Saying Goodbye to Your Job

September 17, 1969 - according to company records - was my first official day on the job. I clearly recall the day I walked in through the front door of the building that used to house the organization that was going to make an honest, working man out of me. The sun was beaming through the showroom windows behind which new cars used to tempt passersby. The building was no longer an auto dealership nor was it a mortuary any longer despite the fact that at times during its past, it had housed both of those businesses. Now, it was home to a small, privately owned, medical devices manufacturer. When I walked through the front door for the very first time, I was greeted by a delightful young lady who had the biggest, brightest smile and the most beautiful, jet-black, nearly waist length hair that I had ever seen. Her name was Dorothy - but please, call her Dottie; I told her I was answering an ad in the paper for the position of shipping clerk and the joy that she demonstrated over my decision to apply for that job, made me feel as if I were the best qualified and most able-bodied person that she had ever met. As I sat down at a small table in the reception area to fill out the job application, I could not help but keep glancing at this raven-haired beauty, hoping if I did get the job, that she might be one of the people I would have to work most closely with. Please keep in mind, this happened nearly three years before I even met the girl who I eventually married so any fantasies I had involving Dottie would have to be considered as acceptable! Well, fantasy over, Dottie and I never did get together, we just became really good work related friends. I remember that day as if it just occurred yesterday instead of over forty years ago. You see, the date I am writing this memoir is December 13, 2009 and today, I have no job to go to for the first time since that day in 1969. Back in May of 2009, the company that purchased the facility that I called home for so long, after approximately five years of ownership, decided that to avoid losing even more of their amassed empire to the world-wide recession that plagued everyone in 2008, to move the technology developed and contained at that plant to their home base in Ohio.

In 1969, the company with which I had decided to work for, employed all of roughly thirty people. It was family owned by a gentleman from Canada who wanted to operate his company in "The States" because that is where the bulk of his customer base was located. Looking back today, at the grand scale that the operation was then, we could have been referred to as a pitiful little organization. But just like the engine that could, that little business kept on chugging along and I was fortunate enough to have gotten my ticket to get on board at the right time. My immediate boss was a quirky little guy from Pennsylvania who liked to sit cross-legged on top of his work desk and teach me all he could about shipping and receiving. His name was Milt. He is still today, the only Milt I have ever met! I was on the job for only a short period of time, perhaps two and a half months, when I got my orders to report to Fort Dix for basic training. I had enlisted in the Army Reserve prior to getting my new job, and I had included that fact on my job application but the folks who were in charge of the company at the time had no trouble with holding my job for me until I returned from basic and advanced training. When I did return months later, things had changed. Milt, my immediate boss, had grown tired of New York and decided to return to Pennsylvania. An "older" guy by the name of Jim had taken over the shipping and receiving responsibilities for the still small-scale company but only until I had returned from my military training. You see, Jim was more of a service technician who repaired the products that our company built and he did not want to get pigeon-holed into a new position that he did not feel adequately trained to do. The day I walked back into the old plant, the company manager was waiting for me to arrive. He wanted to fill me in on the details of Milt having left the company and he wanted to make me an offer to help me decide to stay with them rather than moving on because my boss had quit. Because of my ability to learn the job quickly before I left for my Army basic training and because I must have had some other quality that only they could detect, I was offered a one dollar an hour increase in pay if I chose to stay. One dollar an hour! I jumped at the offer without consulting my parents or friends to see if they thought that was a good deal. By accepting their gracious offer, I would be earning $2.35 per hour and increasing my gross pay by $40.00 every week!

