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"Job shop" survival guide

Alex B-shift
I work for a "job shop", and I'm certain that many of the rest of you do, or will at some point. It seems to be the direction that industry in general is going. Back in my father's day, you got a job with a big multi-national company, advanced in the ranks, and often worked there for most of your career. Today, however, they find more and more ways to 'farm-out' the work to a myriad of small shops, and because of this haphazard nature, there is a wide variety of things you need to consider before joining such an enterprise. I'd like to share a few of my own musings, and would appreciate your own observations:

BEWARE OF 2nd GENERATION SHOPS: Often, a shop was started by some entrepreneur/toolmaker, and after 30+ years, it get taken over by the son or sons of the owner. Sometimes the son is an idiot. Sometimes the 2 sons argue. I've worked for both types, and neither was worth staying with.

BEWARE OF SHOPS WHERE THE BOSS' WIFE IS AN OFFICER: Especially if she knows next-to-nothing about the business.

NEGOTIATE YOUR BEST PAY RATE AT THE BEGINNING: Seriously, you think you'll ever actually get a RAISE? Really?

DON'T BE AFRAID TO INTERVIEW AT OTHER SHOPS: Small shops have limited advancement potential. If you're ready to advance, or want a raise, you often will find it at some other place. You can always come back; it happens all the time.

BEWARE OF TOO-GOOD VACATION BENEFITS: If a big selling point is that, after 3 or 4 years, you'll be getting 4 weeks vacation pay, you can bet your sweet ***** that d@mn few people ever make it to that point. If, OTOH, they offer a decent but non-extravagant package, you can be more certain that people actually achieve these anniversaries.

SHOPS OWNED BY FOREIGNERS: Yeah, sometimes Asian owners can be kinda cheap. Take a close look when you interview.

TAKE A TOUR: If they won't even let you SEE the shop before starting, RUN AWAY as fast as you can. This is probably the number 1 red flag.

I would also say to be careful about shops that keep changing recruiters. They have probably burned their bridges with others, and are a lousy place to work.


  • Yes and its frustrating for us old school guys. Even though I'm 36, I consider myself old school in this regard.

    I'm 39 and want the same. I left a place that went from 1st to 2nd generation. The 2 sons were ok but after a while went MIA and left incompetent managers in charge. The one son's wife was also a VP and had zero experience in manufacturing. She had a MBA so she knew everything though.Rolling eyes Sadly, I was there for 8 years before it started to spiral into the toilet. Even a job that starts out good can go downhill.
  • I've worked in at least 5 job shops over the course of my 40+ years of working and programming CMM machine machines Sunglasses and I have yet to have a bad experience. The best place that worked for was a small job shop just north of the Tampa airport with maybe 80 employees tops. Several us were in there at 4am to open the shop up and 2nd shift would lock up any time after 1am when the last people would leave. The owner was the best and taught me some valuable lessons about life while I worked there. The man opened up the company books several times to help employees out when they needed help and everyone payed him back promptly because they knew he would take care of his people. I worked at one place and again, did not have a bad experience myself, but would not go back to work there. My current place of work is a big job shop supplying implants and surgical instruments and this is the second time here for me (left because of a toxic boss) and I will probably retire from here if they keep me Rolling eyes
  • I once left a shop for a big opportunity and the Crown Prince (son of the new owner) offered my no-degree-havin'-butt a flat $10k/yr raise effective immediately to stay.
    I knew - without asking - that meant I would not get a raise for 10 years or more, but be under his thumb. No thanks.


    In the new gig I did onsite programming and saw a dozen shops in a year, with a staggering variety.
    Snippets of memory:

    Three connected quonset huts built on fill over a swamp. Brand new LED lights flooding immaculately clean on the inside, very shipshape and many people sang while they worked - mostly with brooms while the clean and leak-free CNCs hummed.

    An outgoing quality manager laughingly spraypaint his initials on the outside of the cubicle wall he was leaving, while a dozen feet away a biker dude slept soundly on a wooden pallet for his 10 min. break as the lift trucks went around him.

