Trim The Fat

I'm pretty sure we all did it this morning -- watch everyone coming in to work to see who was still there.  Throughout the course of the conversation, we pretty much figured out everyone who'd been laid off.  Some were more surprising than others, but all were upsetting. 

One poor lady -- she'd probably been out there for 20 years -- they said she was crying so hard in the parking lot Friday that two people had to hold her up to keep her from collapsing.  They said she'd gotten laid off because she had so many write-ups.  I couldn't believe that.  I can't imagine anything she'd have done to get written up for, but her supervisor is mean as fire and they say he was writing her up for every little stupid nit-picky thing.  A few weeks ago, he got on to her so bad, he made her cry.  

All in all, they said it was 16 on day shift and 20 on second shift that got laid off.  Now they're trying to decide how to shuffle people around to best fit their needs.  One of my coworkers asked me, "If they want you to go to second shift, are they going to tell you that if you don't go, you don't have a job any more?  Because that's not fair."  

I'm not sure what isn't fair about it.  When you accept a job, you have to go to where they need you most, even if it means changing shifts.  

I'll tell you what didn't set well with any of us.  It's that not a single front office or management position got laid off.  Some of us were talking about it today, remembering when each shift had one supervisor, and there was on production manager for the whole plant.  Now each shift has six supervisors and there are three production managers.  Not to mention our bloated front office.  Back in the day, we had one person to handle HR, safety, and first aid.  Now we have at least 10 -- five in HR, and five in safety/first aid.  Are they all really necessary, especially now that our workforce has been so severely reduced?  

As one of us who shall remain nameless for fear of retaliation said, "They're cutting out the bread and butter when what they need to be doing is trimming the fat."  

One of my friends told me, "I'm really afraid, because I don't know what's going to happen to us."  It is concerning.  All we can do is wait it out and hope for the best. 

Just so this post isn't a total bummer, here's a photo of hat progress. 

I think I'll go work on it some more before I go to bed.  

G'nite all.