I’ll get around to my other jobs eventually, but I want to stick with the 3M thing for a while because after writing about it last night, I started to more accurately recall what it was like to work at that plant, how it often made me feel, and how the 2-3 years that I spent there had a large hand in forming some of the opinions that I have about large corporations – and upper management – today.
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| Bailey |
Let me just say up front that I think 3M is a phenomenal company, for the most part. It began as a small mining operation in the very early 1900s and very nearly failed at its start because it wasn’t mining what it thought it was mining. It was saved, however, by doing something quite clever: it came up for a use for the worthless mineral that it was actually mining. Really. Once the founders figured out that they were mining the wrong mineral, they figured out what they could do with it (it turned out that the stuff was GREAT for waterproof sandpaper). That combination of innovation, serendipity and seeing the potential for new products became a trait that 3M has fostered to this day. You’ve all heard of Post-It Notes, right? They were invented by a 3M employee who wanted a bookmark for his hymnal that he could stick on a page and later remove – without ripping the page. As it happened, he was working in a lab at the time and had invented some glue that didn’t stick very well. He pitched his bookmark idea to some folks at the company, and the next thing you know we’ve got Post-It Notes.
When I was working at the tape plant, employees were constantly asked about their ideas for new products. Not just R&D employees, but *every* employee. There were suggestion boxes in the break rooms, and just about every idea was indeed considered – and the person who thought of it was indeed credited for the idea. While I was there, one of the guys in the front office thought that tape PADS would be preferable to tape ROLLS for some applications – like for sticking shipping notices on outgoing boxes. Why carry around a roll of tape if you can just have a stack of pieces of tape (much like the ubiquitous Post-Its) in your back pocket, peel one off, and slap it on the box?
His idea was adopted by the company. Really. Starting with absolutely no idea of how to actually MAKE pads of tape, the engineers on the site came up with a new machine, made of basically scraps, and began producing clear tape pads. Later on, they added tan. Still later, someone got the bright idea to make the pads about 4 inches wide and only have adhesive around the edges – so that invoices could be securely taped to boxes, but could later be removed without ripping them. And the front office guy who came up with the idea? He was basically in charge of the project from start to finish. I can see him in my mind, but I can’t remember his name to save my life. As far as I know, 3M is still producing these pads. Maybe you’ve seen one if you’ve ordered something that was shipped to you.
My point is that this company honestly values input from its employees, from the lowest one on the totem pole all the way up to the CEO. I’ve worked for several very large corporations in my life, and 3M is the only one about which I’ll say that. It is because of that willingness to see the potential in its employees that I genuinely respect the company and regularly purchase its products.
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| This is Sparta, a stray recently adopted by Jenny. She’s wearing the bib because she’s just been fixed. |
It’s also for that reason that I find it to be such an affront to the senses to know how the employees in my plant were regularly treated by the management of the plant. They were terrified of any sort of union activity and made it quite clear that hourly employees would be given some say in the running of the plant only as long as no hint of organization came up. The two 12-hour shifts at the plants, for example, were in place because the employees had asked for them a few years before I arrived on the scene. Prior to that, the plant had run three 8-hour shifts. The employees preferred to work longer hours in exchange for what amounted to one 4-day weekend every month. As a result, productivity at the plant went up. There was that type of cooperation, with good results, in many respects.
But there was also almost a disregard for the happiness of the employees in many other respects. One example of that is that shift employees were not allowed to leave the plant grounds from the time a shift started until the time that it ended. The plant had a security guard and any shift worker who left – say to go to a McDonald’s during his lunch break – was summarily written up. This was true only for shift workers. Office employees, contractors, warehouse staff (remember, I was in the warehouse for several months), janitors…anyone who worked an 8-hour day could come and go at will. It was only the 12-hour employees who were locked inside.
There was also a weird sort of rule about who could come IN to the plant to see 12-hour employees. I actually ran afoul of the GM of the plant after I’d been on shift work for several months because he learned that I regularly had pizza delivered during one of my two lunch breaks during shifts. It never occurred to me that this wouldn’t be allowed because 1}Warehouse and office employees did it all the time, and 2}Other shift workers had hot meals brought in by their wives, girlfriends, kids or neighbors just about every day that they worked. When the word came down to me that I could no longer order pizza, I was genuinely confused and asked for a face-to-face with the general manager. When I pointed out the logical disconnect between me not being able to order a pizza while Joe Smith could have a pizza delivered by his girlfriend, the GM gave me some story about how different the two scenarios were – after all, Joe’s girlfriend *knew* Joe. I asked what would happen if I were a friend of the pizza delivery guy – a smartass question, sure, but a valid one – and the GM got mildly angry and told me that that was just the way things were, and I needed to shut up and do my job and Not. Order. Pizza. Again.