    A huge factory-sized shop where the air was 55% humidy of cutting fluid. The CMM had a "protective" cover of clear shower curtains tied over a DIY latticework of PVC sprinkler piping, but every stylus in the rack was coasted in a thick layer of old greasy dust. Imagine your lungs after 2 years there! Nice lady running the front lobby counter was owner's wife.

    A filthy shop in Michigan - the owner actually owned a cleaning business and kept all it's supplies in the shop but could not lift a penny to make sure his own shop was clean. The aisles between the old CNCs were winding paths of new and old oil-dry and puddles of cutting fluids. Electrical extension cords ran everywhere, draped through the puddles. The CMM hadn't been calibrated in 9 years and was running some sort of GeoMeasure on an old-school computer - no usernames or passwords, just turn it on. There were icons on the special keyboard for circle, cylinder, etc. I couldn't do jack schitt with it.





  • TAKE A TOUR: If they won't even let you SEE the shop before starting, RUN AWAY as fast as you can. This is probably the number 1 red flag.



    I once had a strange interview at a job shop. There was nothing in particular about the interview that I could point to that was a concern, but I was still getting that odd feeling that something was off about the three folks that were interviewing me. A certain lack of enthusiasm or something, they just weren't selling it. That interview did not include a tour of the shop, I just figured that would be part of the 2nd interview if they called me back. Well, they called me back the next day with a job offer. I was surprised and asked if I could have a tour of the shop. They acted like it was an odd request. They didn't refuse, but kind of had the attitude that it would be an inconvenience to them. Sure, it was an inconvenience, but just part of doing business and acquiring talent. That was enough for me to say nah, moving on.

  • I know a guy who took a CMM gig at a foundry - lasted 1 day. His interview shop tour had been very short and routed to make him underestimated how foul and pervasive the heat & dust hellhole really was.
  • gold
    I work for a "job shop", and I'm certain that many of the rest of you do, or will at some point. It seems to be the direction that industry in general is going. Back in my father's day, you got a job with a big multi-national company, advanced in the ranks, and often worked there for most of your career. Today, however, they find more and more ways to 'farm-out' the work to a myriad of small shops, and because of this haphazard nature, there is a wide variety of things you need to consider before joining such an enterprise. I'd like to share a few of my own musings, and would appreciate your own observations:

    BEWARE OF 2nd GENERATION SHOPS: Often, a shop was started by some entrepreneur/toolmaker, and after 30+ years, it get taken over by the son or sons of the owner. Sometimes the son is an idiot. Sometimes the 2 sons argue. I've worked for both types, and neither was worth staying with.

    BEWARE OF SHOPS WHERE THE BOSS' WIFE IS AN OFFICER: Especially if she knows next-to-nothing about the business.

    NEGOTIATE YOUR BEST PAY RATE AT THE BEGINNING: Seriously, you think you'll ever actually get a RAISE? Really?

    DON'T BE AFRAID TO INTERVIEW AT OTHER SHOPS: Small shops have limited advancement potential. If you're ready to advance, or want a raise, you often will find it at some other place. You can always come back; it happens all the time.

    BEWARE OF TOO-GOOD VACATION BENEFITS: If a big selling point is that, after 3 or 4 years, you'll be getting 4 weeks vacation pay, you can bet your sweet ***** that d@mn few people ever make it to that point. If, OTOH, they offer a decent but non-extravagant package, you can be more certain that people actually achieve these anniversaries.

    SHOPS OWNED BY FOREIGNERS: Yeah, sometimes Asian owners can be kinda cheap. Take a close look when you interview.

    TAKE A TOUR: If they won't even let you SEE the shop before starting, RUN AWAY as fast as you can. This is probably the number 1 red flag.

    I would also say to be careful about shops that keep changing recruiters. They have probably burned their bridges with others, and are a lousy place to work.

