Job eliminated

I work for the largest industrial supplier in Canada but it's going downhill fast. They closed most of their stores and are trying to compete with Amazon. The American owner is trying to turn it into the same model as the US but doesn't comprehend that Canada is a completely different market. They have done more to turn customers off than attract new ones. I work with 9 other guys in Tech. support helping to get the right part numbers and crossing items from other suppliers. We get over 200 e-mails a day and about 25 phone calls a day. The American side has about 160 people in tech. support and only does phone calls. One of the big advantages of e-mails is we can research things and call vendors to get the customer the best solution. On the phone we have a 6 minute time limit!

They have asked us in the past a couple times what we thought about doing all phone calls and there was NOTHING positive in response. We'd prefer all e-mails so we can give the best answer instead of just trying to give an answer in a short time. They informed us a couple weeks ago we'd be going all phone calls June 1. It would be a nightmare with only 10 people at the most. Several of our group have 20 to 40 years with the company so lots of holidays. We were acknowledged as the experts when it came to product knowledge since they let all the knowledgeable product managers go about 2 years ago. Today they informed us our group was being eliminated completely and all calls will go the US team. We will work until the end of May. We've seen it coming for 2 1/2 years but were so busy didn't think it would be so soon. My area is metalworking but phone calls have been transferred to the US for about a year as part of what they called a pilot project at the time. People needing assistance with welding or metal working will deliberately press the wrong prompt on the phone and ask to speak with me because they are so frustrated with the US team. The US team will look in the catalogue and if they can't find it, say it's not available. I've been with the company a little under 5 years and will get about 5 month's severance pay which is decent. I was getting frustrated with the way they were doing things and I think the company is in a downward spiral they're going to have trouble getting out of. Nobody was that surprised but why not listen to the people Canada telling you it's a bad idea?

Not listening to the people that know what they are talking about is a time honored tradition

That sucks to be forced out like that and especially forced out by idiocy.

Just goes to show you that the only real security is what you can provide for yourself.

Welder Dave said:

I work for the largest industrial supplier in Canada but it's going downhill fast. They closed most of their stores and are trying to compete with Amazon. The American owner is trying to turn it into the same model as the US but doesn't comprehend that Canada is a completely different market. They have done more to turn customers off than attract new ones. I work with 9 other guys in Tech. support helping to get the right part numbers and crossing items from other suppliers. We get over 200 e-mails a day and about 25 phone calls a day. The American side has about 160 people in tech. support and only does phone calls. One of the big advantages of e-mails is we can research things and call vendors to get the customer the best solution. On the phone we have a 6 minute time limit!

They have asked us in the past a couple times what we thought about doing all phone calls and there was NOTHING positive in response. We'd prefer all e-mails so we can give the best answer instead of just trying to give an answer in a short time. They informed us a couple weeks ago we'd be going all phone calls June 1. It would be a nightmare with only 10 people at the most. Several of our group have 20 to 40 years with the company so lots of holidays. We were acknowledged as the experts when it came to product knowledge since they let all the knowledgeable product managers go about 2 years ago. Today they informed us our group was being eliminated completely and all calls will go the US team. We will work until the end of May. We've seen it coming for 2 1/2 years but were so busy didn't think it would be so soon. My area is metalworking but phone calls have been transferred to the US for about a year as part of what they called a pilot project at the time. People needing assistance with welding or metal working will deliberately press the wrong prompt on the phone and ask to speak with me because they are so frustrated with the US team. The US team will look in the catalogue and if they can't find it, say it's not available. I've been with the company a little under 5 years and will get about 5 month's severance pay which is decent. I was getting frustrated with the way they were doing things and I think the company is in a downward spiral they're going to have trouble getting out of. Nobody was that surprised but why not listen to the people Canada telling you it's a bad idea?

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Sorry, that sucks. Maybe it's what you need to push yourself up to the next level, whatever and wherever that is. Good luck to you. I hope things shake out in your favor.

