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I worked for a company in New Jersey called The Langston
Corporation.
The company was in its 105th year of business. Yes; 105 years of service to the
Corrugated Box Board industry. I started there in October of 1963 in a position
which was referred to as a chip puller. The job scope was defined as a person
that cleaned the metal chips and grindings out of the machines that manufactured
the parts for these massive corrugated board producing machines. This got my
foot in the door so to speak.
I held that position for about 4 months until I got to know what the
operation was about and how in depth and dedicated this company really
was. They had excellent machinist that could hold tolerances to 7/10,000"
to .001" without all the
modern day CNC machinery that is available today on the market. The Langston
machinery was so well designed and manufactured that they have machines in the
field that are still running over 60 years old. Their staff of supervisors and
foreman cared for the workers. A primary example of the caliber of the employees
that worked there is, I was pulling chips out of a machine one night and I had
the usual leather gloves on and when pulling the chips out I cut myself. I went
to my day time supervisor who was running late as his day was over and told him
I had an accident. He took matters into his own hands and drove me to the
hospital himself and spent four hours of his time off the clock to make sure I
was okay. I don't think you will ever see any of this genuine caring in today's
industries. They don't care; they just push, push and push. You're nothing but a
number and a statistic. The bottom line wins out no matter what. Well it turned
out that I cut the finger off right between the first and second joint. To make
a long story short; I can use it but I lost revenue generated from my weekend
band playing.
I soon bid on a job as a production helper. Along with the new
job, I had new people to work with and a whole new field to learn. I loved it. I
learned to run gear shapers, stroke shapers, do-all saws, radial drill presses,
Multi-chucked drill presses, key cutters and flat grinders. There were other smaller
machinery involved, but the work was so interesting and the skilled operators
enjoyed teaching the newcomers, which of course is another rarity today. I
did have to buy coffee for about two
months as a sort of teasing type break in, but it was well worth it and in the long run I got it all back. I was
invited out with them and their families to functions that made you feel like
you were part of the family. It was a family, it was the Langston family. This
was a company that people waited in line to work for. It was a privately
owned company called the Samuel M. Langston Company in its early years with
a compassion for their employees and customers. It was a company that people would
do anything to work for. It was a non union company, it didn't need a union;
Sam and Bryant Langston (his son) treated their employees like family. The doors were
always open if you had a problem, they bent over backwards to help you and
work you through your problems. It was a company that understood the working
man's plight no matter if it was a family or work related circumstance. There was
always someone to be of assistance and guide you through the worst and keep you going.
As time went on I had opportunities to bid on and accept
positions running lathes, milling machines, boring machines, grinders and other
machinery that made the famous Langston machines; but I ended in the Bench
Department after holding those prior positions. This department handled all the
parts and some sub assembles for the Erection floor (which actually built the
machines) and customer parts orders. I went in as an apprentice/trainee Quality
Control Inspector. The work was not only interesting, but to witness some of the
most precise machining was still amazing to me even though I produced those very
parts in my last positions.
After working in this department for about two years I
had an unpleasant accident that injured my back. I'm not going to elaborate on
it other then to say, I still suffer today as a result of it. This injury
laid me up for one and a half years off and on. I was in and out of hospitals,
wheel chairs, crutches, back braces and canes for that period of time. The pain
was hell and when you're forced to wear a back brace that has ten steel ribs in
it and it's in the middle of summer and the blood is just dripping through the
harness because of the incessant wearing on your skin through normal activities,
it's not a very pleasant thing.
As time wore on I applied for a position on the Erection floor. My new job as an Erector was just as interesting as the last
one, but I had the opportunity to learn how to read full assemble prints and hone
other skills which added to my experience and knowledge base. I now have a
chance to build on my skills by learning this part of the business as well. This
was awesome as I've seen the prints in the past and thought I knew a fairly
decent amount about them, but in the long run I realized I knew very little.
Here again was a case where the more qualified employees took me under their
wing and assisted me in the skills of blue print reading. As time went along I was involved in every
machine that Langston built at that time. I had the chance to construct every phase to
completion. Some of these machines weighed as much as ten tons back then,
only to lead up to bigger, faster, sleeker and heavier machines in the future.
After about five years of being in this position I bid on the
first production electricians opening available. In my new position I was tested
mentally in many phases as there was no real concrete way of assemble so it
presented challenges to devise simpler and more direct way to wire these massive
machines. I was soon respected for my ability to provide jigs, fixtures and
methods in which to accomplish this.
I worked many hours throughout the years as many as twelve hours daily; seven
days a week for months on end as times were good and sales was at an all time
high. We were building machines like never before. The door opened for
Electrical Quality
Assurance and I thought I could make a niche there but after making the switch
and spending time being
involved in that; I found myself going stale. I needed to move on and see what
else I could discover to keep my interest up. So I just continued on and
analyzed all the
prospects that became available as time went on.
Then the new evolution came into the industry. The electronic age was upon us.
All the manufacturers were installing micro and mini-pc's to control all the
relay logic, measuring devices, safety enhancements and quality control
tools to monitor the quality of the product. Somewhere in my mind I thought, how
about that, after about twelve years of learning and swapping jobs, I ended up
right back where I came in at. - Electronics! - The reason why I left that field was
the ever changing aspect of it. What you learned today was redundant the next.
Unless you had an abundance of time and was using this technology every day in the field; you
just couldn't keep up. The daily routine of just keeping a family of three,
schooling and working long hours wasn't conducive to my physical and
mental wellbeing; so I opted to drop out of the field and try the mechanical
world.
