blame management, let’s find out what the “kid” has been doing for the last 6-8 months of employment.  Roughly half a year of being in a shop is plenty of time to get the feel of what is going on, and for the basic value of things.  If they asked him to weld something, I am guessing it wasn’t his first time welding at the shop, or he had told his supervisors he had some previous experience welding.  As an employer, I get to see how uncommon common sense actually is these days.  

Ryan


----------



## higgite (May 17, 2020)

It's always good to hear both sides of the story. Hopefully, the minutes from the Monday morning meeting will tell us more.

Just curious, why did the supervisor call your nephew if the kid was working for another crew at the other end of the plant?

Tom


----------



## Suzuki4evr (May 17, 2020)

I feel for the kid and feel he should not get all the blame,but should have used a little common sense. But if he was ignorant about everything, I can't blame him. Management should NEVER asked him to do that job in the first place or at least give him some guidance on where to do the job. I am just glad I don't work there on Monday.


----------



## pdentrem (May 17, 2020)

This meeting and it’s outcome may be a very good indicator of the class of management there is at the facility. Everything that suffered damage is repairable/replaceable at truly is not much of a huge cost. It all comes down to attitude of the people whose name in on the door. In the 80s I walked from a job as I will not work for Attila types.

Hopefully it is only a meeting to go over training and supervision and somebody has cooled down over the weekend. One does not want to loose good people over a this kind of mistake. loosing and replacing key personnel is very expensive in time and resources!

Now is not the best time to loose a job, due to what we are dealing with but ones health is more important over their lifespan than a angry job.


----------



## Buffalo21 (May 17, 2020)

higgite said:


> It's always good to hear both sides of the story. Hopefully, the minutes from the Monday morning meeting will tell us more.
> 
> Just curious, why did the supervisor call your nephew if the kid was working for another crew at the other end of the plant?
> 
> Tom


from what I understand, he called all of the lead mechanics


----------



## matthewsx (May 17, 2020)

Buffalo21 said:


> from what I understand, he called all of the lead mechanics



Interesting....

Management may have an expectation that "lead" mechanics have some sort of training and/or supervision responsibilities. It's good your son wasn't working directly with this employee at the time of the incident but if I were him I would be looking very closely at my job description. It only takes a couple of words to make someone a de' facto supervisor and it's a common trick with companies that don't want to pay employees for all of their job roles.

Yes, I have owned my own businesses and dealt with employees that were inept, inexperienced, inattentive, and even inebriated. It was always my responsibility to make sure the cared properly for company property, performed the jobs assigned correctly, and had the right training, tools, and experience to do so. Most important though is making sure everyone goes home healthy to their family at the end of their shift. The COVID-19 outbreak gives an even greater responsibility to employers at this time and hopefully that is part of their Monday morning meeting, not just an opportunity to chew somebody's a$$.

I'm trying to picture in my mind though how a maintenance area with welding equipment doesn't have an appropriate welding table, vise, clamps, helmet, gloves, etc. adjacent to the welder in question. Welding is a pretty messy operation and I think most of us, even in our home shops, keep welding and grinding operations as far away from precision machinery as possible.

My bet is still on management being cheap, and/or ignorant of the jobs involved and not providing the correct facilities, training and supervision for their employees.


John


----------



## Boswell (May 17, 2020)

I am with Matthewsx. As a manager, I am responsible for having the right people working on the right jobs at the right time. It is my primary responsibility that each team member is successful by *not* putting them in situations where they fail (beyond appropriate training experience). If needed, more training, more oversight and occasionally an opportunity to work for a different employer .  It is a very rare situation that someone purposely wants to screw up.


----------



## GunsOfNavarone (May 17, 2020)

I'm sure someone has already pointed it out, but you know there were people feet away laughing about this and watching it happen. Supervision and direction could have avoided this all. Why did it make such a mess? Was it stick? I COULD TIG something in my Kurt/ on my mill and I don't think you'd ever be able to tell.. but why there? There has got to be a welding table...cr@p vice...no? Sucks when people watch people drown for a laugh or two.


----------



## hwelecrepair (May 18, 2020)

Read through all the replies... and no one asked to see the damage to the BP?  Did he at least get some pictures of it when he got up to it?

Jon


----------



## Janderso (May 18, 2020)

You can delegate tasks, not responsibility.
What a shame.


----------



## higgite (May 18, 2020)

It's Monday morning and the suspense is killing me.

Tom


----------



## matthewsx (May 18, 2020)

Hopefully the report won't come until after the END of the OP's sons regular shift....

John


----------



## Superburban (May 18, 2020)

I agree with those that say supervision is the issue. But normally supervisors are the best at deflecting the blame to the lowest level. My prediction is they will can the kid for not knowing his limits, and doing a task that he was not trained for (And will toss in unauthorized to do). If they are looking at downsizing the main dept, they will take a look back, and add up incidents that they have on record, and start firing folks that have writeups, And use every trick they can to prevent the individuals from collecting unemployment.

