"Well that certainly didn't play out the way I expected it."
That was the lone thought I had walking out of the dealership for the last time on Friday afternoon. It was bittersweet, but I was still tasting a fair amount of bitter on the drive home. While the money was never great; it was good enough to kind of get by, and the work was never super exciting; but it was good enough to interest me initially... none of it had ultimately panned out to be much more than crap during the past 3 months. And crap can taste moderately sweet to moderately bitter dependent upon the diet.
About three months ago the dealership began a steady infusion of Minnesota blood. Apparent to all; the ownership hadn't addressed business concerns in a successful way, so change was imminent. I feel for the owner. The two truck manufacturers were not in good positions at the time. One, multi-national; multi billion dollar corporation is the scourge of the industry; having multiple product lines removed from the market place via EPA emissions violations;while the other; a small Japanese imported medium duty truck importer with ties to General Motors and the auto industry; enjoys success on their terms; not comparable to the rest of the industry. The owner is pretty flat footed in process to increase revenue. Having already committed to the construction of a new / larger corporate headquarters facility; he was faced with trying to infuse cash into the truck portion of the business. That meant selling off the auto - parts franchises he owned, and in November it meant selling off the trailer sales / repair operation.
But the truck portion still isn't generating enough profitability. That meant more changes. He brought in one individual to effectively run the entire operation from Minnesota that had some track record of gamed numbers. So here we are. New guy, new strategy. For everyone else that meant new rules, and if you weren't following the rules don't be surprised to see someone else from Minnesota show up to take your place. Give it a few months and now nearly every location of the company is run by Minnesota mafia. To make matters worse, as they massaged the books; they galvanized the parasitic relationship to the company. I'm not denying the Minnesota Method does not show higher profit percentages at the ends of the month; but the larger it grew, the more people came to feed off it and the bigger they got.
They have changed the way we do everything; and sometimes for no good reason. Confusion is the new status quo. Often times policy changes were barked out and emailed by the minute, often contradicting the same changes made days before. But it was all in the name of pumping up two key numbers. Again, I don't deny that those two numbers bumped up significantly; but at what cost?
Employees and their mental health was the first cost. For me, that meant the past few months have been excruciating. There hasn't been a day I worked less than 12 hours. My second job was seen as a distraction; but for all of the overtime there was never any consideration to compensate me for the extra hours. Then came the weekends. I found my self working 3/5 weekends in January. Holidays too. I got New Years and Christmas while technicians had 4 day weekends. All just to push paper and pump up numbers.
When this mess started, I knew I would be getting hammered; but I hadn't expected to get hammered on the grill. My office was taken, ["Don't you think it would be better to have everyone in one spot?"], my title was stripped, ["We don't do titles anymore, were all here for the customer."]; then my duties re arranged -- but never removed ["Well you can do the estimates between closing tickets..... While your'e at the counter you can help the customers.... Since you're here and a part of us, we need you to answer the phones.... You'll be the last one to handle these things..... Its important you take care of all of these things first"]. For the past three months I have been attempting to handle all warranty process of claims; all cash customer tickets, managing 14 technicians repairs, 4 phone lines, and 3 bosses to meet these new profit guidelines. I never had days off. I never got my weekends back. My new boss wouldn't come in on Mondays, liked to leave by 2 pm on Fridays, and rarely worked 7 hours on the other days. But I was running up and over 70 hour weeks; still trying to work a second job to make up the money that this salary job was draining from me.
It had gotten to the point it wasn't workable for me any longer. They all knew it. Technicians were unhappy; repairs were deplorable; come-backs were rife. I had a service writer quit. Only to be rewarded with a desk job in the new boss's office. No phone, no responsibility; while I had to pick up all the slack. Then they hired a new person, who was terrible. No offer to train the kid from the Minnesota Mafia. It just continued to spiral. But they hit their numbers. The gross profit percentage still climbed over that magic peak of delight; even as everything else kept turning into shit.
Then last Friday happened. I came back from lunch to be ushered into an unoccupied office in front of the building. HR was there with Minnesota. I knew it meant I was done at that point. The explanation didn't take long, and I even laughed when I saw the papers that were drawn up. I was being released for, "Not closing tickets as instructed." HR was simply there to keep me from arguing or shooting up the place I suppose. For all the sound a furry; the storm whispers through on a breeze. It was a chilly, northern Minnesota gust.
No comments:
Post a Comment