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CU Medallion [66085]
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Manufacturing - maybe long, but just a rant
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Feb 21, 2023, 5:49 PM
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I've been with my company over 20 years. The vast majority were great and good years. It has allowed me to live a great life with my family, plus I love the product we put out, it's life-saving in some circumstances.
About 10 years we starting growing, adding more products and employees, and basically we've grown to be about 3x of what we used to be. First, growth has always been seen a positive, but the company took a weird tack. The employees that were hired to do hourly work until about ten years ago usually started at $20/hr and could quickly get into the $28-30/hr range, plus you got COL adjustments on top of that. It was a great gig locally, one this area needed.
Ten years, when we started hiring we started them out at $12/hr, they called "area competitive pay." And these folks were doing the exact same job as someone making $28/hr. So over time those jobs are now maxing out at $19-22/hr. So, as you might imagine, there's is a huge fuss over why some folks are getting paid so much more than others for doing the same job.
So a few things have happened:
1. Our small, friendly atmosphere amongst everyone, even salaried and hourly is completely soured. The managers are going to Top Golf for "retreats" while you have someone who was just hired making $12/hr.
2. There is no more "good faith communication" meaning, if someone makes a mistake, nothing but silence. IN the past, whenever a mistake was made, it was worked on in a positive manner and thanking the employee for making the process/product better.
3. A massive "us vs. them" attitude within all area departments. Hourly vs. salary, materials vs. QA, it's terrible
4. The parent org brings in a HR consultant to has listening meetings with employees and the feedback is very bad.
5. STRONG rumors of union organizing, which, has been the sites #1 goal for years to avoid.
Kinda just hoping I'm not the only one seeing this, of course, it's indicative of the society at large, but it seems the places to go to escape from the negativity of the world as shrinking exponentially fast
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110%er [9713]
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An honest question…
Feb 21, 2023, 6:09 PM
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Is this really a personal experience? Or just some Mauldawg hijinks?
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CU Medallion [66085]
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Fair question
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Feb 21, 2023, 6:12 PM
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actual experience
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110%er [9713]
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Still can’t be certain if you’re serious. But…
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Feb 21, 2023, 6:24 PM
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Yes. I see this too. They try to make education the dividing line for pay and benefits, even though it’s somewhat arbitrary. It’s now one of the worst places I’ve ever worked at. It typically depends on 1 or 2 individuals trying to “go the extra mile” to be positive in order to help keep things from getting ugly. Even the oldest of old timers hate it. But that’s business I guess.
What’s really scary is that we are in the people business.
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Associate AD [828]
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Re: Manufacturing - maybe long, but just a rant
Feb 21, 2023, 6:30 PM
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I understand your dismay.
Curious if it is a publicly or privately owned company.
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CU Medallion [66085]
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Public***
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Feb 21, 2023, 6:42 PM
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All-In [42909]
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Good work environment for a good employer in my experience
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Feb 21, 2023, 6:44 PM
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is a temporary situation. Exception rather than the rule.
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Lot o points [155978]
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My off the cuff guess:
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Feb 21, 2023, 6:54 PM
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One of 3 things were their options
1). Outsource the whole shebang to China, fire everyone. 2). Keep paying everyone really well, go out of business. 3). Do what they did.
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CU Medallion [66085]
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I get it, and we did ship about 40% of our volume
Feb 21, 2023, 8:39 PM
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to China, and still kept growing
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Lot o points [155978]
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Sounds like a mix of 1 and 3.
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Feb 22, 2023, 8:27 AM
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To be clear, I'm not saying you should be thankful or that it's awesome. It's just reality. They've surgically removed just about every ounce of enjoyment and reward from modern corporate America.
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Legend [17302]
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Root cause usually ties back to Finance / Accounting cost analysis .
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Feb 21, 2023, 6:58 PM
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The intangible cost advantages of good labor relations were not accurately quantified by HR and Manufacturing.
Not sure what the remedy is now.
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All-In [31908]
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There can be some truth to that....
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Feb 22, 2023, 6:18 AM
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Accountants and finance folks are indispensable, but, in my experience, you can't put them in charge of the entire operation and/or allow decisions to be made in a vacuum.
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Heisman Winner [136034]
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Not just manufacturing
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Feb 21, 2023, 7:18 PM
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Retirement “community” where mom lives was very similar to your place when she moved in. Well paid employees, good food, responsive maintenance, everybody from residents to hourly to management all got along with residents the focus.
Owner retires, son takes over, son sells to some large management firm, maximizing profit becomes the focus, food quality goes down, building is not maintained, prices going up and up, occupancy goes from an 8-15 month waiting list to 1/3 of independent living units are empty, bosses don’t understand why nobody wants to pay a premium to live in a subpar place, turnover has become very high (old folks don’t like having new people cleaning, cooking and serving them all the time) . . . . .
