9 months is a long wait.

nilagin

nilagin

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Nothing to do with pregnancy.:)

Back in October last year Ford announced they were closing two plants in the UK as part of their European cutbacks. This included the tool room and press shop where I've worked for just short of 34 years (inc. apprenticeship). Although redundancy and early retirement programmes were offered. Ford have promised jobs for anyone wishing to stay. I'd decided to stay along with quite a few others and it transpired that too many toolmakers wanted to stay on, 48 too many to be exact. The surplus will be placed in the Dagenham Engine Plant on production lines until as such time suitable skilled positions become available. As we're press toolmakers we'll be the last of that trade within Ford UK and for any other skilled jobs would need retraining.
On Tuesday they handed out letters with the job offers, needless to say, there were some bitterly disappointed people asked to report to the production lines, after their 3 weeks shut down.
However 40 people, myself included, didn't receive a letter because some positions were still waiting to be signed off by higher management in America.
Yesterday afternoon, I got my letter. On the 26th July I cease to be a toolmaker and on the 29th I start retraining as a Prototype Mechanic at Ford's Research and Development Centre (50 year old apprentice:lol:). I'm over the moon, feel like I've won the lottery and can't wait, but still feel for those who still feel their lives are hanging in the balance with just a glimpse of a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.
 
Congrats on keeping a job, even if it is in a different area of expertise!

IIRC, not much toolmaking has been happening recently anyway - you must be an expert tea brewer by now!

Hope the prototyping is interesting.
 
Prototype Mechanic sounds pretty cool!!! No wonder you're so happy!
 
Nod said:
Congrats on keeping a job, even if it is in a different area of expertise!

IIRC, not much toolmaking has been happening recently anyway - you must be an expert tea brewer by now!

Hope the prototyping is interesting.
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Thanks.
I don't drink tea (or coffee) so the others can make their own.:lol:
There's still a few companies offering toolmaking jobs but they are further away, less money and not really specialised in the stuff I've been doing for so long now.
At least this way, after a hopefully short retraining period, I'll be on the same money and the pension pot will carry on increasing.:thumbs:
Last bit of toolmaking I did was about 3 months or more ago now.
Past two weeks have been spent watching anything up to four films on DVD per shift. Even that's got boring now. Glad the sun is out and we can sneak onto the old boilerhouse roof for some sunbathing.:thumbs:
 
Russ77 said:
Prototype Mechanic sounds pretty cool!!! No wonder you're so happy!
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It probably sounds better than it really is, normal car mechanic work I should imagine except it will be on prototype/test cars instead.
I didn't fancy 3 shift work which would have placed me in the Engine plant at Dagenham, and Dunton was the only place left and for me the better option. Travelling distance is roughly the same, but now I just have to drive straight down the A127 instead of through the back roads and lanes to Dagenham.:thumbs:
 
nilagin said:
toolmaking
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What my dad did his entire working life, after conscription, although the last 20 years or so were tooling design & drafting for an aerospace defence company, rather than playing with lathes, milling machines and so on.

Before he worked for them I remember as a child being taken to the industrial unit on Slough trading estate on a Saturday morning where his previous job was and being massively impressed by this thing with lots of illuminated coloured buttons (it was a spark eroder, one of only two in Slough in the 1970s, apparently). That company did a lot of injection moulding tooling, I was the only one in my class at primary school that knew what injection moulding or lost wax casting was (unsurprisingly, in retrospect).



Congrats on your new position and all the best for the future :thumbs:
 
Sounds like you totally deserve your new job 34yrs is a long time and maybe this is your payment for the loyalty .... Congrats and good luck
 
Sounds like excellent news to me, I hope it all goes well for you.
 
Glad to hear it all worked out for you, and going to Dunton as well, hope you enjoy it.

I was talking to someone the other week who lost his job at Aveley and ended up at Dunton.