I think I REALLY got on his shit list at that point – not because I (politely) told him that he was a complete prick, but because I hinted that he might not be treating everyone fairly. I’m sure visions of union unrest were floating in his head at that point, because he completely lost it. Never before or since that day have I been literally screamed at by a boss, and I honestly thought the guy was going to start swinging.
From that point on, however, we simply had our pizzas sent to Joe Smith’s girlfriend’s house and she delivered them along with Joe’s lunch.
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| Sparta is crazy about her “Cat-Dancer,” which is basically a wad of cardboard at the end of a long piano wire |
Upper management also had a problem with shift employees who were vocal about the fact that they didn’t intend to make a long-term career out of their shift work. Oddly, I was *not* vocal about this fact (about myself) until quite late in the game (one of the reasons I hated getting extra shifts was that I was lining up job interviews on my days off, and I finally did tell another upper management dude that “I’m looking for a real job.” He didn’t take kindly to that). I was not the only college graduate working shifts, however, and some of the others made no secret of the fact that they intended to actually use their degrees at some point. They weren’t rude or arrogant about this – their goals would just come up in casual conversation in the lunch room – but they were, without exception, called in to their shift supervisors’ office at some point and told that, as long as they were working at the plant, they were working at the plant. Saying that there were “better” jobs out there was not appreciated.
Holidays did not exist for shift employees, and bad weather rules were in place so that work on the production floor literally did not stop. Ever. 8-hour employees were given all of the regular holidays, but 12-hour employees were not. They were paid holiday pay, as (I believe) the law dictated, but if your shift fell on Christmas day, too bad. And if, as happened once when I was there, the area was hit with a freak blizzard, your shift didn’t end until the next shift arrived. Period. I only had to work one 16-hour day, but folks who had been working there in the years before me had plenty of stories about working 5 or 6 days straight, taking two-hour naps on the floor in between running machines that were, by and large, nothing but rows of razor blades. Yes, people were paid *very* well for these types of hardships. I quite honestly hoped that I’d get snowed in while working a 4-day Christmas shift, because it would’ve meant something like 6 times my regular salary when all was said and done; but I’ve gotta ask one simple question: What is so damned important about making tape that the people doing it can’t get a day off on Thanksgiving? It’s not like it could be shipped out: there were no trucks to pick it up.
And there was one other intangible thing that really got on my nerves when I moved to shift work. The 8-hour employees who had previous been friendly with me ceased to be. And it wasn’t just me: shift workers had work (and play) relationships with other shift workers. 8-hour employees hung out with 8-hour employees. It was sort of an unwritten rule, and I can only think of one 8-hour guy (he was an accountant, I believe) who regularly ate lunch with, stopped in on the production floor to chat wtih, or occasionally went out for a beer with the 12-hour folks.
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| This hawk has been perching in our tower just about every day for the last few weeks. I realized that I had my 300MM lens in my car today and decided to try to get a picture. The perch is about 120 feet up. |
Maybe that’s just human nature. I don’t know. I know that it bothered me a lot. I said, “got on my nerves” earlier, but that’s not it. It bothered me. It hurt my feelings. I made me think less of myself. In fact, it made me think less of the other guys who worked the shifts.
So. Enough about my time at 3M. All in all, it was a wash. I made some really good friends while I was there, and I had some really good times with them while we were working and when we weren’t. I developed a real respect for the company and many of its policies. I believed – and still believe – that anyone with a good idea can bring that idea to fruition with the company’s help. At the same time, however, I developed a really poor opinion of the upper management of big companies and; paradoxically given what I’ve just typed, I came to the conclusion that big companies don’t give a damn about their employees.
Perhaps that’s why I can say today, as a guy who’s been in middle management for the last 15 years or so, that I’m not in favor of labor unions; but neither am I in favor of management trying to break them.
The pictures today are of my ex-wife’s cats and of a hawk that has decided to live on an antenna tower next to my office. All were taken today.
TWD