Would you work on a manucfactoring assembly line for double your current salary? (money, fired)
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Oh God, the worst job I ever had in my life was when I worked on an assembly line when I was about 19. It did pay twice what I was making anywhere else, but after 3 weeks I couldn't take it any more. I would sit and parts would come down a conveyor belt to me and I would put a rivet in the hole and step on a pedal to secure the rivet into the part, then I would put the part back on the belt for the next person in line to do their thing,
I would do what seemed like a thousand rivets and when I would look at my watch 5 minutes had passed. The night went so slow it was absolutely painful to work there. But there were people on that line who had been there for 20 years and they were whistling while they worked !
Nope, no amount of money could get me to ever work on an assembly line again.
Don
I suspect most of these folks have never done the work. There's a reason these jobs used to pay so much. They suck! I recall one job I had when working at a plant. I had to hammer a screw driver into a plastic component to make a notch. Sometimes the plastic would move because they were too cheap to make a fixture, although it was a short run job. Of course, if you miss the screw driver you'd whack your hand.
Another one... I had to feed thin formed rubber into a machine and step on a peddle. The machine would trim the material into short parts. If your finger got in the way when you fed the material, it would cut a finger off with no problem. Had to apply adhesive tape strips on finished goods for 3 days.
Ha, I worked the extruders for awhile. Long rolls of material that you had to fetch with the forklift. You'd feed the material in the machine. If it got tangled up while it was running, you'd have to untangle the mess. Absolute pain in the behind. Not really an assembly line job, but very repetitive just the same.
These days, those type of jobs go to illegal immigrants for minimum wage. I feel terrible for them, and most of them are able to collect food stamp cards. Sick what this country is becoming. There is a slave class that is alive and well, and our tax dollars are making them whole. Kick the illegals out and you would have more opportunities for Americans. Nobody is silly enough to do that work for bread crumbs.
No, I have actually been to plants as I have worked for manufacturers, and it is definitely NOT something I want to do.
The plants are loud, dirty, smelly, potentially dangerous, and in an isolated industrial area.
I currently work in a skyscraper in downtown. I sit in a nice, climate controlled office. I have a flexible schedule where I can work from home sometimes. My job is pretty cushy, I would not give it up to work in a manufacturing environment even if it means double the pay. A big part of the reason why I say no is because what type of assembly line manufacturing job would pay 6 figures anyways? Highly unrealistic.
Would depend on the manufacturing plant. If I got to hand assemble engines for Ferrari, yes. Your stereotypical assembly line job that's menial, physically demanding, hot, sweaty, dirty, injury prone? Not so likely.
My wife and I are incorrigible wanderers. Very experienced in education, she gets the anchor job before we move, and I just paw and scratch for whatever I can get until my 'real' job comes along. I worked on a few lines. A decorative tile manufacturing plant, an airplane parts refinishing factory and the one that still supplies me with laughs today ~ A cracker factory! They were all mindnumbingly horrific, but the cracker factory(Rutland Vermont )was the worst!!. After a few weeks picking up crackers and dropping them into chutes for bagging/boxing the supervisor asked me if I knew how to drive a fork lift after the driver walked off, so I said "yes", even though I've never even sat on one, just to get off the line. I explained the last one I drove was a little different, so Ill need a minute or two to get used to the controls, ha ha! I hit the ceiling with dough vats a few times and dust rained down like snow ooOO0ps About a year later, we were flying to South Carolina, and as a snack they passed out the crackers from where I worked, we had a little laugh, I joked that the dust enhanced the flavor, he he he
So, Ive worked an assembly line a few time out of necessity and it was bad, body parts hurt ~ but I knew it wasnt a career, it would be over with eventually. I don't know if I could do it for too long regardless of money.
I suspect most of these folks have never done the work. There's a reason these jobs used to pay so much. They suck! I recall one job I had when working at a plant. I had to hammer a screw driver into a plastic component to make a notch. Sometimes the plastic would move because they were too cheap to make a fixture, although it was a short run job. Of course, if you miss the screw driver you'd whack your hand.