Many places have the way they do things, and a book to show OSHA the way things should be done. Only time they look at the book, is after things happen, or when they are looking to downsize.


----------



## matthewsx (May 18, 2020)

Superburban said:


> I agree with those that say supervision is the issue. But normally supervisors are the best at deflecting the blame to the lowest level. My prediction is they will can the kid for not knowing his limits, and doing a task that he was not trained for (And will toss in unauthorized to do). If they are looking at downsizing the main dept, they will take a look back, and add up incidents that they have on record, and start firing folks that have writeups, And use every trick they can to prevent the individuals from collecting unemployment.
> 
> Many places have the way they do things, and a book to show OSHA the way things should be done. Only time they look at the book, is after things happen, or when they are looking to downsize.



Unfortunately true.

I'm not that old but I can remember when most companies really valued their workforce, health insurance and pensions were the norm, and you could expect to earn a living wage for an honest day's work.

There are still employers like this out there but unfortunately far too many have gone the way of "maximizing shareholder value" this quarter rather than looking at the long term viability of their companies which requires healthy, well trained and fairly compensated workers.

If I had it to do over again I would have made my career in product design or production rather than a support role. Seems they are more likely to keep you around if you're on the income side of the balance sheet than the expense side.

This is starting to stray from the OP's post so we should probably just wait to hear what his son cares to share about this mornings meeting.

John


----------



## higgite (May 18, 2020)

Superburban said:


> But normally supervisors are the best at deflecting the blame to the lowest level.


Also known as you know what runs downhill.  

Tom


----------



## Janderso (May 18, 2020)

matthewsx said:


> If I had it to do over again I would have made my career in product design or production rather than a support role. Seems they are more likely to keep you around if you're on the income side of the balance sheet than the expense side.


I believe you are correct.


----------



## savarin (May 18, 2020)

Businesses treating their workforce like crap is why unions formed.
It seems to be a common theme, once one side gets more power they try to crap on the other side.
I am eagerly awaiting the outcome on this


----------



## GunsOfNavarone (May 18, 2020)

I think the saying,
"Cheap workers aren't good and good workers aren't cheap."
Sometimes a company cuts corners in staff by less workers or less skilled/experienced workers. Sounds like they didn't save money here. I am really wanting to know how this went!


----------



## Buffalo21 (May 18, 2020)

Apparently not as extreme as they had expected, a lot of yelling and finger pointing, but no terminations or long term punishments. A new series of training class and better supervision and work procedures protocols are in the planning stages, for all maintenance personnel.

Here is the nephew’s equipment report, they had an equipment repair company look at the mill, they worked with some small stones and some tlc, except for a few cosmetic damage marks, the mill is fine. The Kurt vise needs new jaws and will continue to live with a few minor scars. The DRO screen‘s splash cover needs replacements, after a reboot the DRO seems to functioning.


----------



## pdentrem (May 18, 2020)

Good. After a brief calming down period, a plan has been worked on and move forward from here.


----------



## savarin (May 18, 2020)

Buffalo21 said:


> but no terminations or long term punishments. A new series of training class and better supervision and work procedures protocols are in the planning stages, for all maintenance personnel.


Sounds like some wise management decisions.


----------



## westerner (May 18, 2020)

matthewsx said:


> Every problem IS A MANAGEMENT PROBLEM....


In the kid movie "A bug's life", the grasshopper- mean rotten overbearing taskmaster type tells the Ant Queen
"The first rule of management is "EVERYTHING IS YOUR FAULT". There are a thousand exceptions to this, but the point that I see is this-
What breakdown was there that allowed this kid to get to this point? As stated above, if the kid's co-workers watched and allowed him to get here, then it is THEY who should be disciplined. If their supervisor could not recognize the potential for this, then HE should be disciplined. If the kid HAS had the training to know better, then it is HE who should be disciplined.

The point I mean to convey is that these sorts of things should not happen very often in an environment that promotes not only education, but
accountability. The lack of accountability is the root of the issue across many segments of society these days, in my humble opinion. End of rant, sorry.


----------



## matthewsx (May 18, 2020)

It's good to hear things got sorted. You never know, with the right training the kid in question may turn into a valued member of the maintenance staff.

It also sounds like management accepted their responsibility and are going to beef up their training program. I've been involved in training departments a few times and it does wonders for the workforce. Not only do you get employees who can do the job better but when you give someone a certificate of completion at the end of a course they usually feel a little bit proud and often look forward to the next training session.  If you catch them using their newly acquired skills and acknowledge it you'll get an even more motivated employee.

Years ago when I worked at a computer company named after a fruit we had a course titled "So, you want to manage". It was actually intended for ambitious folks who really wouldn't make good managers, but their bosses could send them to this course where they would learn all the reasons they really didn't want to give up the individual contributor role. And of course they got a certificate of completion to hang on their cubicle wall

I do hope though that they make a dedicated welding area with all the tools and PPE needed for the job, well thought out process is usually the best way to keep people from $rewing up....

John


----------

