Kind Of Quiet Here
It has been kind of quiet at RockSolid Perspective this past week and I wanted to let you know what has been going on.
The economic downturn has finally run its course on the company that I work at in West Michigan. All of our orders are down and we have been waiting to reach the bottom of the “economic hole” before we can start climbing our way out of it. Because of this slowdown in orders everyone got cut back to 36 hours 2 weeks ago. Then last week Thursday everyone was informed that there were going to be pay cuts handed down to the entire company. Reality really set in at this point.
It began to take its toll last week when our Vice President of Sales, who we hired 6 weeks ago, decided that the move to our company was not what was best for him at this time in his life and he decided to go back to the company that he came to us from. Because of this, last week Thursday I was offered a Sales Engineer position which would take me out of engineering for the most part and put me on the road more often. It was kind of flattering for me to think that the President & Vice President thought I would excel at this position but I struggled with whether it was the route I wanted to go with my career. After REALLY struggling with it over the weekend, then going on the road meeting with some new potential customer on Monday, I came to the decision on Tuesday to turn down the opportunity and stay in the Engineering department. However, I will be more involved in the quoting processes from now on but as an Engineer and not as Sales. Let me tell you, this was not an easy decision and it caused a few sleepless nights on my behalf.
Then everything broke loose on Wednesday. Management decided that the hour and pay cuts were not the best route to go for our company because it posed too big of a risk for losing some of the employees that we couldn’t afford to lose. So Wednesday turned into D-Day at our company as 10 employees were permanently laid off which cut our 1st shirt workforce by 25%. Thankfully I was not affected directly by this but it is always hard to see people let go like this, people that I have worked with everyday for 9 years.
As for RockSolid Perspective, I am hoping that next week things will begin to get back to normal and you will be seeing the normal posting on here. I am planning on doing some posts about tools and methods that we use to quote parts and also some tools that I am hoping to implement into our standard quoting process. Look for these to be coming in the next couple of weeks.
As for you, I hope all is going well in your occupational life. It is a rough time for our country right now and I am hoping that the end will be coming sooner rather than later.
7 Responses to “Kind Of Quiet Here”
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technorati
Sorry to hear about your coworkers. I hope everything gets better out there a lot sooner than later.
Matt
Sales is not a promotion from engineering. I wish managers understood that. Most engineers are forced into such tedium because they like the money.
Sorry about the layoffs going on at your company! I think you made a good decision about the job, BTW. It’s really a blessing when you can do for a living what you would love to do anyway!
Jason,
I went through something similar at a company after 9/11 and the dot com bubble. I lived through 3 rounds of layoffs, but there were 5. It was a job I really loved too. I saw people with 30 years at the company get let go. It was sad and frightening. Best of luck to you.
Sales can be a tough job, especially in hard times. I think you chose wisely to avoid that. Even without layoffs, sales turnover is usually much higher than other jobs.
matt
Hello Jason-
Wow, best of luck to you, you’ve got plenty of talent, sometimes bad times turn into opportunities.
You pal,
Devon
Like Matt, our company went through a really rough time after 9/11 and the dot com bubble burst. We went from a company with close to two hundred employees, in the process of ramping up on overseas operation to support a major semi-conductor manufacturer, down to less then 100 employees with no overseas operation, overnight. Many, many long time employees were let go. A scary time for our company, with its future very much in doubt.
However, the saying goes what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger. We are in a much better position to ride out this economic downturn then the last. But there is still going to be pain. We had our all people’s meeting last week, laying out the realities of what 2009 will probably bring for the company. We laid off around ten people and overtime is cut, even with the biggest back log of work in our company’s history. We will be getting less of a 401K match and will be paying more for our health insurance co-pay. 2009 is going to be a rough year for many companies, mine included.
Good choice staying inside in engineering. Also a good choice stepping up and using your expertise on the quoting and technical sales side. I am sure your new responsibiities will be a big benefit to your company. Use this time to help make your company more efficient. Those that are able to best adapt to the changing landscape are the one’s that will make it through the current storm we are in.
Best of luck,
Anna
Jason, hang in there, we seem to go through these changes, hopefully we can all come through looking good.
good luck,
Steve