That does suck.. the severance pay isn't bad..
Take it & move to the US & get a job at the call center.?? {old job}
That 6 min. limit on calls is crazy.!!! Its hard to tell someone what they need when they're talking over you..
believe me, I KNOW..
IF they're kickin you to the curb, so to speak.. keep all your info to yourself..
& if the US team asks "HOW DO YOU".?? Tellm to pack sand..& ask the Boss..

Sorry to hear this Dave!

Hope things work out for you in the long run. Can never understand how any company can think that providing good customer service is a bad thing. Only have to hope that when this outfit goes down the tubes some other outfit with more brains comes along to take up the slack.

Any chance there is a competitor of this outfit that you could see about working for?

thepumpguysc said:

IF they're kickin you to the curb, so to speak.. keep all your info to yourself..
& if the US team asks "HOW DO YOU".?? Tellm to pack sand..& ask the Boss..

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Yes if you have the few weeks notice I would be daily making notes when I got home of who you helped through the day and where you found the information that helped them. Then after you are done with that company maybe contact the people you helped the most and see if they want to hire a known expert of their own.

Maybe not do it in anyway that they can trace and try to come back at you and say to "stole" it from them. I would not email anything from work to your home as that would leave a trail they could trace. You can be sure if you were to email a contact list from work computer to your home computer they would know it.

An example but a bit off topic. Near me there was a town supervisor who got arrested for stealing from the town. Seems he was using the towns credit card to pay for trip to Disney, golf outings, fancy wines and so on. I mean how dumb! Talk about leaving a clear trail back to yourself!

Is an option to get together with the other experienced members in your group and set up on your own providing technical services..?

My sister worked for Dupont Canada. They used to make the shinny part on Canadian money. They lost the contract, and the company that took it also bought the plant, and hired the employees the worked on the floor. She got moved to the division that made milk bags. She looked after contracts for bagging machines. If you agree to buy so many milk bags, you can lease the bagging machine for $1000.00 a year. They outsourced the bag plant, so they offered her a home office. She did this for 5 years, then the parent company, DuPont USA, absorbed the Canadian division. Her new boss in Ohio? Is that where the big arch is? He told her no changes to her contract, but she was not to discuss wages, benifits, pension, or holidays with any American employees. After 2 years, they started asking really specific questions about her job. In less than a year they let her go. She took some downtime to beef up her education, and ended up doing the same job for the company they outsourced the bags to, and ended up with more money. DuPont lost all the bag contracts for providing poor customer service.

Sorry to hear about the career change. I hope you have plenty of future options. You may soon have time to take up the interests you didn't have time for in the past because of the job.
Good Luck and keep us informed.

Sorry to hear about the job loss Dave. Wishing you success in your next endeavor.

Acklands sounds like
Used to deal with acklands till they went with that call center crap....
Sorry about your luck man...career change sucks if your over 40.

If the job market is in Canada like it is in the US, you shouldn't have any trouble finding a job. It sounds like you saw the light coming down the tunnel for quite a while, but it always still hard to get the news.

For me, its always kind of stressful when starting something new, but I've kinda always enjoyed that, I think we only learn and grow, when we are getting stretched and pushed. Look at it as a great chance to go out and get a job you love, and the old company is paying for the search with the severance.

Good luck and have fun. What a great opportunity!

Thanks for all the words of encouragement and support! I'd like to start a heavy equipment consulting, construction and service business with members from this forum. We could charge a premium because not too much would stump us! Nige for large mining equipment, thepumpguysc for injection pumps, crane operator for anything to do with lifting, etc., etc. It would be the envy of the industry.

"IF they're kickin you to the curb, so to speak.. keep all your info to yourself..
& if the US team asks "HOW DO YOU".?? Tellm to pack sand..& ask the Boss.."

