Move the goalposts, make my day.

[taranaki]

Well, it's like this.

This time last year I was working in a fairly big factory for a fairly small company. Family commitments have me living in a deeply rural part of a deeply rural country, and if the factory wasn't here, there's not much work outside of pulling cow tits or selling baling twine and shearing tools. The company is good to us, and we are good to them. We're onto a bit of a goldmine, turning leftovers into a very popular product. This high level of productivity is to be our undoing, because the company falls to a hostile takeover. We go from being a relatively large part of a small operation to being a small factory in a global operation. We're told that it will herald a new era of productivity and profitability for the town.

Then the fun starts.

A few weeks after the takeover, the consultants arrive. Smart, clean-shaven graduates with dazzling white collars and shiny hard hats. They stay for a day or two, taking measurements, noting down inventory, downloading files from the computers, and asking inane questions.

A few weeks later, there's a meeting at the local theatre.The plant falls silent as all staff walk the quarter mile and hunker down in the decrepit elegance of the folding cinema seats.

A review has been completed and our new employers wish to make changes, they see duplication of resources and opportunities for greater competitiveness. The whole of the 'old' company is put on notice that the structure will change radically. Several operations will be curtailed, and an option exists to shift the whole facility offshore. We all wait with bated breath. We are the biggest site in the firing line, if anyone stays, it will be us.

Good news/bad news time.

We stay, but we have to absorb operations from the rest of the company. We also have to switch to approved suppliers from the parent company. Everything from IT to canteen services is up for tender. Unfortunately, only the canteen contractors survive. They specialise in prisons and hospitals. Still, we're luckier than the older plants, they're put on notice. Posters start appearing around the plant for 'c.v. help' and 'confidential counselling'. Call me cynical, but there's stuff here that we aren't being told.

Let's move the goalposts a bit. Plans are circulated, machinery is to be moved, and computers are to be reconfigured. We get to use some of our annual leave while they do this, those who have no available leave may apply for leave in advance. Strangers in big boots and hard hats start pouring into the plant. When they leave,the machinery is all huddled in one corner of the factory. A team of crack IT geeks sweep through the factory, removing workstations and installing the new network. The promised 'transition support' team stays for 3 days. Those who were on leave get no training. The new network takes two weeks to commision.

New software replaces the custom-designed production management tool that we had before. The parent company has its own software and wants to save money by 'benefiting from synergies'. Our onsite IT manager is replaced by a helpdesk. We think it's based in Mumbai.The old system was like watching goldfish in an aquarium. The new system is like trying to shoot sharks in a hurricane using a bb gun. All of our products and processes have to be renumbered and renamed to suit the dinosystem that we are saddled with. Now nobody is sure what to call the materials, let alone how to find and count them.

Office staff are moved into a cube farm, and the bulldozers rip through the admin block. The space is needed for extra machines. Heavy equipment rips up concrete floors and tears down suspended ceilings. Occasionally, it cuts through the wrong spot and the lights go out, or the sprinklers pour rusty rain from above. Safe behind tarpaulins and scaffolding, the factory struggles on.

Christmas approaches, and the staff start looking forward to the festive season. More downtime is announced, to allow for further upgrades. The plant can't function while they beef up essential services to cope with additional presses. The new company puts on a special Christmas lunch for those who work on Dec 25th. The canteen contractor tries to charge extra for it. We bring our own instead. Downstairs there's a cavernous space large enough to hold a truck rodeo where the product used to be made. Alongside, the surviving machinery is hunched in the gloom. The machines are so close together that they block out most of the light, and the engineers have to time their moves precisely to avoid colliding with the man down the line.

A new year, and new contractors. The empty space teems with hard-hats and cherry pickers as complex mazes of new wall are put up and painted. concrete floors are poured and finished,ducting and plumbing is installed, the whole wing looks shiny and new. Across the street, the 'old' factory is starting to look distinctly past its use-by date.

There's talk of further indignities to be inflicted on the workforce. There's to be a restructuring of the old as part of the transition to the new. People who have worked side by side for years may find themselves moved to other jobs on other shifts. If they don't like it, they can take redundancy. Chances are, they'd have to leave the country if they want to stay in the industry. If they choose to quit and stay in the town, they could probably buy one of the businesses for a song. Most are for sale, some with vacant posession. There's work bagging groceries at the local supermarket, if you don't mind dressing up like a performing monkey and working for peanuts.

A generous pension scheme is not enough to keep the elite workers from jumping ship. The talented and unattatched are packing up and leaving faster than their replacements can be trained. They could fit a revolving door in the HR office to cope with the extra traffic.

In summary, many of us who are left have less idea what we are doing than a year ago, less incentive to do it, and limited prospects if we choose to bite the hand that feeds us. For many, the factory has ceased to be a community, and become a room full of strangers with a paycheck at one end and oblivion at the other. I'm waiting to see how much further they move the goalposts. Things will get worse before they get better.I hope things get better before I get worse.

[Oz]

Globalisation rolls on.

[fredjacksonsan]

Sucks. Your job has been Walmarted - big corporation has moved in and squashed the little guy.

[ShadowWulf2K]

I'm sorry to hear this, I truly am.

[replicant_008]

About 18 months ago, Rep was quite happily working in a job he expected to have for a while after 'downshifting' into a more relaxed job and environment. His gf had moved in and balance had returned to his life.

Then GF started behaving very erratically and company unexpectedly sold to 'private equity' - after trying to run around keeping everything going (like running around with two handfuls of fine silica sand running thru fingers)... GF does something really stupid involving her past and I threw her out.

I have to lay off staff under orders from above and after dealing with lawyers and bankers for 6 months I bail out. Get another job, spend three months commuting to Sydney, move over there, get involved in management civil war before I bail and return to Auckland.

Had an accident recently and recovering from surgery... and fairly grumpy although I have more time on my hand.