The Workermonkey

Wednesday, April 06, 2005

i should have done this months ago 

# posted by Supreme Monkey Overlord @ 4/06/2005 01:06:00 AM

recently i've started applying for jobs. yeah, the income ran out more then a month ago but it was only last week that i really starting applying. energizer called me two days later and wanted to see me, so i said sure what the hell. monday morning at 7:30 in St. albans, VT. fuck. i got up there ok and nothing went wrong, i interviewed ok, nothing special. i met with three different people who all asked different questions and i got a tour of hte plant with the other guy interviewing. he was in his late 50's and was wearing a suit that hasn't been worn since before i was born. i think the position i applied for was Sr. engineer. i couldn't remember so i asked when i got there. they siad there were a few postions open in the company but that i had applied for the Sr. position. oh. i was very loose during my time there because i can honestly say that unlesss they wow me with a salary number i wouldn't even consider working there. the plant i was at employs about 200 people and they make all the new lithium batteries for energizer plus a bunch of thier flashlights. they make a couple little parts like gaskets and switches and jacket coatings for other batteries but most of that gets shipped out to another plant to get finished. i was amazed at how much dumb stuff happens on a company wde scale. they hire a team of drivers to ship stuff on a daily basis to NC so that it can get packaged. one of my first questions was why can't they just send one of the packaging machine up here to speed up the process and eliminate the transportation work force. they didn't know. it seems like the whole plant just keeps its head down and does its job, they take orders from the R+D plant in OH and ship stuff to NC no questions asked. most of hte engineers just try to cut down on production times and get more product ou thte door.

i honestly think i could run the plant i saw in 3 years, if i wasn't asked to relocate before that. all the people i talked too were the stereotypical engineers you see in movies. big thick glasses, stuck in the same job for years, company dedicated, jargon spewing individuals. they all seemed to like nascar too. the HR person was a woman who was a little bubbley and very nice. she had "energy" so to say. i give them credit for one thing, they had the hottest chicks working in any sort of manufacuring environment i've ever seen. i saw two blond chicks on the floor that had incredible bodies doing menial labor. there was another brunette in the halls tha was just blazing.

some of the questions i asked were about new technologies, like lithium ion batteries, rechargable batteries, feul cells, cell phone batteries, shit even how the local mercury laws effected them and no one seemed to know or care. energizer doesn't make rechargeable batteries, if they do they are made by someone else and thier name is slapped on them. the best answer i got was that maybe R+D is working on feul cells. i got a NO on the lithium ion/cell phone style battery. yet they constantly pushed the fact that the St. Albans plant was growing. and growing fast. i heard a few times about how they were adding employees and how they were growing from 180 to 200 employees.

this seems like a company where anyone of use could come in and take over. not just from an engineering side, but also from a marketing side, a business side and a chemical side. even a strategy side. it just seemed like they were missing a lot of oppertunities or squandering some very good growth potential. either way, i'm still buying copper tops and not expecting much from them.

1 comments

let's get like 4 or 5 of us and just take it over! how sweet would that be. we'd have the engineering stuff down, and i'll deal w/ law.






ps. dont work at a duct tape factory. apparently they can explode.

By  josh, at Wednesday, April 06, 2005 6:14:00 PM  

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