Our director of operations has decided to move on to greener pastures and I kind of think it is the right thing for her to do. We are a small company of roughly 15-16 people. 4 of us do chemistry, 3 do imaging, and another 2-3 do surface science stuff. The rest of the people spend all their time in the cubicles and I'm sorry, but I think it is too many for a small company to exist without getting their hands dirty. I am not saying anything bad about anyone, but sometimes grand plans of reinventing the wheel are really not necessary in a company this size, with employees who have all been working together for an average of 20 years.
I am still one of the younger employees, although in recent years we have hired a couple of new faces. Just turning 50 this year it dawned on me, this company is aging. I don't know exact ages, but I hear we have two guys in their 70's, most everyone else in their 60's and a handful, myself included, in our 50's. There might be a couple in their 40's, and maybe one of the newest guys could be in his 30's, but I would be surprised. Given all this information, I think if I were offered an opportunity with a bigger company, I might take it too. I am happy where I am at, for the most part, but I do worry a bit that the company breaks down from attrition. When I joined the group, and we were still part of AMD, we were about 40 people strong, that was back around 2000. Gradually, we have had layoffs and lost people for various reasons, and now we are less than half what we used to be.
The director leaving is taking a director job with an established company, she should do well, and with a much larger audience, her ideas may actually be appreciated. Like I said, we are a bunch of old Prima Donnas, I don't want to be told how to do my job if I can continuously get the job done. My only push back with her was when she came around suggesting things, most recently, to start doing a weekly report, to show what I do. I know I do a lot, my manager knows it too, the report is just extra busy work, in my eyes, it doesn't put money on the bottom line, and that is what I like to focus my work efforts on.
Lately, we had been talked to about coming back to working our full shifts, when Covid started, we were told to just do the work necessary and due in the next day or two, and go home, to reduce interactions. Then we were told we had to wear pants; I have been wearing shorts for most of the last 20 years. We can also not wear open shoes anymore, like Crocs, and we should be wearing socks, I don't know why. There was also talk of too many people in the lab, another rule established because of Covid, so only say 3 people can be in a room at one time. If we are going to act like Covid is no longer a concern, then we can't use the rules from Covid times to restrict shit. I was also scolded in the last couple months for not wearing a mask, although again, I am not the only one. Most people wear it on their chins, I refuse to do that and will just take it completely off. The same people who work together go and drink coffee together and it is perfectly ok to take off our masks there.
She had the unfortunate responsibility of being the one pushing on all these corrections, so she has seemed like the bad guy, I don't know that anyone else is left to bust balls, the other managers are all dudes and frankly, I don't think they care about stuff like this, other than to make sure and have the work done.
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