Thanks for this story. I have similar lessons to tell from when I was in the corporate world – both good and bad. One of the great things about being a “vendor” is that I see the wider picture. And I know that there are great places to work out there, as I’ve been blessed to experience a few. I hold out hope that there wil be more over time.

In college days, I worked for a company in manufacturing, night shift.
Worst job in the place…General Labor degreasing the machined parts.

But there was hope. It was a Union shop and you could sign up for any job, get more money for the same hours, and need no qualifications or skills, but time served at the plant. I bid on everything.

In a short time, I worked on every machine in the place. I knew how parts flowed from the foundry, to machining, to assembly.

Management noticed and offered me a job in Production Control. I knew the flow of product already. But now I was in management, not Union.

Soon, I learned all the customers, as I scheduled their production to meet their needs and ours.

Next, I was moved to customer service and put on the phone globally, since I was familiar with, who out there, was buying what in here.

Next stop, inside sales to market all this stuff and work on profit margins.

I served 4 presidents in 6 years. The top was drafty position. Most were bean counters and played to the highest echelon customers, plus corporate suits.

But one President I will never forget. He actually walked out into the shop AND into the foundry. He said hello to people. He asked them to show him what they do at their machine. I was astonished since he was the only top gun to ever do this. I KNEW these people from all my prior years and managed a working relationship with all, because of my time with them.

One day, this Pres asked everyone to bring their entire family in to the company, no matter what their job was. Each family stood by their family member’s work area, or machine, and looked around at all the other families we had never met.

The Pres then went to every family at every position in every part of the company, before we had a company paid picnic outside.

I cannot remember the name of any president at the firm except this guy.
And, I will never forget him.
Corporate actually became jealous of the love of the people for this man.
They moved him out.
I guess he loved us too much.

But he took something when he left the place. His dignity, his character, our respect, and love.

I never rose to president after I watched what they did to people who treat people like people.
I went to work for myself, and treated folks the way I watched that president long ago.

Organizational culture is appalling. Fortunately, we are outsourcing every job in the land, and other countries can deal with the bean counters now.

It didn’t have to be.