Off On The Right Foot

Finley Engineering Company, Inc. I was thinking that I need to expand a little more on what I have started and am doing in relation to what happened to me at Finley's. Writing has always been something I do and enjoy. In reading, which I do a lot of, I never waste time with fiction. If it isn't factual, I just don't see the point to wasting time reading it. I am just one person with my own view of things and just as I am entitled to my view, so is everyone else and some of you will view things differently, and that is ok. This is personal information that will be shared but I am choosing to do so. Please don't attempt to judge what or who I am until you have read enough to make a reasonable judgement. I will sound like a lot of different things and those can be misinterpreted easily. For instance, there may be times I sound arrogant or egotistical, I am not that type of person, but in reviewing where I have been, and what has happened, I do have some harsh emotion there that I feel anyone would experience after having the rug yanked out from under them and not even a warning of it coming. Writing with me comes from the heart. I can just sit down and it all just flows out without even really taking much time to think about it. What I see myself as is a peaceful man with some talents and artistic slants. I definitely believe we have a master creator and he is with me everyday. My writings will be parts of my life with Finley's. It will be interesting and I hope once you start reading that you will come back and enjoy my information and offerings which will be the facts as I lived them. People are invited to comment or contact me if you wish. I just want to share this part of my life and maybe it will have some positive effects in just laying things out on the table. Sharing is getting it off my chest. It is good for me and my health to vent this and I have chosen venting in this way so that everyone can have the opportunity to learn of what has happened, and can happen in life. THANK YOU FOR THIS OPPORTUNITY AND FOR YOUR TIME.

Since I have opened this window I will go ahead and just ramble a little from the heart. After I had sort of gotten up off the ground from being suddenly and unexpectedly terminated, and dusted myself off, I went in to collect my profit sharing, that to me I had coming. Every year the company sets aside an amount of their profits and they distribute that amongst the employees. It is a wonderful thing to do for your employees and was originally designed by caring leaders from years ago to be good to those that work and make things happen. The amount is a percentage of your yearly earnings. The percentage is decided each year at the end of it and is based on how well the company did that year. 10% seemed to happen a lot and so if you earned $40,000 then your profit sharing amount would be $4000. By my calculations I figured I had $3000 coming. I had worked most of the year (Jan. till Oct. 31st). When I went in to see about collecting this I was told I would receive no profit sharing for that year because I did not complete a whole year. What happened to pro-rating? What happened to fairness? What happened period? What happened to a company I had been very comfortable with for a long time?
Not only did they not share the "profit sharing" with me, but after the "attempted annihilation of my livelihood", they tried to block my ability to draw UNEMPLOYMENT as well.
In 2002 Mike Donaldson and I were talking and a subject came up. Mike mentioned it and it was news too me. It was made known to me that some employees owned Finley shares of stock in the company. I questioned him as I did not even know of such a thing. I had been there 22years and no mention of this was ever made in my presence till now. He said he owned shares and knew a few others who had some. He said they had been making 30-35% return in past years. I was blown away by this information. I wonder how many people at Finley's know (know, or rather don't know) about this. As Mike put it you have to "Be Invited", in order to buy shares of this stock. Well, God, how many years do you have to work there to be invited? Well I sat back a moment and let that soak in. " How much are these shares to buy Mike? " " Well, last I knew they were around $1200 a share." Once again I was stunned! Mike said, "Some people have even gone and borrowed money to buy these shares and you can't buy just one, you have to buy 5 at a minimum." Well $1200 x 5 = a lot of money. Mike is a resident engineer. He was invited. I got the picture I think. This is for particular people in the company. Isn't this discrimination if you have to be invited? Isn't this taking advantage of the general population of Finley employees who come to work everyday, or those in the field who put in great effort to their projects and suffer the enviornment to do so? What this smells like too me is that a lot of us never attain those certain positions within the company that cause us to "BE INVITED TO BUY STOCK." It seems that some folks have figured out how to "ensure" their futures by using the fruits of the sweat of their employees to build and fatten their upcoming retirement years. It is true that the bulk of employees have and are in a retirement fund all ready and so there is that element of the company doing good for the employee. In 2002 the stock market was not doing very well and everyone I knew was losing money like crazy, including me. It seemed that if you knew the right people, and if you were "IN", and if your position had a certain status to it, then you were probably going to "BE INVITED." Well I am a Rich Hill boy, and I did not go to school in Lamar, so I guess I am just one of those people in the shadows. The unfairness of this hit me and later when I had occasion to talk with Kim Little I asked him about these Finley shares. He admitted pretty much what Donaldson had said except they were more like $1500/share. I asked about the present rate of return on them and he said, "About 15%." Actually 15% was pretty damn good while the rest of us were losing money right and left during that time. Now I realize that you would have to own quite a few shares of this to earn really big money but I guess the "You have to be invited", just sort of got me. I really never desired to be a supervisor and so I never tried. I had a unique position that filled my needs and enriched my life so I didn't need the headaches that come along with moving up the ladder. As Carl Finley put it-----"Gentlemen, you are an Elite group in what you do."
I have a few other short items and then I am out of here as a bunch of leaves are waiting for me. When I was on loan and working for Kim Little we were working on the Stella and Powell, Mo. projects for Le-Ru Telephone. Clay Beard and I were a working team as we had many years off and on with doing different projects. It so happened that most of Kim's people were staying at the Big Spring Lodge in Neosho, Mo. and driving from there to the job site each day. Depending on where you were working, this could be quite a drive. Clay and I chose a different location closer to the job and found clean and upbeat places to stay and were more economical than the $53.00/night charged by the Big Spring Lodge. I mean we liked places like that and eventually we did stay there when we worked closer to there. I pointed this out to Kim that it was saving some money that we didn't stay at the Lodge and he said it was "irrelevant", as the phone company paid for the motel. So, since the phone company picks up the tab, you go stay somewhere pricey and plush. I bet the phone company would have appreciated hearing his statement that saving money was "irrelevant". As I figured it Clay and I saved them about $2500 over the length of the project. Not a lot but worth mentioning. We are supposed to be working for our clients in their best interest. I fail to see how taking advantage of their niceness is in their best interest. Are you listening Bob Hart?
Laser guns for measuring. What a wonderful invention. We were issued them by Charles Orrell. In discussing the Laser guns with Charlie after I was terminated he mentioned something I thought was of interest and it reflects the mental workings of a manager. Charlie stated that he DID NOT agree with it but Kim would not allow his field people to have Laser guns to use because it would make them "TOO EFFICIENT." What this sounds like too me is that the longer you can keep people working on a project for a phone company, then the MORE MONEY you can take from them. Once again this is not in our clients best interest. It isn't appropriate for a company like Finley's or any other company to line their pockets with money not fairly earned.
Another thing of many things that bothered me in relation to our client was that Clay and I had neither one been Plow Inspectors. We both served that function on the projects with no previous exposure to the position or training. What we got was a crash course trimmed down to a few sentences by the resident engineer, Mike Donaldson. In other words we were presented to Le-Ru as competent professionals and they were being charged AS IF we were and once again we see MONEY here. We became Plow Inspectors over time, but we were green, and Finley's were charging Le-Ru as if we had years of experience. In my title of www.ripoffreport.com I state that they cheated an employee, (me), and screwed the customer even more. The customer is the client and as you can see the client certainly has been taken advantage of. Well this is enough for today.