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I can see the writing on the wall

After 20+ years working for a small company, I just don't think I'm cut out working for a BIG company.

Yesterday, Becky forwarded me some revisions to our quality policy manual suggested by our new owners, Precision Castparts Corporation (PCC). Now normally changes to our quality policy manual aren't a big deal, but in this case it involves export and foreign national visitor policy, which I don't think belongs in our quality policy manual.

By including that in our quality policy manual, it provides additional fodder for an auditor to find fault with our quality system. Why not just have a separate export and foreign national visitor policy outside of the quality system?

Well, what a surprise! We already have one of those [and I didn't even know]. Still Becky thinks it needs to be in our quality policy manual because of this and that which I'm not going to get into here. She also said Carlton Forge Works (CFW) is putting it in their quality manual.

So? What does that have to do with the price of tea in China? Just because CFW is doing it, doesn't mean we should.

And that's just one issue. Besides the fact payroll is rumored to be going to PCC headquarters in Oregon, we are having to implement whole new procedures for dealing with finished goods inventory etc. and reporting that information to the powers to be at PCC on a weekly basis.

Now I've worked for big companies before. Republic Steel, my first job after 3 years in the Army, was eventually bought out by LTV, and later went out of business when all that work was sent overseas to Japan and China. After that was Cameron Iron Works, which has since been gobbled up by PCC as well. But neither of those companies compared in scope to the size of PCC at $8 billion per year. (To put it in perspective, the company I work for does about $20 million per year.)

Fortunately none of what has been going on has affected me too much, sans having to update our quality policy manual, but I can just invision what havoc it is going to wreak on our accounting, shipping and outside processing departments.

At least Becky seems to be enjoying this all. She is right in the middle of the transition, and is the go to person for everything we need to do. Who knows, by the time this is all done, she may even be the next GM [or president] of Arcturus Manufacturing. I'm just not sure I'm going to be around to see it all through.

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Patricia G said…
Just remember to live life, not their life. Sending awesome energy your way.
Now living in San Antonio :)
2:18 PM
Becky said…
Change is good and sometimes change isn't necessary at all and after digesting all this most of it probably won't even apply to us. I am a little concerned at the amount of companies they have purchased recently. I hope they haven't bitten off more than they can chew. Or we end up like the Walmart of aerospace.

And the only thing I'll be the GM of is a yarn store, but thanks for the vote of confidence.
1:55 PM
Marc said…
You never know!

Two months ago, I never would have guessed this would have happened. Then we didn't think anything would be finalized until the end of the year. But now we've already been asked to modify our quality policy manual and payroll is [rumored to be] going to Oregon.

So who knows what will happen next for sure. Only time will tell. We shall see!
2:40 PM
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