Plc's and me part ways

[Thomas Sullens]

Get on with it~

You have just learned a good lesson.. Lick your wounds and get on with it. You`ve been given alot of good information here be sure and take Mike`s document, document, document, by the way did i mention wright everything down. The same things happen when your in business for yourself. Put letters with their letters then you`ll start to understand what is meant by the more the words the less the meaning. Alot of managers date and take notes on all their phone calls ever wounder why? Their going to have theirs covered. How about you? If they don`t send you to schools there are plenty of companies that will find one! Don`t waist your time!
Good Luck

 

[BobB]

Mark
I am 6'2" and my other half is only 5'4". Tall women with long legs seem to bring out the worst in men don't you agree.

I am sure you are quite capable of doing your own dirty work!

 

[TDMartin]

Yea BOB!

I hear ya man. I also have been an employee and now am on my own and like taking all the responsability. But I think I need to hire me one of them Amazon bookkeepers!
I have been stabbed in the back like this too.. but I'm Irish and live to revenge. My strategy has been to go into the cave and get lots smarter. Then when my opponent screws up, or when they take the bait I laid out in my carefully constructed plan.. I turn the spotlight on them. After that they are usually scared of me and leave me way alone.
But like others have said.. don't give up on PLC's. When the plant closes and they all don't have any skills other than that plant's particular politics.. you will be the first one to get re-hired.

 

[rsdoran]

Take it in stride...chit happens, beat the **** out of bro-in-law at horseshoes the next family reunion....yeah like I really meant horseshoes.

Write the letter or have it done in a professional business like manner. Definitely have the UNION assist you as much as possible.

Dont think about the "go in business" stuff unless you KNOW you are equipped to be a business man.

I have been in situations similar to this. I downgrade myself on here at times because I am not a programmer..at least not in the league with many here. I am not a specialist in any area especially when it comes to business. A situation similar to this cost me a quarter million dollars US. I am still ONE HECK OF A TECHNICIAN though.

Dont stop learning and trying. Document what you do, when you do it and WHY you did it. Dates, times etc.

BTW never fear Underdog is here.

 

[Colossalnut]

Wah!
Been there. Move on!

 

[markmc]

What's going on with the avatar Ron? To me, you were always Clint Eastwood and now you're Underdog! I'll have to work my imagination around this one

 

[PhilipW]

Another was a job dumped on me with great urgency, and verbally I was given unlimited scope. I delivered a small miracle and compeltely rebuilt in two weeks what originally had taken four months; but one tiny error, I mean one XIO in the wrong branch somewhere caused all kinds of irrational overreactions and led to the job being canned.

A curious follow up to the incident above. Just this morning I hear that the manager responsible for the above sad little tale has suddenly "left" the position. Word has it that he burned off too many folk in too small a town.

No I don't take any satisfaction. I made two key mistakes. One I didn't get written sign off on the scope before I started, and two I didn't get written sign off on the invoice before I left site. Still what goes round, comes round.

Writing reports is the best way to guard against the tendency to get blindsided by this kind of thing. To re-state my original point, and to underline the many interesting posts in this thread: the technology is easy; it's managing the people that's is the hard part.

And Bob... need a kiwiboy apprentice?? Tall girls are my serious weakness.

 

[goxx]

leave a job, go to another, you gonna run into the same thing. if you have a good job and enjoy it, hold on to it. you may go to a new job and for some ungodly reason the wrong person don't like you and out the door you go. one good thing about all the a** kissers, brown-nosers, etc.... is that they are consistent and everybody knows how they are. there will be times where the only defense you have is your reputation. lots of problems found in the workplace can be contributed to huge egos. then it can turn into a "who has the biggest balls" contest. lots of good advice on this forum, but you know what is best for you. my advice would be don't do anything drastic now, time heals most things, give it time, see what happens. if you do leave, try not to burn any bridges.

 

[Tim R]

Scope Ladies and Gentelmen!!!


I can't stress this enough. NEVER EVER do a big project with out a letter of scope. I'm in the planing stages of a 1.5 Million project. The customer wanted just to hand us a PO without scope. Sales was all over it but I quashed it until I finished the Scope. After discussing the project with everything involved, I sent a memo to our Sales staff to add another 50,000 to the cost for all the adders. (No one said anything about an RFID system until I asked how they were going to log data.)

