John's Change of Employment

The past 14 months John has been working for Foster Farms.  He has met many people there and has became friends with almost everyone.  He enjoyed his job, but he (and the kids and I) have not enjoyed his schedule.  Most days he leaves the house between 7-7:30am and doesn't return home until sometime between 7-10pm.  He never knows when he is getting off and never knows if he has to work a Saturday or not until sometime Friday afternoon.  Plus he was on salary pay, so he was being paid to work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, but was working way more than that.

Anyways, a few weeks ago John had to attend a two day safety training for work.  One day he finished up early, so he stopped by my work and picked up Ashlee to take her to soccer practice.  When he showed up, he noticed an employee violating a safety issue, so he jokingly came into the office and started speaking of what he witnessed.  A couple days later, my boss was upset with some things that had been happening with our night shift crew and asked if John was looking for a job.  I (jokingly) responded back yes (the night before this John had worked a really late shift and I was done with his hours).  Over the next couple of hours, my boss kept asking me questions here and there. I didn't think he was serious, then a while later he made John a job offer.  I knew right away that we would not be able to survive off the pay he was offering, but we penciled it out and discussed it, and decided that is would not work for us.  A couple days later my boss began to ask more questions and came back with a better offer.  This time, the offer was better than John's current job.  John went and spoke with my boss a couple days later and decided to take the job.  There are some draw backs to the new job though, John has to work night shift for the next few months 6pm-6am 7 days a week until this harvest is over.  After that he will work from 7am-3:30pm 5 days a week 7 1//2 months out of the year.  During harvest he will have to work 12 hour days 7 days a week, but we figured that would be better than his current job.  So we just have to get through a few months of night shift hours and then hopefully things will get better.  Wish us luck.

Friday, September 19th was John's last day at FF.  For two weeks prior to his leaving, he was confronted on a daily basis by people, who were saddened to hear that he was leaving.  John received compliments from many of his co-workers, his boss, the plant manager, the head of HR, etc.  All of them admired him for his work ethic and the way he treated and respected others.  An employee who had been employed by the company for 40 years, told John he "was the best supervisor she ever worked with."  His last week there, he was given a gift daily by his co-worker supervisor, who ran the night shift in his department.  On his last day his boss and his co-worker supervisor took him to lunch and his crew of 35 employees, showered him with gifts and hugs.  Most of them wanted to know where he was going to work, so they could go too.  John left FF on great terms.  He was told if things don't work out he is welcome to come back.

Yesterday (September 20th) he started his new job.  He is training a couple days on day shift, before starting night shift.  Needless to say, he has adapted well, he seems to know what he needs to do, and is kind of bored.  He is use to a much faster paced environment, so we will have to see how this goes.  John doesn't like to be bored, and if he spends too much time standing his back hurts.  Hopefully things will be a bit busier for him on night shift, so he can stay awake and get through this!