Mom would move but the 2 places that are better have a years long waiting list because the demand that should be met where she is has put pressure on the other 2.
Chasing max dollars at the expense of service is often counter productive
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CU Medallion [56106]
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All-In [32656]
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Uhhhh ohhhhh - somebody didn’t get invited to Top Golf.***
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Feb 21, 2023, 8:42 PM
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Hall of Famer [21940]
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We're the same.
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Feb 21, 2023, 9:18 PM
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Public companies are the problem. Gotta get smaller and go to a private company.
The takers are ruining it for the makers. Too many bean counters just ####### the working class for those couple of cents per share to talk about 4 times a year to the Street. The whole thing is ###### and completely unnecessary.
Everything you're bitching about is 1,000% by design. Someone making 100x what we make drew this up and had his minions go do it. And he's getting rewarded more handsomely by taking these profits and buying back shares and giving them to his bosses.
We have execs from your company now too actually. And it's awful. ####### terrible. Absolute noticeable decline once this regime got in about 2 years ago. And they can all get ######.
We just moved manufacturing to Mexico, so there's that.
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Lot o points [155978]
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Privates are great until KKR or similar buys you up
Feb 21, 2023, 11:04 PM
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and tries to squeeze every ounce of profit they can before bundling you for a sale.
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Hall of Famer [24119]
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Re: Privates are great until KKR or similar buys you up
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Feb 21, 2023, 11:52 PM
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It's hard for the owners to turn down the money. Can't blame them. It's not a hobby.
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Oculus Spirit [81078]
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We've been sold 3, or 4 times since 2010.
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Feb 22, 2023, 9:08 AM
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Its been so often that I can't even remember them all. I think it was 3 times.
Anyway, every time it was to an even bigger mega corp, and the morale, job security and product have gone down every time. They have no qualms with sending more work overseas and eliminating tribal knowledge. That seems to be the goal, actually.
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Hall of Famer [24119]
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Re: We've been sold 3, or 4 times since 2010.
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Feb 22, 2023, 9:26 AM
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Oh yeah, mergers and buyouts suck. From an employee perspective, it usually isn't comfortable whether you are the buyer or the company that is being bought.
A company I worked for over a decade ago bought another large company. Very similar services, but very different cultures. Looked great on paper, but the people did not mesh.
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Heisman Winner [105622]
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We bought a pretty big company recently and I am working in
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Feb 22, 2023, 10:07 AM
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an office staffed with 20ish employees of the firm that was bought and I am the only one from the new owners. I've only been in this office two days, but I hear conversations of frustrations, etc. It has to suck for them. Basically take everything you know about day-to-day work and throw it out the window. New processes, new record keeping, new regulations, etc. It has to suck.
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Oculus Spirit [81078]
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That part is annoying.
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Feb 22, 2023, 5:44 PM
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Its the random mass firings that I really don't like.
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All-In [35541]
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Re: My previous employer changed hands twice before I got
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Feb 23, 2023, 8:15 AM
[ in reply to We bought a pretty big company recently and I am working in ] |
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caught up in a layoff. After the 1st buyout, the new owner brought in this lady to help with the merger, who held meetings with about 25-30 employees. Her job was to hear our voice. After the 3rd meeting, which I was in, she cried and then quit. We were very frustrated and always worried about job security.
Getting laid off was the best thing to ever happen to me from that job. I was there 13.5 yrs, got a nice severance package, and one of my customers hired me. Now I work from home 100%, my salary doubled, and my work load was cut in half. Next week I being training on a product we're implementing in 2024. Once I get that certification I can work just about anywhere in the US.
The new processes, new regulations, new day to day work that took place after both buyouts was extremely frustrating.
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All-In [46825]
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And yet you still rarely post on here***
Feb 23, 2023, 1:49 PM
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All-In [35541]
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Re: I know right***
Feb 23, 2023, 2:19 PM
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All-In [31908]
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Sounds like it was perhaps an over-correction to a flawed...
Feb 22, 2023, 6:25 AM
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business model.
Paying $30/hr quickly for un-skilled/normal-skilled labor is, generally, not sustainable in this area. Of that can vary widely with the type of product/market you're in.
Sounds like your company may have tried balancing the hourly wage load too quickly in an attempt to stay competitive. I suspect the issue was also pretty complex. Often, there isn't a real "right" answer to something like that.
As for the Top-Golf comment...the optics don't sound good, but the cost of top golf likely wouldn't move the needle against total wage cost. We had our staff Christmas party at Top Golf, but we're also paying some pretty big bonuses to production workers.
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Heisman Winner [135623]
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Situations like this can typically be easily resolved by
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Feb 22, 2023, 7:34 AM
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installing a Robot CEO.
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Oculus Spirit [75725]
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When I worked at UPS in what "they" would actaully
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Feb 22, 2023, 8:14 AM
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call non-union, I'd start every meeting with some vague threat to organize.