After being in this position for a little while I was
approached by one of our Engineers and my immediate supervisor and they
asked me if I would be interested in going out in the field to assist one of our
mechanical Erectors on the installation of a piece of finishing machinery. This
particular piece was what was called a pre-wired machine which I was involved in
from the inception. The idea was to cut down on installation labor, hence making
the customer realize a quicker start up which would contribute to quelling
learning frustrations and promote smoother Erector to operator interface. I
don't have to tell you how quick I said "yes!"
This offer was idyllic for me. Although I didn't think about the hardship of
leaving my family; I was obsessed with the idea of a new adventure.
Once we arrived at the plant it was determined what had
happened, the prints did not exactly match what was going on in the field. It
was an oversight on the part of engineering and things were being taken for
granted in the process of making the prints up. During the next three days we
not only corrected the prints and finished the installation of the machine;
we also determined a much better way to proceed on the next machines that were
to be built as pre-wired machines.
This field trip turned out to be a bonus in many areas, it
served not only to get the machine up and running and please the customer; but
also was the creation of a new job title. The Field Service Electro-tech
position was created as a result of this trip which opened up the doors for
subsequent Electrical Erectors in the future. I probably spent about a week with
the mechanical Erector to bring him up to speed as to what the
engineering department's intentions were; so he would be aware of future
machines of this nature and he would understand the concept.
After my return home and with several meetings with
engineering, production and sales it was determined what the problems,
causes and effects were that delayed the installation and created all the
confusion. This type of pre-wired machine was a new concept in the
industry and a well thought out one in the long run and was very beneficial for
company, customer and erector.
As you probably guessed by now; yes I changed jobs again. I was
the first Field Service Electro-tech in the Service Department for the Langston
Corporation. As a result of this new technology the Electro-tech's had to
be involved in every start up from that point on. What grew from a machine
with approximately three thousand feet of wire evolved to machines with up to
almost three miles of wire.
After being on the road for approximately fifteen years and
having traveled quite extensively around the world to so many
places that I can't remember them all. It was shortly
thereafter, I got an offer to go inside as the Field Service Supervisor.
As the new Field Service Supervisor I was faced with new
challenges. As time went on and presidents came and went and the Service
Departments upper management was changed like soiled underwear, things kept
getting worse and worse; the business was on the decline and our parent company
based in England was starting to get
parsimonious with the money they were putting back into us. As a result our research and development went downhill from there. I guess you can say this was the beginning of the end and without getting into all the details I'm inserting a webpage
link that explains the story in
its entirety. This link will make this page more understandable after your
visit.
http://www.langstoncorp.com/
As I said earlier in this document for some it may be boring;
for others it may be interesting and educational. Who knows, you may be
in this situation right now and you haven't stopped to really think about it.
You may be taking the same attitude that we took... we read about it, saw it on
the news but naw, it'll never happened to me.
We the employees knew something was going to happen but due
to upper managements lying and deceptions we couldn't get a handle on it.
Every time we asked a question we would get a lie. There was no way for us to
circumvent or prepare for the situation. You've been seeing it on the news lately; CEO's
and CFO's raping
the company's and milking the people that work for them. All that money they're
stealing comes out of our pockets. Do they go
to jail like a hardened criminal? No they don't; they get their hands
smacked and get to live in that mansion that everybody else paid for. Do you
think Congress cares? I doubt it, they haven't done anything about it so far, oops
I forgot, this is election year and noise is being made about how awful
the CEO's are; geez maybe we ought to do something or WE/I won't get
elected. Well I wouldn't hold your
breath because you'll turn blue before you see anything good come of it unless
you yourself act on it by getting involved.
Your probably saying now what's his point? Well it all goes hand in hand with my story, thanks to
BancBoston, Fleet bank and the now FleetBoston; I
lost my job, severance pay, (yes they took it away) health insurance, life
insurance, lost my house, lost my integrity and due to extreme
pressure have lost the will to even care. I had no place to turn, no family to rely on or help me as I came from a
no family situation. I'm 59 years
old, have a disability and can't get training and when I show up for an
interview they see me with my cane I have to use, they say... "Sorry but your
over qualified. Yeah, there's a law against that, but try to prove it. The bottom
line is, the banks don't care. It doesn't make any difference what your background is
or how many years you have vested with a company; if they don't want you, they close you down.
So people wake up! Can't you just see the scenario, your
employer is about to lay you off, because the banks put the screws to
them; and you try to tell them, you
can't lay me off until I call my unemployment office and ask if
I'm in the right quarter and do I qualify for re-training. When you find out
your not, then try telling
your employer you can't lay me off now. I'm not
in the right quarter! Here once
again I got screwed this time by NJ unemployment. We live in a
Sick System
Society and unless people start to get involved; you too will be defeated.
The moral of my story is, I've worked all my life, gave to
one company, worked ungodly hours, was injured many times and endured hardships
that the normal Joe wouldn't, only to be shot down in my senior years. Don't be
become a causality of the SSS; (Sick System Society).
So please visit the aforementioned site and read what a bank
can do to your life. (The Last Seven Years) If you have any insight to help prevent this type of
corporate abuse again and you have any of their credit cards or do business with
them, send them a message and drop all business with them. It's easy; just look
on the back of your credit cards for BancBoston, FleetBank or FleetBoston; if you see it,
ditch them.
I've even made it easy for you to do; so there's NO
excuse not to write your letter and express your feelings towards these abusive
and immoral acts.
Thank you for spending your time and reading about our wonderful
system.
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The
Langston Corporation
Remarks:
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