About three weeks ago my father was laid off from a company which he had worked at for 26 years. The reason for him being fired was never truly given to him in a straight forward way though they insisted he had done nothing wrong and it was strictly a business decision. Along with my dad, an electrician who is 59 years old and had perfect attendance, and 18 janitors, some of which have developmental disabilities. All as a business decision. My father ran the maintenance department.
At the age of 20, my dad graduated from a techinical college and immediately went to work for Rosemount. When he started the company only had a few hundred employees and struggling to even make it in the business world. My dad was hired to be a plumber and to work under his elders to learn the trade, which he did do and very well I might add. As the plumbers boss above him aged and it was time to retire my father was offered the job under the condition that he get his Journeyman Plumbers License through the state of Minnesota. So my dad, always being a motivated man, studied and got his license. which in turn gave him the job. He was livivng the American dream, start at a company, work your ass off, and move up within the company. After this, the company started to grow.
Now, I cannot say that my dad was responsible for Rosemount blowing up the way that it did, because he wasn't, But without my dad, the company never could have expanded. For every new building that was built or anytime something needed to be fixed, it was my dad and his team of men who fixed, plumbed it, wired it, mop it up, or whatever else needed to be done. For 26 years he did this. He cared for the company, he had friends at the company, and most of all, he loved going to work everyday. As the years rolled on, my dad gained better benefits also.
After working at Rosemount for 25 year,s you then earn five weeks paid vacation a year plus the obvious raises every now and then. He had more vacation and was paid more then most of the other workers there. Having 5 weeks vacation a years means that you can take every other friday off and still gain an hour of vacation a month, which is what he had been doing, but rightfully so for about a year. Then the carpet was ripped from beneath his feet. They fired him.
They did not even fire him with tact. they called him on his cell phone and told him that there was a leak in the bathroom upstairs. He grabbed his tools and headed for the bathroom like he had done thousands of time. The bathrooms they spoke of were near the Human Resource Offices. As he approached he was wave into HR and told the news. As many would be, he was devastated. Not only did they fire him, they then treated him as if they had never seen him before. He went to clear his things from his desk and the HR person followed him and watched him clear his things. He made a phone call, to my step mom, to tell her the news, and they gave him no privacy. It was as if he was a criminal. But anyway, he left without making a scene and his dignity in his back pocket. Inside his heart though, he was ruined.
My entire life I have never seen my father cry until that day, not even when my mother left, or I was arrested. Not when my sister moved away or when we were struggling for money. Never. I assured him things would be better off which in the end they did turn out to be. He wanted to return to Rosemount but they screwed him over again.
About a week later, he heard from Rosemount and they had created a position for him, but it was going to pay about seven dollars an hour less than what he was making. Fuck that. He then found out that his job wasn't even eliminated. What they had done was move a younger guy over from a different plant and pay him less for doing the work my dad had done. That is low. That is corporate and after that my dad decided to not going back to Rosemount.
How shitty of a corporation to do that to someone. My father saw and helped that company grow from a few hundred people to thousands of people. He stuck with them during the lows and rode with them during the highs and they repay him by letting him go. It is just so wrong. There is nothing more to say aobut that. But like I told him, things got better. He now works for the union and is making about six dollars an hour more than what Rosemount was paying. I didn't now it was possible for a kid to be proud of his parent, But I am really proud of my dad.