Another one... I had to feed thin formed rubber into a machine and step on a peddle. The machine would trim the material into short parts. If your finger got in the way when you fed the material, it would cut a finger off with no problem. Had to apply adhesive tape strips on finished goods for 3 days.
Ha, I worked the extruders for awhile. Long rolls of material that you had to fetch with the forklift. You'd feed the material in the machine. If it got tangled up while it was running, you'd have to untangle the mess. Absolute pain in the behind. Not really an assembly line job, but very repetitive just the same.
These days, those type of jobs go to illegal immigrants for minimum wage. I feel terrible for them, and most of them are able to collect food stamp cards. Sick what this country is becoming. There is a slave class that is alive and well, and our tax dollars are making them whole. Kick the illegals out and you would have more opportunities for Americans. Nobody is silly enough to do that work for bread crumbs.
Agreed, I have worked in 2 factories in my life, and will do everything in my power to avoid ever working in one again. It is almost like a cult how many people who post on here believe that all of our ancestors worked in a factory, yet they have no idea what the job is like, nor do they know the truth, that in some areas there have never really even been factories to provide jobs.
Fact is the biggest problem in the United States is two fold, you have unions destroying the very jobs they are meant to protect, and illegals taking the jobs that are available for dirt cheap prices, meanwhile the American worker is stuck working service jobs trying to figure out where it all went wrong.
Unions and their leaders got greedy, politicians are busy trying to always get reelected, and the people are too busy trying to get by to pay attention to what is going on. Corporations and the people running them are no different then they have always been, in fact they may be better now then ever, but there is no longer competition for the employees (partially due to employees demanding great benefits and refusing to work for smaller businesses), and you have our leaders bending over backwards to help them to get the contributions to be reelected.
No 3am phone calls... no weekends... no responsibility after leaving the facility? Yeah, that's like double the pay for an exponential quality of life upgrade.
Unions and their leaders got greedy, politicians are busy trying to always get reelected, and the people are too busy trying to get by to pay attention to what is going on. Corporations and the people running them are no different then they have always been, in fact they may be better now then ever, but there is no longer competition for the employees (partially due to employees demanding great benefits and refusing to work for smaller businesses), and you have our leaders bending over backwards to help them to get the contributions to be reelected.
Perhaps you have heard the saying... Not sure exactly how it goes. Something like, every pushy company gets an even more pushy union. Many, many decades ago, unions fought because of working conditions and unreasonable demands, all for little pay. Well, unions didn't stop pushing after they corrected these problems.
Unions seized the opportunity several decades ago to force their companies into total submission. Yes, they were greedy. Corporations followed by exporting those jobs, thus destroying the union's bargaining power. Corporations also have their own interests, and some of them are ruthless in their pursuit. Nature of the business.
As of late, most unions have been on the defensive. Most willingly backed down by agreeing to concessions. When they don't agree to these concessions, all folks can do is talk about those unreasonable greedy unions. Folks need to take a closer look.
The UAW fought back around 2008. The company wanted their workers to work for $13. These were jobs paying over $20/hr. A pay cut was not out of the question, but the company was pushing too hard, and behaving greedily in my opinion. They knew all they had to do was force the union to fight, and then they could simply send all the jobs to Mexico while laying all the blame on the union workers.
Same thing with the twinkie makers at Hostess. Work for $12/hr, after ALREADY agreeing to concessions the year before, or we're going to kill your jobs and blame you for it. And that's exactly what happened. Product line was sold off, and the workers were blamed for defending what little remained of their paychecks. Many heartless conservative hard a good laugh and that was the end of it. If the boss came to you and demanded that you work for 50% of your current wage/salary, would you be a but PO'ed? I know I would have something to say about it.
lets not be too hard on working in a plant, somebody have to do it . manufacturing is still an important part of our economy and some of the things we use to make our life a little easier are made by people on an assembly line. places like china and mexico will love to have these jobs. I know the working environment is not ideal in some of the old plants but many are automated these days and all have to meet OSHA standards. I know a few people with college degrees doing assembly work in a plant because they cant find work in their field.
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ooOO0ps About a year later, we were flying to South Carolina, and as a snack they passed out the crackers from where I worked, we had a little laugh, I joked that the dust enhanced the flavor, he he he 
