Last week was pretty tough. Our manufacturing plant in the Silicon Valley had been scheduled to be shut down for months. The production stopped the first week of October, our equipment was all moved to New Mexico or Korea the next week, and inventory and office workers were moved to a small office and warehouse in the final week while demolition, cleanup, and remodeling took place. I was one of the office workers who got moved, so it seemed like my position was safe for the time being, but apparently it was not.
I've been working as the production assistant for three and a half years at a factory that manufactured quartzware for the semiconductor industry. I entered all the sales orders, produced all the work orders, served as the ISO 9001 internal auditor, and got involved in the coordination of routine hazardous waste removal and the safety procedures committee. I also ordered all the supplies and tools for the plant. I picked up the phones and greeted visitors, and provided customer service at a high level. I had a really good idea of the cost of production because I spent a lot of time trying to clean up a really messy MRP system. In the end, our "overhead" was too high, so they decided to shut us down. Our product mix was unique and it will be challenging to satisfy customer requirements with the remaining plants, especially as orders were picking up at a pace I've not seen in quite awhile.
If I were President, I would provide some stimulus capital to our industry to upgrade our plants to be more efficient, and give some tax breaks to hire workers like machinists and glass-blowers, because our industry can supply the solar industry with quartzware, and that's the kind of green technology that our country should really be encouraging, to remain competitive in the 21st century and actually try to be self-sufficient.
Another thing I would do if I were President would be to make sure a decent public option passed through Congress. A lot of laid-off people like me really want to be entrepreneurs, and we really need an affordable public option to compete with the for-profit insurers, and the end of pre-existing conditions.
There are so many things I can think of that would really help out this economy, and I can't figure out why the President hasn't done more to directly pinpoint spending. I think we need a second stimulus to be passed right away, and we also need to avoid the mistake of the Great Depression - worrying about the deficit. It's not like anyone in power cared about the deficit when we started the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Why is this country so eager to buy weapons and oil but not to save its own people's lives and invest in self-sufficiency? I think an investigation into that question should remain a diary unto itself. Until next time, I'm signing out.