Where did it all go wrong?
Sometimes it is better to just keep the memories of the past in your head. They always seem better, The reality of time just seems to ruin things.
I had to travel for work and the drive was going to take me not only through a town where I worked for quite a few years, but also, if I took the old short cut, past my first house.
Now I knew that since I had left this place that I worked the business had been sold twice. It was a big company with a name that you would all recognize. Originally owned by a married couple. They ran the place very much like a family business even though it was huge. As they got older and it became apparent that the kids really wanted nothing to do with work. They had been on the proverbial rich tit for too long.
This couple was fantastic. Thousands of employees and it seemed like they knew each one. While I was working at this plant, I had expressed an interest and actually interviewed at another plant that was on the other side of the state...closer to home. The job was for plant manager and would not only get me closer, but significantly more money.
The interview went well and I had high hopes. Out of the blue, I got a telephone call, at home, from the husband half of the owners. He said to me, "I understand you are interested in being the plant manager at the facility?" "Yes sir," I answered, even though he had often told many of us that his name was "Tom not Sir."
He said, "Well as good a job as you are doing in plant engineering, I know you would be a good fit there and the job is yours if you want it, as much as I would hate to lose you in the position you are in."
I was immediately on top of the world. "There is a catch, or a problem though," he said. "The reason I am calling you at home about this is because it needs to be kept highly confidential. As I said, the job is yours if you want it, but we have consolidation plan to move the production at that facility to another facility that makes much the same product in the middle of the state and that timeline is about three years. I don't want you taking a job and then having your life disrupted shortly after and possibly losing you, even though you would have a job with us after for certain."
I ended up not taking the job and yes, not quite three years later the plant was closed and shortly after that, the couple ended up selling the business to a holding company. I was forever grateful and honestly flattered by his personal concern. The place was not the same after they left and new management took over and it was long after that I moved on to another manufacturing company.
In any case, after all that blather, it was such a let down, even though I knew it had happened, to drive through that town and see that plant that I worked at for years, shut down with a huge commercial real estate sign in front of it. We had about 900 employees there when I was there and even though it was 35 years ago, it seems like I was there yesterday.
I turned on the short cut and drove through the small town where I had bought my first house. My wife and I had been looking for homes and had been shown one on a corner lot by a real estate agent and it was a huge disappointment and we walked out knowing we were going to keep looking. As we got in our car and the real estate agent drove off, I noticed that the house across the street had a small "For Sale" sign on one of the huge white pine trees in the front yard. It was also on a corner lot and I said to my wife, "what have we got to lose, we should go knock on the door."
We did and an older couple invited us in and we sat down and had coffee and discussed the house. Built in 1879, 4 big bedrooms a huge dining room, Living room and kitchen but only one bath, but two screened porches and detatched garage on a corner lot. It was in really good shape although it needed the things that you would expect.
We talked price (oh to go back to those days). They wanted $32,000. We negotiated right at their kitchen table and agreed to $28,500. I called the bank (where I did not even have an account yet) and talked to a guy and said, I can put $18500 down and want to borrow the 10k. I told him I had no debt and had just paid off my new wife's credit cards. His response? "Well in your position you would only have to put $10K down." and I said I wanted to pay it off early even though the shortest note they offered was a 5 year amortization."
Needless to say, I slept on the floor of the house with a pillow and an old rug the night of the closing while my wife was still back in the previous town where we had worked.
Again...a lot of wind to get to the point. I was driving through the old town and as I turned the corner and came upn our old place, what a huge disappointment. Peeling paint. Plywood over a couple of windows and the lawn unkept. Obviously lived in becasue of the cars in the driveway. I slowed down and saw that the apple tree I had planted 35 years ago was looking pretty good although un pruned had apples hanging from the branches...it was a Cortland. I could see the concrete walk that I had poured an pressed my two month old son's hand prints into....I am sure they were still there.
We put a lot into that place and it was such a huge disappointment and let down to see that those that followed did not have the same care.
