Oct 18, 2011

Signetics: A climb up the mountain of broken nerves.

As a young man I suppose I had ambitions to an extent of climbing the corporate ladder. I was a hard worker and being a white natured person (white comes from a definition of characteristics as to your personality) I was always one for working hard and playing fair. Well I worked for a company called Signetics and had gone in four short years from being a technician to a supervisor on day shift of the technicians in what we called Thin Film. Signetics produced electronic parts called “integrated circuits” or “IC’s” for short. The thin film area worked with some high tech evaporation equipment that layered thin films of aluminum and other precious metals such as gold and platinum onto the surface of the substrates from which the IC’s were created. As a supervisor of the electronic technicians I had counterpart supervisors in the production and engineering groups.

Each day I would have a meeting in the morning after I got in to work. So I would go in early enough to get an interface with my counterpart on Graveyard shift and then would be able to assign my technicians to take over on unfinished jobs from that shift and also assign new jobs that might come to us. I would then go to the meeting with the other two supervisors and would get their priorities and other information that I would need to send my techs to the most needed equipment and put two or more on ones that might need to be back in operation even quicker than the rest.

This worked out really well until there was a new production supervisor level that was created and  new supervisor put over my counterpart in production. Instead of him allowing his supervisors to have time to know what had taken place during the night he would come in a half hour or more before them so that as soon as they got there he could jump on them as it were for not having things going properly for their shift. It seemed to me to be intentional belittling efforts on his part to intimidate his people into better work. All it really did in reality was scare them into stupidity and actions that were totally reactional rather than planned. So for me it meant that they would be after me to have all of the equipment up and running before they could be there. I always was in a lot earlier than any of them so it was as though I had been there all night as far as they were concerned. We operated this way for several months and for me it was very stressful.

One day when I came in we had a number of large pieces of equipment down. I had assigned my crew to the machines of which we were only able to put one per machine and I personally was working on two pieces. The supervisor had come in and as usual jumped all over his lower level supervisors as soon as they came in and in turn they jumped all over me. I had explained several times over the next hour or so that I had everyone working on machines and that I was working on two as well as trying to get around to help each of the others as often as I could. Well the supervisor came to me once more and since I wasn’t really feeling well that morning anyway I was suddenly put over the edge of my capabilities. My nerves snapped and I began uncontrollable crying. I quickly left the fabrication area and through somewhat inaudible speaking informed him that I was leaving. I went to my car and drove the 25 minutes to my home still in somewhat uncontrollable crying. (I hadn’t cried for many years and so this was also very embarrassing for me.)

When I arrived home I walked into my house and grabbed my camera and left. My wife meanwhile was first shocked to see me home and second understandably worried where I was going and what I might do. I walked east from my home toward Maple Mountain. It was about a mile and a half to the base of the mountain and from there I began climbing one of the ridges. I didn’t know what I was going to do but I did know I was going until I couldn’t go any further which ended up being about half way up the face of the mountain. Maple is very steep and my knees finally said it was time to stop so I did and I turned and sat down and just looked out over the valley. By that time I was again in control of my emotions and could begin to think about what had happened and why. I spent a couple of hours on the mountain taking occasional pictures and doing a lot of evaluating. I now knew what my limits were emotionally and that came in very handy many times since that day. I also learned that maybe the corporate ladder wasn’t for me because I had many things in my life that were much more important, namely a wife and children. I decided then to never get to that point again where I couldn’t control my emotions. Rather I would leave the situation long enough  to calm down and get a better hold on the real needs at that time. I then went home much more in control and much better off having had that experience.

When I arrived home I was able to tell my wife what had happened but she was already pretty well aware of the situation because she had been receiving calls from both of my supervisors, the thin film supervisor and the Maintenance supervisor over the entire department. I was asked to call as soon a s I got back and I did and at that point was asked to go into the office the next morning to discuss the situation with all of the supervisors. I told him that I didn’t think I could yet but he gently encouraged me to do it and so the next morning I went into his office and met with my immediate supervisor and all of the production supervisors. It was a meeting for them to get their operation in control as much as it was for me to explain what had happened and why. We met for over an hour and then the maintenance supervisor excused everyone except me. He then looked at me and said, ”Now you know why they make all of us at this level have physical and mental exams every year and the company pays for them.” He then told me to go home and relax for however long I needed and when I felt like I was ready to return then do it but not until I felt I was fully ready. He said that I would receive my regular pay and not to worry about that part of it. I returned a full week later and at that time expressed my concerns to him that I really wasn’t mentally able to do the supervisor job on dayshift and was allowed to then go to graveyard shift where I was supervisor there for several years and later a regular technician again because that was really where I felt the most useful and by then had experience that would allow me to help other techs with problems and get equipment up and running faster. I was there until the plant was shutdown 7 years later.

It was a valuable experience and there have been a few times since then that I have felt close to that same situation and taken actions to leave and cool down or just get out. I even left a job one time due to the fact that my bosses were putting the same pressure on me and I knew I had to get out or crack again and I had determined that if possible that would never happen again. I have never had a desire to climb a corporate ladder again but rather to be satisfied with doing my best and putting my family first. They were my corporate ladder that was really worth climbing.