A little disclaimer I add at the end of the Scope Letter.

This letter now documents the responsibilities of the Machine builder. Any changes to the process at this point will need to be covered under a separate puchase order.

You'd be surprised how much more carefully people read that letter after I make them sign it.

TimR

 

[Tom Jenkins]

Daddy always tole me "Some days you git th' bear, some days th bear gits you!"

Okay, you're PO'd and got treated badly. Thet is par fer the course. Everythin' ever body tole ya' about document and sich is keerect, but even then y' will git burned once't in a while. Jist remember, yer mother will still love ya' no matter whut. Take yer lumps, look at the big picture, and take pride in doin' a good job. It generally comes back to yer benefit, and if'n it don't ya still has yer self respect and thet is whut is most important.

I've been burned in memo wars, had lies tole about me, had dirty rotten scoundrels cheat me out of thousands of dollars. It all makes fer good stories over a cold beer, and I jist try to let it be their problem, not mine. If'n I start spendin' too much time wrryin' about the bastads then I is only hurtin' myself.

Take yer lumps and move on!

 

[BobB]

And Bob... need a kiwiboy apprentice?? Tall girls are my serious weakness.

Here!!! Here!!! Philip.

Trouble is my nick name says it all and I guess these days I would have serious trouble remembering what to do with them!!!

 

[REZAR]

yup, everybody been there.
dont take it to heart too long, get rest for a while,
think about what plc's can do. think about how many people understand that smart thing in one company.
now you will feel so luck, and they will pay your luck not only with one eye.

correct me if iam wrong!

 

[BoxerBrats]

I am aIndustrial electrician for a local contractor. My specialty is motor controls. The last few years we have picked up alot of cuntomers with PLC. With alot of factory experience, I am the only service tech with PLC experience. So know I have the responsibilty of being the PLC programmer. I am not upset by this, if anything I love the work, and hoping do more. MY only complaint is on some bigger jobs, I am left in the dark, so end up with a ton of program changes because of changes out in the field. Causes alot of late nights at home.

The other problem is my ego, when asked can i do a PLC program. My first respons is sure not a problem, and afterwards I kick myself, because I have no clue what I am doing. For example last program took me into analog programming. I have troubleshot alot of analog, but never desighned a program from ground up. I got lucky and figured out most of the tech stuff, with alot of help on here.

The suggestion of documentation is a good one, exspecially with unuins, if it ever goes to arbitration having the documentation can save your job. I know from the past becarfull in factory, and unions always a ton of politics. No matter how valuable of employee management will cut off their nose to spite their face

 

[testsubject]

Scope Ladies and Gentelmen!!!


I can't stress this enough. NEVER EVER do a big project with out a letter of scope. I'm in the planing stages of a 1.5 Million project. The customer wanted just to hand us a PO without scope. Sales was all over it but I quashed it until I finished the Scope. After discussing the project with everything involved, I sent a memo to our Sales staff to add another 50,000 to the cost for all the adders. (No one said anything about an RFID system until I asked how they were going to log data.)

A little disclaimer I add at the end of the Scope Letter.

This letter now documents the responsibilities of the Machine builder. Any changes to the process at this point will need to be covered under a separate puchase order.

You'd be surprised how much more carefully people read that letter after I make them sign it.

TimR

I have seen Scope mentioned in other threads. Do you happen to have any examples of what one would look like? I may want to institute this at work. I also have been bitten by the "added after the fact" bug and would like to prevent (or at least minimize) this happening in the future.

 

[elevmike]

Bob,

It just dawned on me, the Kim-quote is likely in reference to her posing of the imfamous "photo"..A lot of people were offended..Yuck Yuck..

Anyway, the "letter of scope", is the part of the specification that discribes in detail exactly what the machine is and how it's to work.
A properly written specification will include the following sections:

1. Payment terms.
2. Project commencement and compleation dates.
3. Penalties for none compliance by either party.
4. Changes to the project, (change orders)
5. Propriatary information issues..(who owns what rights)
6. Scope of Work... (exactly what is the project, drawings, discription etc..)

The 1st 5 issues are pretty standard in most well written contracts. The last item (6) is for the guy building the machine/house/stadium whatever...