I will probably have to go to the meeting place I went to, but I am certain that I will now take another route. Time has not been kind.
I had to travel for work and the drive was going to take me not only through a town where I worked for quite a few years, but also, if I took the old short cut, past my first house.
Now I knew that since I had left this place that I worked the business had been sold twice. It was a big company with a name that you would all recognize. Originally owned by a married couple. They ran the place very much like a family business even though it was huge. As they got older and it became apparent that the kids really wanted nothing to do with work. They had been on the proverbial rich tit for too long.
This couple was fantastic. Thousands of employees and it seemed like they knew each one. While I was working at this plant, I had expressed an interest and actually interviewed at another plant that was on the other side of the state...closer to home. The job was for plant manager and would not only get me closer, but significantly more money.
The interview went well and I had high hopes. Out of the blue, I got a telephone call, at home, from the husband half of the owners. He said to me, "I understand you are interested in being the plant manager at the facility?" "Yes sir," I answered, even though he had often told many of us that his name was "Tom not Sir."
He said, "Well as good a job as you are doing in plant engineering, I know you would be a good fit there and the job is yours if you want it, as much as I would hate to lose you in the position you are in."
I was immediately on top of the world. "There is a catch, or a problem though," he said. "The reason I am calling you at home about this is because it needs to be kept highly confidential. As I said, the job is yours if you want it, but we have consolidation plan to move the production at that facility to another facility that makes much the same product in the middle of the state and that timeline is about three years. I don't want you taking a job and then having your life disrupted shortly after and possibly losing you, even though you would have a job with us after for certain."
I ended up not taking the job and yes, not quite three years later the plant was closed and shortly after that, the couple ended up selling the business to a holding company. I was forever grateful and honestly flattered by his personal concern. The place was not the same after they left and new management took over and it was long after that I moved on to another manufacturing company.
In any case, after all that blather, it was such a let down, even though I knew it had happened, to drive through that town and see that plant that I worked at for years, shut down with a huge commercial real estate sign in front of it. We had about 900 employees there when I was there and even though it was 35 years ago, it seems like I was there yesterday.
I turned on the short cut and drove through the small town where I had bought my first house. My wife and I had been looking for homes and had been shown one on a corner lot by a real estate agent and it was a huge disappointment and we walked out knowing we were going to keep looking. As we got in our car and the real estate agent drove off, I noticed that the house across the street had a small "For Sale" sign on one of the huge white pine trees in the front yard. It was also on a corner lot and I said to my wife, "what have we got to lose, we should go knock on the door."
We did and an older couple invited us in and we sat down and had coffee and discussed the house. Built in 1879, 4 big bedrooms a huge dining room, Living room and kitchen but only one bath, but two screened porches and detatched garage on a corner lot. It was in really good shape although it needed the things that you would expect.
We talked price (oh to go back to those days). They wanted $32,000. We negotiated right at their kitchen table and agreed to $28,500. I called the bank (where I did not even have an account yet) and talked to a guy and said, I can put $18500 down and want to borrow the 10k. I told him I had no debt and had just paid off my new wife's credit cards. His response? "Well in your position you would only have to put $10K down." and I said I wanted to pay it off early even though the shortest note they offered was a 5 year amortization."
Needless to say, I slept on the floor of the house with a pillow and an old rug the night of the closing while my wife was still back in the previous town where we had worked.
Again...a lot of wind to get to the point. I was driving through the old town and as I turned the corner and came upn our old place, what a huge disappointment. Peeling paint. Plywood over a couple of windows and the lawn unkept. Obviously lived in becasue of the cars in the driveway. I slowed down and saw that the apple tree I had planted 35 years ago was looking pretty good although un pruned had apples hanging from the branches...it was a Cortland. I could see the concrete walk that I had poured an pressed my two month old son's hand prints into....I am sure they were still there.
We put a lot into that place and it was such a huge disappointment and let down to see that those that followed did not have the same care.
I will probably have to go to the meeting place I went to, but I am certain that I will now take another route. Time has not been kind.
56-60, M
