SHOP AID

I won an Employee Suggestion Program award because I designed a tool for the ease of operation for one of my employees (see attachments). My brother Duke machined it for me.

One of the jobs in my section was to install nuts into a difficult location, and the guys doing it would have raw, bloody, thumbs because they had to PRESS the nuts into place, without wearing gloves. There was also much waste because of the hardware falling out of the employees' grip.

Duke made ONE tool for MY guy on my shift; within two days my counterpart on the other shift was complaining to me about my "pampered pieceworkers", because, of course, MY guy just had to show off how "his boss had taken care" of him! I asked Duke to make another tool.

Soon, I was shocked to learn that a Time Study had been ordered because the use of the "shop aid" might lessen the time required on that job element. Fortunately, my guy performed the work during the time study and he made sure that it took LONGER to do it with the tool! Thus, my tool was not incorporated into the job breakdown because the other method was faster, but, of course my employee kept using it! However, I later learned that my duplicitous colleague had submitted the request for a Time Study as part of his Employee Suggestion in an attempt to try to claim it as HIS "cost-savings"! [I should write another BLOG article about DUPLICITY!]

I still received the money for the suggestion because I included documentation in my suggestion of the number of times employees had gone to the Medical Department to seek first aid for their thumbs and keeping employees productive was a cost-savings! Because I included that tidbit about employees not being injured, the suggestion was forwarded to the Medical Department for verification and the Medical Department informed the Engineering Department that the tool needed to be implemented for all employees to use as a safety measure. The tool was then listed as a "shop aid" which all of the employees who performed the job "should have available for use".

I gave one of the tools Duke had made to the millwrights to copy for the other employees to use. Their Manager said my tool was "too fancy" and they made ones of less sturdy materials. My worker said he wanted to keep the one I had made for him, and I took the other one home with me. Someone asked, "Did you get a patent?" I answered, "No, one must sign away all rights to inventions while employed by the Company."

To be eligible for salary increases, each management person must have turned in three cost-savings suggestions per year which had been implemented. I never had a problem accomplishing that. That same "duplicitous colleague" had the chutzpah to ask me if I had any other ideas he could submit! Each year, starting in September, male colleagues would begin begging me to give them "ideas" to submit because evaluations were completed by October 31 and they had not submitted their suggestions. I hate to use generalizations, but most men I knew in management were LAZY!