rob1960

Two milestones for me this week. Today is my 25th anniversary working for Ford at the huge Avon Lake Ohio truck plant. Wow! where did all that time go???? 5 more years (or less I hope) to go!! The other one is my '68 442 is 50 yrs old (11A build)this week! Boy that makes me feel real old!!! It sucks that it's wet & crappy around here right now so I can't take her out for a little birthday spanking!!!

35tac

Congratulations Rob on the two milestones. Warm weather coming but some rain.
Wayne

Koda

Good job, Rob. Now you are at the "25 years and I don't caaaaaaare!" stage of the career. Most big companies will never fire a 25 year man, just make him retire. So, if you ever get the desire to quit, you can tell off the jerk boss or butt-pat the hottie on the door line.

zeeke

Congrats. Around these parts we call that F/U time. You have enough time to where nothing matters. Nice feeling, doing your job stress free. Hopefully everything works out and you get to go on your terms in 5.

CRUZN 66

Congrats... Great accomplishment... Working in one place for long periods of time (especially 25 years) is becoming the non-norm... With a lot of companies using 401K pension type systems, fixed pensions are on there way out and therefore people don't feel they have a vested interest in the company and have no fear of moving from company to company... Again, great accomplishment and milestone...

rob1960

Thanks everyone!! Ford has been a great company to work for!!! I'm glad I'm at the other end. It's so sad that the union sold us out back during the recession. We now have a crappy 2-tier wage system(no resentment there!!), new hires don't get a defined pension like us but they get a 401k that Ford matches (my 401k is strictly voluntary with no company matching but it's doing awesome right now). We've had some rough times over the years, we've had almost as many plant managers as the S@%&#y Cleveland Browns have had quarterbacks! My plant was "closing" ever since I hired in but it's still here while many others have closed. We have over a 1000 people hitting 25 yrs seniority this year & the rumors are flying about some early buy-out offers coming, sign me up!!! If it wasn't for U-haul & the close relationship we've had with them for 50 yrs (Econoline vans & cab chassis that have only ever been built in Ohio) my plant would have closed years ago!! I have a great off-line build-up job on the F650/750 chassis line, U-haul is buying them from us for the first time because Ford brought them back from Mexico to my plant back in 2015. They just put another order in for 5000 F650s!! U-haul won't buy anything that's not built in the US, that's awesome!! I hope my pension is there for me when the time comes!! So many companies have screwed their employees you have to wonder but I'm not going to dwell on it, I'm just going to prepare as best as I can!