November 4 - I'm thankful for Michael's job at a safe, stable, and respectful company in the aerospace industry. I've always known the aerospace industry was fickle, so I knew when we came to Wichita that the job market may be up and down for him here. However, I wanted to be close to my family, and aerospace is the best market for a Mechanical Engineer in Wichita. While his lack of experience was a problem the first couple years, he eventually made it to AeTR after a tremendous assist by Uncle Ed when we were in a really difficult spot. Since then, things have not always been easy, but the job has been stable. It breaks my heart when I read about Spirit, Hawker, Boeing, Textron, or Beechcraft laying off massive amounts of workers, with no regard for the people, their situations, the time of year, the financial climate, their years of service, or the situation the world finds itself in. I always stop and pray for those families, because I know that if Michael hadn't found his way to AeTR, it could have been him on the chopping block. But his company is different, small, stable. The people there care about their employees and they have taken care of us. We haven't had to worry day to day, month to month, or year to year if he'll have a job or not. I'm certain he could be making more elsewhere, but the job security is worth so much more than a few extra dollars a year. I am so thankful for this job and for Uncle Ed for laying the foundation for Michael to be able to get it. Having a steady job can bring calm to many a storm. He's been there for almost 8.5 years now, and I anticipate many more to come.
What I didn't add on Facebook is that I'm irritated with his company because he was supposed to get a raise at the beginning of June and it's been 5 months and we still haven't seen that raise. Of course, like I said in my FB post, the job security is worth it. But it's not because they don't have the money... It's because the boss is dragging his feet. The good news is that the company wants some equivalencies done in a hurry so they can stop losing money on this piece of equipment they're fixing for people. So, in order to get that done in a hurry, they are incentivizing the engineers to come in early, stay late, and work extra quickly on these parts, with a bonus. There are 50 parts they need to get completed and they have 3 engineers working on them. Michael thinks they'll be done in about a month. So that will be really nice to get a bonus right before Christmas. We'll see how things go. So far, Michael is mostly going in early and just staying a little late. He typically leaves the house before 6am. Before the bonus was on the table, sometimes he wouldn't leave the house until 7:30am (although he preferred to leave closer to 7). Anyway, that's what's going on. Michael also asked his boss for his raise and asked for a specific amount. But the way he asked was by going into his office, closing the door and saying, "Hey, do you have a minute to talk?" I'm sure the boss got a little nervous, as Michael is one of their best engineers and makes a ton of money for the company in the work that he does. So Michael himmed and hawed a bit and then finally said how much he wanted. The boss said he'd see what he could do. Michael thinks that raises can't happen at this time because the company is not having a good season. However, he thinks that the bonus is the boss's way of making up for it until this project is done, the company financials start looking better, and maybe the raise can come in January or so. Who know? We'll see. The good news is, that he has a good, stable job in a time when job security is very low for many mechanical engineers in Wichita. So for that, I am thankful. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment