Loading…
8
Rant: my nephew in Dayton said he'd rather learn to run the robot than fight it, is he crazy or am I?
So my nephew (24, works at a warehouse out near Dayton) came by Sunday and we got into it about the new picker machines they're putting in. I said it's the start of them cutting his job. He goes, "Uncle Ray, somebody has to fix the thing when it jams, and they're paying for the class." That got me quiet for a minute.
On one side, I get it. Learn the machine, keep a paycheck, maybe move up. On the other side, feels like you're teaching the robot to replace you and the whole crew, just slower. And if the class is free now, what's it cost later?
I still think he's half wrong but I can't fully explain why. People who actually deal with this stuff, is learning to run the robots a real move or just a nicer way of getting shown the door?
1 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In1 Comment
dixon.james3d ago
Went through this same thing at a shop I worked at years back, and the guys who learned the new machines kept working while the guys who refused got let go first. But here's the catch, the company only trained a few of them, not the whole crew, so it wasn't really about saving jobs, it was about picking who stays. Tell your nephew to take the free class but keep his eyes open, because the class is worth something on his resume no matter what happens there. The real move is learning it and then being the guy who can run AND fix it, since that's harder to replace than either one alone. So he's not crazy, but he's not safe either, and a free class today usually means they need somebody cheap to do the job tomorrow.
10