Small Victories

I worked for the same company most of my adult life. I rode that horse as it went from nearly a thousand employees down to about 150. I saw my friends terminated, even had to let some go myself. It's hard. One day, overwhelmed by frustration with management, I couldn't take it anymore and walked out. I swore I would never set foot in there again. Well, never say never. Things happened. The parent company was purchased by Warren Buffet, management was replaced, but the economy was bad and the slide continued down to about 100 employees.

About a year and half ago I received a call asking me if I wanted to come back and do some contract work. I had been contracting for another company and as that project had played out, I had time on my hands. So for a few months I went in half days and did the design, solid modeling and drawings for a new product line. After the project wrapped up I left, and went back to my garden and bicycles. I did keep updated on tooling, prototyping, early production, just keeping tabs on my new baby. In the mean time the recession deepened and the number of employees fell to about 50. You have to realize that these are not just numbers to me. These are my friends, the people that I worked with for 35 years.

A couple of days ago I asked my waitress at Nancy's Cafe how her husband was doing. He was one of those last men still standing at the plant. She said, "Really good, people are really showing interest in that new product line, they've called 27 people back to work and it looks like there will be more soon." Now, she doesn't have a clue that I was involved, she's just happy. I didn't do it to be altruistic, I was paid quite well. But damn, it makes me happy to have helped just a little.