Loading…
14
Got a call Monday that the shop bought a CNC router and my whole crew is down to 2 guys by Friday
I do custom cabinet work in Modesto and Monday morning the owner pulls us together and says he put down $18,000 on a CNC router that cuts and drills cabinet parts on its own. By Friday he let go of 3 guys off a 5 man crew, and I'm one of the 2 left standing. The machine doesn't do installs or scribe fitting or any of the weird stuff you run into in an old house, so now I'm basically the guy who fixes what the robot can't, which sounds safe until you hear him talk about the next machine. I keep doing the math on $18,000 versus what he was paying us and it makes my stomach drop because the numbers aren't even close. The two of us left are running around like crazy trying to keep up and the boss keeps saying we'll get busier once he figures the machine out. I've got 11 months left on my truck note and no idea if I'm still here in the spring. Is anybody else watching their shop get smaller one machine at a time, and did you jump ship before it got you or ride it out?
1 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In1 Comment
shanef3425d ago
I mean, is the sky really falling though? Think about it, a CNC router at 18 grand is a pretty cheap machine (the decent ones for cabinet work run way more), so the boss isn't exactly rolling in spare cash to replace everybody. The machine can't do installs, can't scribe into crooked walls, can't handle the weird stuff in old houses (which in Modesto is basically every job you'll ever touch). Sounds less like you're getting replaced and more like your job just changed into the guy who cleans up what the robot screws up. Plus he kept 2 of you, not zero, and he's talking about getting busier, which usually means more work, not less. Thirteen years in cabinet shops and I've watched guys panic over every new tool that came through the door, and the panic was almost always worse than the actual layoff. I'd ride it out but keep your ear to the ground, no harm in that.
4