Some people just don't want to work.

I really am beginning to think that I am quite clueless in regards to my understanding of how people think. Given the current state of the economy jobs anywhere are getting quite hard to come by, I personally was unemployed for a little over two years before I found the job that I currently have.  Trust me I was thankful to find it. Companies everywhere are feeling the pinch and in my little corner of the world Production Pattern Foundries are no different. Work in the past three weeks has slowed down to a crawl, where we were going guns-a-blazin, working six and seven days a week, suddenly, the orders for parts that we make are barely tricking in.

Last week they had to lay off 35 people from all departments, there simply wasn’t enough work to go around, so those of us they have been lucky enough to remain have been cleaning, shoveling sand and painting line on the floors to designate forklift areas. Everyone I talked to in our department have been speculating, “they’re going to lay the rest of us off next! You’ll see! It’s not going to get any better!” now, I’m more of a glass half full kind of person, but I listened patiently to people piss & moan about how they were worried that they were going to lose their jobs, how unemployment wouldn’t even cover half of their bills.  Well Friday rolled around again and nobody else got laid off.

The rumors persisted however, “they will probably get us all next week then!”  I must admit, gossipers and naysayers can really piss me off sometimes, but rather than waste my time trying to interject any kind of positivity into the conversation, I decided to go right to the source. I just asked two of the big bosses outright what was going on with the work slowdown, and they told me that it was nothing out of the ordinary that it always gets slow at this time of year for at least a month and then it picks up again,  so not to worry. And sure enough on Thursday morning they fired up the big main molding machine, the boss gave two of the naysayer’s an option, “it’s all the work we have right now so you can either work on the line taking off parts to be cut by the band saws or you can go home if you want.  It’s your choice.”

Both guys elected to go home rather than work on the line, WTF? They complain for three weeks about work slowing down, they fret and worry about getting laid off, and the first time that something encouraging happens and we get a few orders, they turn tail and run home. He only had to ask me once to work the line, in fact I was ready to volunteer if he hadn’t, we did 115 molds the first day and 130 the second day, no it wasn’t a lot compared to the 320 molds a day that we normally do but I thought it was encouraging.  I just don’t get it,  why do people walking around fretting all day and waiting for the other shoe to drop? Jump in where there IS work to be done and do your part, that at least shows management that you WANT to be there, and you WANT to work. If there is another lay off I have a hunch who is going to be next. And it won’t be me, not if I can help it any way.