His take on the process was that Ford had been a bit less than caring when it came to sorting out the needs and wants of their surplus to requirements workers.

Don't forget to let us know if you see anything "interesting" at work:D

D
 
That's it, all finished at Dagenham today with a barbeque at the plant for everyone to say their goodbyes. Hopefully 3 weeks of sun now before my new job starts. They won't know what's hit them, there will be 120 of us all turning up at the same time, all told to meet up in the main foyer.
Past couple of weeks have been very strange, what was a noisy, busy press shop has been eerily silent. Not sure where everyone was hiding but hardly saw anyone from one day to the next.
 
Congratulations.....You must be well chuffed, and understandably so!
 
Nice one. I'm well pleased for you.
 
One 16 YO apprentice was bad enough - 120 "mature" apprentices sounds like a nightmare!!

All the best in the new position and I hope the weather holds enough for your 3 weeks off.
 
Thanks. For a company to close a plant but still promise jobs for anyone not wishing to leave in the current economic climate is very lucky indeed. There must be over 300 from the whole plant that had decided to stay. I'm even more fortunate that I was placed into another skilled position and remain on same shift pattern so money will be the same unless there is extra allowances that go with the new role. Up until a week ago over 50 people skilled workmates were looking at production line jobs, but new skilled roles have been found for them, so everyone is more or less happy apart from a few not getting shift patterns they wanted etc. When we start our new jobs in 3 weeks time, we then have a 4 week period in which we can still change our minds and take the redundancy if we want. A few people moan about the company, but you can't ask for better than that.
 
Started at my new location on Monday. After a couple of days of inductions and tours around the place, yesterday I was finally told what my new job will be as a Prototype Mechanic. I'll be working on the prototype engine test dynos. Setting up the engines on the dyno, plugging in all the fuel, coolant and exhaust as well as the monitoring sensors, then start and monitor then engine systems from a bank of 4 interlinked computers, tweaking the engine maps to test run the engines to different parameters. All the information on the four computer screens looks quite daunting at the moment but hopefully I'll soon get the hang of it. Bonus is, once training is done, because it is a multi-skilled job I will get a 5% pay rise compared to what I was earning in my previous role.
 
nilagin said:
Started at my new location on Monday. After a couple of days of inductions and tours around the place, yesterday I was finally told what my new job will be as a Prototype Mechanic. I'll be working on the prototype engine test dynos. Setting up the engines on the dyno, plugging in all the fuel, coolant and exhaust as well as the monitoring sensors, then start and monitor then engine systems from a bank of 4 interlinked computers, tweaking the engine maps to test run the engines to different parameters. All the information on the four computer screens looks quite daunting at the moment but hopefully I'll soon get the hang of it. Bonus is, once training is done, because it is a multi-skilled job I will get a 5% pay rise compared to what I was earning in my previous role.
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Sounds like Christmas came early for you!!!

Even though I'm not a mechanic by any stretch of the imagination, the analysis side would be awesome!!
 
Russ77 said:
Sounds like Christmas came early for you!!!

Even though I'm not a mechanic by any stretch of the imagination, the analysis side would be awesome!!
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Christmas came early when I found out about 6 weeks ago I was coming to this location as I didn't really want to go to the only other location available.
I reckon this job is next years Christmas come early.:lol:

As I'm into cars, I'm in heaven, Dunton is where Ford test their future models, the place is full of test cars, some will be current cars testing new engines or components, some will be new future vehicles, lots of Mk5 Mondeos about due for launch in 2015. Plus because some of the testing facilities are the only ones in the country, other companies will pay to use them, apparently McLaren were testing one of their road cars in one of the labs a few weeks ago. We were shown some photos of some future cars the other day, one is a facelift of a current car which is due next year, the other was a new model of a current car which will come out in 2015, the car looks drop dead gorgeous, way better than what the motoring press thought it may look like. Can't say what it is though as Ford haven't officially announced it yet.
 
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