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All-In [46825]
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That's typical of just about any job
Feb 22, 2023, 10:00 AM
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every single job is one or two wrong hires away from going to ####. And it's usually the top level hires that affect it the most.
Where I am now is a great set up. But I also know that at anytime the couple of people who make it a great set up can leave and then I'll be finding me somewhere else to work too.
Always keep that resume dusted off.
Message was edited by: FBCoachSC®
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All-TigerNet [11213]
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I think you have two separate, but intertwined issues
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Feb 22, 2023, 11:06 AM
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The pay scale issues, as others have commented, are likely an over correction to a looming problem. This is one half of the problem. The accounting says that pay model isn't going to be sustainable for the long haul at the rate the company has grown. Somebody decided to make a correction and (maybe) the pendulum swung too far. Some of it I understand - hiring in at almost 1.5x the "going local rate" is likely to attract some of the better local talent. Which is great if you're hiring an experienced, "known quantity" machinist. Hiring an apprentice-level machinist at a high rate... to me feels like a gamble, and I'm sure the bean counters felt the same way.
Did their total compensation package change when the pay rate for new hires also changed? Did health benefits, retirement benefits or other fringe also change? Sometimes it doesn't take "higher than local" pay, sometimes it's just combining competitive pay with a good benefits program - when my former employer expanded their internal machine shop they were able to poach from the local shops simply because of that - pay equal to what they were already getting or what the surveys say they should get for their experience and, simply put, a lot of the smaller machine shops just don't offer benefits. Retirement benefits seemed to be the bigger talking point with the machinists that came in. Unfortunately, I've also seen where people don't think about that, it's just dollars-in-the-pocket.
The other side of this (the newer management "retreats," how the hourly employees are treated, etc.) is company culture. Culture is hard to maintain, especially when you have a huge influx of people over a short time (10 years isn't a long time). It has to be fought for from the top down and everyone needs to be on board. It would be interesting to know, as the company expanded and more management was needed (yes, sometimes its necessary) - how much of that management was brought in from outside? And how much was organic (i.e. longer time employees promoted into a higher level of responsibility). Typically if they're brought in from the outside, they bring whatever culture they know (I recall my former employer brought in a new CEO - a "Jack Welch guy" who was the first not promoted from within - and the culture went to all the bad things people think about the GE corporate environment).
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Orange Blooded [4095]
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Re: I think you have two separate, but intertwined issues
Feb 22, 2023, 2:39 PM
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With respect to corporate culture, it also depends on where you get your experienced employees.
I'm an engineer and would avoid working for a place that has manufacturing because the manufacturing tends to pull down the benefits for the salaried workers because if it doesn't you get this sort of resentment.
First job I had as an engineer out of college was at a design place with a manufacturing facility and we kind of got screwed. We got the crappy restrictions of the hourly workers like half an hour for lunch and had to be to work on time but didn't get paid for overtime and had all the expectations of salaried workers.
People were pissed when they were at work until midnight finishing something but then got written up the next day for being half an hour late to work.
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110%er [7159]
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Re: I think you have two separate, but intertwined issues
Feb 24, 2023, 9:58 PM
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That is why a lot of companies physically separate their technical departments from their operations.
Sure, there are some plant site engineers / technical people that directly support manufacturing, but product design / development departments are best located far enough away so that they don’t accidentally bump into each other during the work day.
That is, if the enterprise can afford two separate facilities.
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Oculus Spirit [81078]
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I agree with most of that..except the time frame.
Feb 23, 2023, 1:53 PM
[ in reply to I think you have two separate, but intertwined issues ] |
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10 years in a corp environment is a lifetime. In that time, we've gone through 4 separate distinct corporate cultures and their rules and processes.
Every 3-6 years is about the length of time between major changes in every corporate environment I've worked in. The reason for that? That's about as long as most CEO/CIO/CFO stay in a job anymore. That's their timeframe, then they move on, and then the cycle and changes start all over again.
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CU Medallion [64837]
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As a salary employee, is there any chance you could
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Feb 22, 2023, 3:13 PM
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convert to hourly and join the Rubber Asss and Dilldoe Manufacturers of America, Local 524?
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Hall of Famer [20573]
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The RADMA ?***
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Feb 23, 2023, 6:46 AM
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Hall of Famer [20573]
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I work for a small company
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Feb 23, 2023, 6:49 AM
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Giant corporate conglomerate X tried to buy us out recently, but the owner resisted. Instead, we formed a partnership with X. It still has messed up our mojo. We are getting a large sampling of what it would be like if they did buy us out just by working with them. They even have employees working in our building. And the hoops we have to jump through... Uggh.
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All-TigerNet [11963]
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are you at the same place where we both used to work but now
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Feb 23, 2023, 1:44 PM
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don't?
If so, your managers have $$ to go to Top Golf??? ###?
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