On November 7 of this year, I was pulled away by my employer from a work area, where I had a good working relationship with a coworker. The relationship I had with that coworker was better than any I had enjoyed with any coworker in eight years of working with this employer. The idea was to give me a break from working in that area, but no one asked me whether I wanted a break from that area. No one gave me a choice of remaining in an area where I enjoyed a good friendship with a coworker. I had expressed dissatisfaction with the job I was doing in that area, but I had not asked to be given “a break” from working in that area. If I had been asked whether I wanted to remain where I was, then I would have chosen to remain.
Two weeks ago, I asked to be returned to the area where I worked with my good friend. Instead of being returned to that area, I was assigned to another focus factory. I had not asked to be sent to that focus factory. Had I been given a choice, I would not have accepted the new assignment. As in the previous case, I was not consulted on whether I wanted to make that move. Basically, I have been treated like a child. I am very distraught over having been reassigned from a work station where I was working with a good friend.
I don’t care what job I do, what hours I work, or how many hours I work, if I’m working with someone I really like, as I was two work stations ago. I feel that my friend and I were robbed of an enjoyable work situation by our involuntary separation, and I am peeved that my efforts to be returned to the work station, where we were happy together, have been thwarted.
This regrettable situation can be traced back to the final day of my participation in a kaizen event facilitated by a lean six sigma person. At one point, there was a lull in the conference, when no one was saying anything. In an effort to get discussion going, I asked, “What’s going on?” The green belt lean sigma facilitator asked me if I wanted to go to my work station on the factory floor. This facilitator’s question had nothing to do with what I had asked. I was as much a participant in the event as anyone else in the conference and saw no reason why I should be dismissed to work on the factory floor on what was my regular day off just because I had asked a question to get the discussion moving again. I felt that the green belt lean sigma facilitator was being disrespectful toward me, and I objected to going back to the factory floor.
At that point, a team leader asked me to go with her to the work station on the factory floor. I left the conference area, and went out into the hall with her. Once in the hall, I told her that I hated doing that job on the factory floor. In fact, I had experienced frustration in that job, but at the time, I was mostly angry about the way the lean sigma facilitator wanted to dismiss me from the group by sending me out to the factory floor just because I had asked a simple question. The lean sigma facilitator had been extremely disrespectful toward me.
And now, because of that one incident, I have been deprived of working with a very good friend in what was a great working relationship. If I were still working with this friend, I wouldn’t care what job we were doing, how many hours we had to work, or what hours we worked as long as we were working together. Thanks to my employer, my friend and I have been robbed of the gratifying experience of working together. I hope the two of us will work together again, soon. If not, I may terminate my employment early next year. I don’t want to work for an employer that separates me from my friends. And if I do decide to leave my employer, I will be more specific about the events I have related here, and I will use my writing skills and considerable Internet presence to air my grievances to the world.
Carl Norman
Idaho USA
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