  • gold



    Wolf, where have you been? Haven't seen you post in about a year, were you in a corner of your house, surrounding yourself with toilet paper for the last year?Rolling eyes Kidding glad to hear from you again.
  • gold



    Out of the woodwork you come Wolfy! Lurking lately or just barricading yourself?
  • For tenure:

    I think a MAJOR concern to look out for is high turnover of management roles. Nammo Talley in Mesa, AZ (Yes I just put them on blast) hired me on, with great pay, great benefits, and seemed like a wonderful place. After about 1 1/2 years, the purge started. CEO changed, then Quality manager changed three times, then the Engineering manager took over for quality... intentionally removing "and continuous improvement" from his job title. Just over three years in, about a dozen 'lifer' employees got canned or had left, including me.
    --First place I was ever fired from. They claimed I tried to improve the organization outside of my scope of work, which was a fire-able offense. lol. The improvement was a training matrix (excel file) that i sent an improved duplicate to the admin who managed it.. Suggesting she could even own the credit for it. Instead of the cells being manually color-coded, it would autoformat her colors once she populated an Y R or L(Yes (green), Re-train (orange), Late (red)) , and it produced the percentage of each individual's effectiveness with training (a couple metrics we all needed to report on, for our quarterly reviews, bonus and merit increases). It showed the engineering manager (my new boss) and his prior engineering subordinates with terrible metrics, he got pissed when it showcased his inability to keep his staff on the ball with compliance.

    So in short, if heads start rolling up top, rev up your resume. If you see changes in titles, take heed, and stick to the surface plate.

    Another experience: I hired on as first Quality Technician with B/E Aerospace (now part of Boeing) at a brand-new facility. I helped select and brought on six peers. I didn't get the "lead" role (a peer I trained did, because he had a community college business degree). I then got laid off after two years because I was the highest paid, and they lost a contract with a customer (overpaid because I was working a ton of OT). Even my boss was surprised they laid me off.
    Lesson to be learned there: Don't train peers with all the tricks in your hat, you're more valuable by keeping some of them to yourself.
  • For tenure:

    I think a MAJOR concern to look out for is high turnover of management roles. Nammo Talley in Mesa, AZ (Yes I just put them on blast) hired me on, with great pay, great benefits, and seemed like a wonderful place. After about 1 1/2 years, the purge started. CEO changed, then Quality manager changed three times, then the Engineering manager took over for quality... intentionally removing "and continuous improvement" from his job title. Just over three years in, about a dozen 'lifer' employees got canned or had left, including me.
    --First place I was ever fired from. They claimed I tried to improve the organization outside of my scope of work, which was a fire-able offense. lol. The improvement was a training matrix (excel file) that i sent an improved duplicate to the admin who managed it.. Suggesting she could even own the credit for it. Instead of the cells being manually color-coded, it would autoformat her colors once she populated an Y R or L(Yes (green), Re-train (orange), Late (red)) , and it produced the percentage of each individual's effectiveness with training (a couple metrics we all needed to report on, for our quarterly reviews, bonus and merit increases). It showed the engineering manager (my new boss) and his prior engineering subordinates with terrible metrics, he got pissed when it showcased his inability to keep his staff on the ball with compliance.

    So in short, if heads start rolling up top, rev up your resume. If you see changes in titles, take heed, and stick to the surface plate.

    Another experience: I hired on as first Quality Technician with B/E Aerospace (now part of Boeing) at a brand-new facility. I helped select and brought on six peers. I didn't get the "lead" role (a peer I trained did, because he had a community college business degree). I then got laid off after two years because I was the highest paid, and they lost a contract with a customer (overpaid because I was working a ton of OT). Even my boss was surprised they laid me off.
    Lesson to be learned there: Don't train peers with all the tricks in your hat, you're more valuable by keeping some of them to yourself.

    Turnover is a big one where I'm at. My position has been filled by two people previous to me in the last year. I knew this coming in and now I see why.

    What B/E Aerospace did you work at? My wife worked for Herndon Products here in St. Louis which then became B/E then Boeing. She worked there when it was Herndon and B/E but not when it became Boeing. She quit before Boeing took over.
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