Old Robert Arthur ,“Bob,”was born in 1907 and died in 2002. He could be loud, stubborn, and overbearing, but he sure had some good stories to tell. He left the Army in 1945 as a Lieutenant Colonel, just shy of Brigadier and went to work at his family's concrete plant in a medium sized mid western town. Since he had just left the Army, the family thought he would be best as Vice President of Operations, which included the hiring and firing of workers.
Now in those days, many businesses did not have personnel managers, applicant tracking software, endless interviews, orientation classes, etc. Bob would bring in five workers that he rounded up at Union Halls, found on the street, or who, most commonly, showed up at the plant looking for work. He would start them off at 5:30 a.m.in the concrete block making shed, with the words, “Five of you are starting here and four of you will be fired by this afternoon. One fifteen minute break at 9:00, one hour lunch at 12:00, and we work until 2:30.”
The block plant in 1945 did not exactly have the best working conditions. One large mostly working open bladed floor fan was the cooling system in summer, and an old pot bellied wood stove was the heating system in winter. Concrete dust was everywhere, on the floor, on the walls, and in the air. The steel forms were heavy, as were the 100 pound sacks of concrete that had to be hauled in from the shed next door by hand. Workers had to hoist them on their shoulders and bring them in. The wheelbarrow was for the part time teenagers who occasionally worked there. The finished blocks were hand stacked outside the block plant for customers.
As expected, in these conditions, two of the five workers quit at lunch time, never to return. At the end of the day, Bob usually only fired one worker, who had produced the fewest blocks, had an attitude problem, or who voluntarily quit because the work was too hard. The other two were expected to pick up at least some of the slack the next day. By the end of the week, usually one worker remained. If none stayed on, Bob would start the process over the next Monday.
If one worker made it the whole week, Bob would offer the man a position as a driver for the next week, including training, at a substantial raise. If two men made it and there was only one position open, Bob would call up his competitors and find the second man a job for the next week on his word alone. This process worked for 25 years with never more than two men at the end of the week.
One man once asked, “Who will make the blocks, if we all become drivers?” Bob replied, “If I had to rely on the output of blocks coming out of this shed, I would be out of damned business in a week. I have a truck from a big block plant in Kankakee that delivers blocks every Friday. The only time we use this plant is when the truck is late or I need to make hiring decisions—If a man can put up with this shit hole for a week, I want him working for me!”
Later on the Teamsters' Union decided that this was an unfair labor practice and demanded that workers be union members approved by them and hired in immediately as drivers. But by then, there were no positions open – almost all of the original ones hired by Bob were still there long after Bob retired.
It makes you think about how valuable you are at work. Will you continue to give 100% to do a good job with no promises of future work? Will you be the one at the end of the week who stands out in your employer's mind?