A Hiatus Will Occur Soon.

This reporter will go from being a live witness to one that reports what is heard from others. I suspect this will not change the facts much.

The hiatus will last approximately four months.

Check back from time-to-time.

Just a quick question ... complete with answer

Q: How far can you drive to pick up three gallons of paint and two heaters?
A: One hundred and eleven miles.

But only if you're the designated volunteer.

What color is that? Why I believe it's Blue

Blue? Would anyone truly paint an office blue? Particularly an office that has the public as visitors? And then add characters as decoration? I'm seeing cracks and I don't mean in the walls that are now painted blue.

Paint it blue...paint it blue. Everyone knows you should paint it black.

Twing Twang we all get a bang

This is pitiful.
The two senior guys are cleaning, repairing, and painting the bathrooms. No help.
The most senior guy got his butt chewed for not clearing out a desk in the shop area for the "interim" manager to sit at. Translation: "clear out your desk, cause that's where I'm going to sit." Or words to that affect.

I don't believe I've ever seen a person that's supposed to be a leader employ humuliation of subordinates to this degree.

Crap!

Was I writing about having to sign in/out at the beginning and end of each shift, and was it sounding like a complaint? Dear me, at least I didn't need to cry about it.

Installed today was a timeclock. The new rules are that we clock in at the beginning of the shift, clock out for lunch, clock back in at the end of lunch, clock out at the end of shift. Waaaaaaaa And was the timeclock installed in the shop where we work? Oh, No! It's in the front office where we almost never go. Waaaaaaaa

Memos, we get memos...

As the world turns so does the worm.

I think I mentioned about Memos in a previous entry but I haven't been here for almost a week now so I'd better tell you that we've now received two new ones, or was it three? I can't remember.

We now have sign in/out sheets for all employees. There are three of us You sign in at the beginning of your shift and you sign out at the end of your shift. This method was put in place in lieu of time clocks. Never mind that we're required to fill out and turn in a daily activity sheet that supposedly accounts for everything we do for the entire eight hours and we fill out a timesheet that supposedly we get paid from. I'm not sure what this obsession with only three employees time is about, but it must be important since we now spend an ever increasing amount of our eight hour work day documenting our time. She is certainly obsessed with paper and filing.

Additionally we have a new time sheet that goes into effect on November first. I have not studied it yet.

And last, we have a revised and updated Employee Handbook.

I guess it was three Memos. Since she does not talk to us and we have three new items it must be three memos.

Sorry to bore you all with this.

And the trail narrows and the pain begins to become accute

Recently (last Thursday) there was, apparently, a huge blowout at a public meeting. Audience members accused members of the executive committee of fradulently terminating a long-time employee as well as persuing a business methodology that leads to less than loving behavior of the companies long enduring employees, and its customers. Some executive members were, or so I'm told, shocked that this might even be true. So much for communication between executive committee members.

And in a so called effort to better understand her responsibilities, the Interim Manager has demanded that the employees now account, on a daily basis, for each minute while on duty. What were you doing and how much time did it take? This is viewed by several members of the employees as merely trying to figure out what is going on and later use it as ammunition for termination.

And in the punitive action news section: Employees are no longer allowed to have coffee cups with them while they work. Coffee will be consumed on breaks of which there are two per day. This while the employees work in an unheated space and said Interim Manager sits in a heated office and talks to herself.

Do you see how well management is communicating?

Could you possibly believe there's more?

After the firing of the veteran office manager by the immediately resigning Manager, the Lords of the Realm bring in a new office manager (you can infer that I mean secretary) and promptly confer the title of interim manager on this person. Huh? No introduction, no meeting of staff to say this is what we are going to do, nothing. Not even a memo.

This new Manager announces that they are not a butt kisser, can become intolerable in 1.4 seconds, will fight for the employees tooth and nail, wants to make the company successful, will not tolerate interference, not afraid to step on toes, expects lots of good communication, and ultimately that we, as the workers, will be happy to come to work. Hello Hello ... it was exactly that type of attitude that got the last two managers relieved of their duties. Is anyone other than the workers watching this movie?

Groan groan

What more could be asked?

And in a turn of events that could have been predicted by a second grader the Manager, who only yesterday fired someone, has himself resigned his position. That's two Managers in less that one year or maybe one year. At this point who's counting?

It seems that those that consider themselves to be in control of this "company" are still sitting in the corner playing with themselves while the company goes down the drain. It's way too bad this is happening the way it is. The company is a huge asset to the area and we, the citizens and employees, are saddled with five idiots.

I'm so pissed I can't write any more today.

Greetings workers

Life is good and then you loose your job.
It happened to a friend of mine today.

The short term outcome is that those of us that are still employed are wondering what the hell is coming next.

We've actually been concerned about our future at this employer for some time. There has been a concentrated effort to remove, give away, sell, trade, or throw out the very tools we use to work. This has all been done without regard to whether or not the tool is useful in the short or long term or even if it is expensive to replace should we happen to need it.

We are in the dark as to what the future plans are and I'm making the very rash assumption that there is any planning going on at all. Management will not tell us anything.

Some work that we are fully capable of has been sub'd out to other companies at five times the cost if we had done it outselves.

I'm thinking we (those of us that are left and that's not many) should take our personal tools and walk out in mass but not before we let the local media know we are doing this...and I mean TV, Radio, newspaper and anyone else that will listen. Comments?