I started work as a general fabricator in a company's Research and Development (R&D) section. Within three months, I started handling management production, R&D projects, assisted with cost estimation, and production assignments.
At first I was allowed free reign was was able to handle everything really efficiently. Because of some holdups with vehicle shells getting shipped to us, management saw a drop in productivity. Their solution was for the VP/manager to start coming down, micromanaging, telling people what to do. Problem is, he had no idea what he was doing. I would have at least two man hours wasted a day for petty things. To top it off, they wouldn't let us finish our projects. We would get 90% done and be told to stop, despite my protests. Later, we would get complaints about how things aren't done. A few of my guys got let go supposedly because of this. I tried to explain that we can't increase production if we had nothing to produce. No dice. Parts manager who seemed to be making a very good amount did nothing in the company. He hired a guy to do his job and continued to do nothing. The new hire caught him clipping his toenails on the clock. Because main manager did not do his job, his new hire's new job became to endure customer's irritation because he couldn't get the parts shipped to us. For my projects, I didn't get the parts, repeatedly missed deadlines, VP and CEO sat by and let it happen. Then they would emphasize that we need to meet deadlines, in which I would tell them the same thing. HR was the most hostile person in the workplace. She would not help anyone with anything and became irate for no reason. I tried discussing her repeated harassment diplomatically with VP after she went off on one of my guys for no reason. He said "thats just how she is" and left it at that. She is married to parts manager, who is considered upper management and got away with abusing my guys. I asked for a raise and got a $2/hr raise hoping maybe I could sell out my pride in my work ability and just settle for a decent paycheck. The work I was doing was at least $6/hr more. Management said they didn't have any money in the company. A week later, they bought two new company cars for upper management. Not just decent Honda Accords but fully loaded brand new BMW 5 series and Upper line Mercedes sedans. The day I put in my notice was when the VP/manager saw me load a car on a lift and told me to drop another car (97% completed), and use that lift instead. I never could give into the idea of "I'm just here for a paycheck" but I probably will when I'm older or have a family. This is the closest I have ever gotten.