I spent the next four years or so running the shipping and receiving department for the company. Because of the size of the organization and the fact that virtually everyone had the talents to perform more than one job function, I not only handled all the transportation needs for the company, I also had occasion to speak with customers on the phone when they would call with a question about an order. When the plant manager heard that I was adept enough to handle those customer calls, he decided that perhaps it was time to expand my talents within the organization and let me try my hand at customer service work. He not only made the decision to have me perform customer service duties, he actually appointed me as customer service manager! I was so proud of my promotion and I just knew that I was going to be the best customer service representative the company ever had.
We went so far as to hire a new person to handle the shipping and receiving responsibilities - his name was Butch. Butch was a really good guy who brought a high powered and eager attitude to the workplace. His only problem was that he always tried to work faster than anyone else had ever worked! His corner cutting and lack of time devoted to certain aspects of the packaging of some merchandise, led to problems with the safe delivery of items to customers. I meanwhile, discovered that I could not handle the requirements of being customer service manager as I could not find it in my makeup to lie to our customers. If someone wanted to purchase one of our machines and we had none in stock, I told them the truth - that it could take up to a week for what they wanted to order, to be ready to ship to them. That was OK with many customers but for some, it meant they decided to check with our competitor to see if they could get something akin to what they wanted to purchase from us. That did not sit well with the plant manager. When Butch and I started talking about how we were both not doing our jobs as well as we wanted to, we decided to approach our boss with a simple suggestion; allow me to return to the duties as shipping and receiving clerk and allow him to move into the role of customer service manager. The boss accepted our proposal, and soon, I was back at what I did best and Butch settled into his role of dealing with customer service issues. The frenetic nature that Butch brought to the position served him well as he maintained his role for quite a few years before deciding to move on to bigger and better things. I re-assumed the role that I had originally been hired for and began creating the persona that I would try to maintain throughout my career - take the time to do things right and remember that having happy, satisfied customers means having a job! I heard or read an old adage around that time that has stayed with me to this day; and I always used to refer to it when discussions arose about a job not being done correctly. The saying goes, why is there never enough time to do something right but always enough time to do it over? I may have gotten my superiors annoyed with me at times in the past for the length of time it took me to accomplish some tasks, but I rarely if ever had to do them over.

In 1979, my company moved from the now too small facility which had been its home for nearly eleven years, to a brand new building better suited to handle the needs of the one time, 35 employee company. The move was made as the old plant was now woefully inadequate to handle all the machining, manufacturing and storage requirements for the rapidly expanding organization. The name of the company changed as well as the original owner and founder had received an offer from a larger concern he could not turn down. That move turned out to be the first of many that blended our manufacturing with that of a larger organization to offer customers more of a complete "package" of related merchandise. The move to the new plant also meant the expansion of the work force. Our employment level virtually doubled after a very short time in our new "home". One of the tell-tale signs of increased business, was the addition of two other shipping clerks to help me with the expanding shipping needs of the growing company. I was no longer an island in the sea of manufacturing. I was the leader of a team! In the years that followed, it was always easy to tell who the people were who came on board when the company first moved as their anniversary dates all fell within days of each other and their employment starting dates were all in September or October of 1979. By the time we accomplished the complete transition of the company from the old to the new building, I had already spent one decade on the job.

