Job Changes for AlanB

[AlanB]

For the past 13 years I have been a central part of developing this program.

Fort Campbell Environmental Division

I am very proud of the many things that we accomplished, the programs we developed, and mostly the soldiers that we have helped and supported over the years.

My company lost the contract that I was working on to another CFT contractor last month. The other contractor lowballed their way in, and when the contract is basicly for labor services, you can guess where that story goes.

The initial offer from the new company between more then doubling my health insurance and the pay cuts had me bringing home about 1/3 less cash then before and from my perspective it was going to get worse, the pay thing was similar for the majority of our group.

I envisioned unhappy employee's, management and customers. That is not a good scenario to be in to me.

Fortunately, I was able to sidestep a bit and move over to another contract that we work and am returning to aircraft maintenance (structural or GM/SM) work.

Taking a bit of a hit in pay, but it corresponds to a considerable lightening of the load in responsibilty and accountability. I need to now manage myself, and just be responsible for my actions.

Not sure where the road will take me, awful thankful that I have this "out" where I maintain a very comfortable salary.

My boss also decided to leave and is moving over to the same contract that I did.

One of my former guys and I were speaking this evening, he said one customer asked how smoothly the transition is going? He looked at him and said 2/3 of management looked at what was going on and left, how do you think it is going?

Hopefully my former partner in crime who now runs the show can get some good backing and support and continue what we all have worked so long to develop. He is promoting up two of the guys off the lines I think to help him run the show and I truly hope he will be successful.

Just wanted to share.

I am truly fortunate that I have the options available that I do.

There will be some funny stories a little later down the line after some of the sting wears off when we told the crew that we were leaving.

The initial comments were Rats and sinking ships, and most were words not fit for print on a family site.

These are far more trying times for many who have it much more difficult then I, but it sure makes me appreciate their plight a bit more as you weigh out the specter of unemployement and think through all the ramifications it would have on your life.

 

[toy]

Alanb I hate to hear of your set back, but am glad that you had an option that was acceptable to you. I hope you the best in your new position. Seems like one of my family members was at Fort Campbell for a while but I can't remember which one.

 

[rox]

Alan,
I went to the first page of your website and read the whole thing. It is well written and easy to understand. WOW! Is all I can say, it truly is most impressive, no wonder you are so proud of what you and your team accomplished.
With the job change it is great that you had the option to do that, and hopefully it will simply be one more opportunity to be creative an innovative.
~rox

 

[2manyrocks]

Being successful at finding another position and not having to relocate in this economy is a blessing.

 

[texbaylea]

AlanB

I saw the same thing on several contract rebids at NASA and the disruption to the program is severe and costly from the govt. workers side. The government workers end up having to pick up the additional work load as well as having to train the new management and personnel. Frequently there would be a better than 75% turnover within the first year as well as program slips.

I was on two Proposal evaluation teams where we argued successfully for evaluation criteria and weighting factors that minimized such an outcome. In one case we were able to come up with normalization factors that penalized these "lowballs".

I am glad that you were able to find a satisfactory solution.

Sometimes the govt. is its own worse enemy.

Vernon