They already did ask us to basically tell the US how we do our job and where we find the info about a year ago. The guy that did cutting tools and machining said it would be a cold day in hell when he has to train his replacement and quit! Then this area of expertise was dumped on me. I did get an exceeds expectations performance appraisal and look where it got me... A 4% raise and 2 month's later notice my job was over in 6 weeks. So much for working hard and applying yourself.

The severance package is really good but I'll be 56 this month and the economy in Alberta is pretty bad. Hopefully with a new premier some pipelines will get built and the oilfield will pick up some. They estimate 130,000 lost jobs in the last few years. Another guy's last day is a month before his 20th anniversary so he misses out on the 20 year package. Not sure what he would have had an option to get. He's OK with it because of the severance package but another of the guys had his 25th about a month ago and chose a Dewalt compound mitre saw. 3 years ago the company did 1.2 billion in sales. Heard that they are less than half of that now and I think getting rid of the group I'm in is really going to hurt sales. We get 4200-4300 e-mails a month. A lot of the account managers and people in the call center can't find the simplest things and can have the part number staring them in the face. What's bad is they closed over 140 stores and let a few hundred experienced people go. What's worse is they replaced a lot them with people in the US to work in a call center there for Canadian inquiries. Less money, less benefits, far less knowledge and fairly high turnover. Another guy commented yesterday someone from the US call center was asking about a of cover for a greenhouse... "What would be stronger 1/4" or 3/16"? He could understand if it was a weird fraction like 27/64 but if they don't know simple fractions, they're really going to struggle with Metric.

I'll have some time to work on the new flat track which has a lot of interest and race dates planned. The company offered free consultation with some kind of coach that helps you with creating a good resume, highlighting what your strength's are and figuring out what would be a good fit for employment. I'm going to keep my eyes open but at least have some time to figure out what I'm going to do. If the track took off would be great. Maybe a part time job would suffice. Not really an option to set up our own technical service. Most enquiries were from the call center or account managers and only a few directly with customers. I'm sure a lot of customers get pizzed off when the call center can't answer the simplest of questions.

"cant answer the simplest of questions"..
Kinda like> Sir, have u tried un-plugging the devise & plugging it back in.?? {broken English}

thepumpguysc said:

"cant answer the simplest of questions"..
Kinda like> Sir, have u tried un-plugging the devise & plugging it back in.?? {broken English}

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Or maybe just jiggle a few things then tap on the top?

the main trouble as I see it is that the 1 percenters of the world control it and shareholders want maximum return on investment, so that weeds out the small family businesses (where the owners actually worked there) that used to be the backbone of the country. those same small businesses knew that customer service and satisfaction were the cornerstone of their business and without it they would fail. not so in a big box store. they just don't care because their profit is based on quantity and not quality. sadly, its money and greed that controls the world and not the politicians

They were always campaigning that price isn't the only reason customers buy from them(they were rarely the lowest price). It was the enhanced customer service and "extra value" they bring. The tech. support group was always touted as a unique advantage and part of that extra value over the competition.

Had similar issues when I left the nuke, Manager said they had a exit policy I HAD to follow, had to write down everything I knew how to do that had no procedure attached to it, the "Skill of the Craft" material, he asked me to accept a email form fill it out add extra pages as needed and email it back. Received that email and deleted it, have been called twice for information, first time noted would cost a $60,000 consultant fee PER MONTH non negotiable and paid in advance regardless how long I took to teach another the knowledge albeit a week or a year. They said no thanks, second time stated "Am Retired, do not call me anymore" and hung up. Been no calls since.

Welder Dave:
Friend of my brothers was in a similar place a few years ago. He went to work as a buyer for one of his former customers(a mill in Williams Lake). Saved them 2wice his salary the first year. He now has his own industrial supply house out of Kamloops. You have skills, it is just finding the right opportunity... Cam
Ps I stopped shopping at your former employer when I realized that our purchasing was funded by the yearly discount( kickback) and did not return to my budget.