As with most jobs and organizations, things did not always go smoothly. There were down times when we had to lay people off but they were far outweighed by the up times, when we had to hire additional workers and expand from one shift to two and finally three. The work load at times seemed insurmountable but we always managed, somehow, to accomplish what had to be done. The development of new products, the refining of existing products and the phasing out of older, obsolete items kept the growing employee roles occupied. When the management decided to start a third shift, I volunteered to oversee the activities of those overnight activities. The primary reason for the shift was to maintain parts being made in the machine shop, packing orders for the next days shipping requirements and pulling orders in the stockroom to enable first shift assembly workers to have their assignments ready for them as soon as their shift started. The entire shift consisted of two machinists, myself and a strikingly beautiful young blonde who joined the organization specifically so that she would not have to spend the evenings alone at home due to her husband's work schedule. I made it clear to my charges on the first night we were operational, that I would tolerate no slacking off, no horse play, no excessive breaks and no loud music blaring throughout the plant. The two machinists were pretty good about playing by my rules but that beautiful young blonde was a trouble maker. When I got done with my blood and guts, inspirational welcome to the third shift speech, she looked me up and down, shook her head and muttered "Sure thing boss - but just wait till we get home". Yes indeed, that strikingly beautiful young blonde was the girl I had married and part of the deal with me overseeing the third shift was her being given the job of pulling orders in the stockroom during the shift. She did the job so well, that she ticked off the two guys who did the same job during the day shift as she ended up pulling more orders by herself than they did as a team during the first shift. Not that I had anything to do with her work ethic, she is just the type of person who likes to prove her worth by doing any task she's assigned to the best of her ability. Having her working the same shift as I was working was great! Driving to work together, talking about things we needed to do, stopping for "breakfast" on our way home at 8 AM and having pork chops and french fries while other restaurant patrons were having more traditional meals. It was also fun to get home on a nice morning and fire up the grill in the back yard to do some chicken or steaks while everyone else was on their way to work or school. It was during one of the first nights in the plant, around 3 AM, when we first got the impression that the facility was haunted. If not haunted, at least possessed by some entity that did not appreciate us being there in the wee hours of the morning. The two machinists were on their break in the entryway to the shop area - I could see them from where I was working - and my wife was doing her thing in the stockroom when suddenly, from the general assembly area beyond the stockroom cage, came the protracted sound of someone dragging a metal shop stool across the concrete floor. My wife, knowing the machinists were on their break and being able to see me from where she was working, came rushing to me asking "Who else is supposed to be here"? When I stated that nobody else was supposed to be in the building with us, she turned and faced in the direction from which the sound had come and said, "Well somebody better go back there and tell whoever that is that they're not supposed to be in here"! She and I both walked back to the assembly area to check things out and while moving in that direction, heard the sound again. When we got to the point where the entire assembly area was visible from where we were standing, I surveyed the entire area and of course, saw nobody else there.
Those strange noises persisted during the entire duration of that old third shift and they just came to be part of the mystique of the hours spent in the plant while the rest of the work force was snuggled comfortably in their beds.

When the need for the third shift ended, my wife and I returned to the first shift and reacquainted ourselves with a more normal lifestyle of getting up in the morning and going to bed at night! My wife became a victim of the first lay-off situation the company had to endure when business started going bad shortly after that point. She went on to work for other high tech companies but always as a temporary replacement or fill-in for another employee. She was never able to fully exploit her talents in the workplace as I was allowed to do. I wish she could have stayed on the job with me. We would still be facing the uncertainty of unemployment now but at least we would be facing it as a united team.

There are so many memories associated with a career that has lasted so long. So many days that I wished had never happened and that many more that I wish could be revisited. I met and worked with so many great people who became great friends. I also worked with a handful that were lucky we had rules about not harming coworkers! I've worked with ladies and gentlemen, gays and straights, animal lovers, veterans, introverts and extroverts, people bigger than myself but most, smaller! I've experienced the joy and contentment of doing my job well and being paid for it. I've won awards, I've learned a great deal, I've been injured and shed blood on the job. I've laughed more times than I can count and cried when situations called for tears. I was able to prepare for and celebrate four straight Super Bowl appearances by my beloved Buffalo Bills. That memory would be a lot happier if after any of those games, I would have been able to pop the cork on the special bottle of Champagne purchased just for that circumstance. That bottle is now properly aged and residing at my house - one of the items in the trailer load of personal memorabilia that I had to bring home. I made it home during the Western New York blizzard of '77 but only because at the time, I only lived one mile from work. I was on vacation during the terrorist attacks of the World Trade Center and Pentagon in 2001 but still called in to work as our parent organization at that time, had offices in the World Trade Center. That was the worst vacation day I ever had. While I never met those poor people, our organizational family lost nine members that day. I've unlocked and opened the employee entrance enough times to wear out a key and I've now turned off the lights in the plant for the last time. I'm not sure what the future holds for me at this point; I can only hope that whatever job I am fortunate enough to move on to, will offer some of the opportunities that I was able to experience for the past forty years. I'm finding that saying goodbye to the job I've held for so long is a lot harder than I thought it would be. Seeing all my coworkers leaving over the course of weeks and weeks just made it harder. Being one of the final three people in that big, empty building that used to be filled with so much life and activity, almost makes me feel like I was punished by the parent company - having me stay metaphorically - like the final breath leaving a body.
Today is a very bad day. I can only hope that tomorrow and all the tomorrows to come, will get progressively better.