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February 04th, 2010 Weblog, The Kings of TORTS, OF Sorts.

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Has Goliath gotten smaller? Perhaps.

"With the recent sale of GE Supply to Rexel one might imagine that the fight for basic human rights with the mighty Philistine could be a little easier.  However, I wouldn't take any bets on that at the moment."  Rob Delsman 08/06.

BACKGROUND

I have been in the employ of the General Electric Company (GE Supply) for over ten years now,  working out of my home, serving as an Automation Specialist.  Over the years I feel that I have made many significant contributions to the world at large.  I have participated in projects ranging from water pollution control efforts, making food and pharmaceutical manufacturing safer and more efficient, automating hazardous tasks that might otherwise place persons at risk, designed water and power control systems to increase reliability and availability add infinitum.

In August of 1991 I was injured while working in Kuwait for Westinghouse Electric Corporation.  I was tasked with the responsibility of implementing emergency repairs to the power grid in Kuwait and restoring power and water to the city.  No small task by any measure, but the satisfaction garnered by little children in the streets saying thank you when the power and water came back on was rewarding enough.  Not a huge monetary success either as I believe I was making about $3500 a month while I was there. 

FAST FORWARD

A few years ago I moved to Humboldt County California, home of some of the most beautiful and spectacular country in the world.  My reason for moving was twofold being, a fresh place to assist in technological development in new markets (OK, helping to expand the evil empire) and to live in a more temperate climate for health reasons. 

Shortly after moving to Humboldt I bought an airplane to travel around my territory to visit and assist customers.  I can currently travel to anywhere in my market, in my airplane in the time it took me to drive from Sacramento to Reno. 

All seemed roses until about a year ago when my manager "The Flower" (we will call him that for now) began his incessant pressure on me to make more and more money for the company. Notwithstanding that I was already an award winning, top performer in the automation community and GE Supply turning in double digit growth numbers almost every year, I explained to "The Flower" that I was running at top speed and that I couldn't work any harder without suffering adverse health effects and requested reasonable accommodation under the ADA (we can get into the specific requests later on). 

"The Flower" simply didn't care, he said his new boss "Pinocchio" (a pseudonym for now)  was placing him under tremendous pressure and I should quit so that he could hire someone younger and without medical issues. I recall having this conversation in a coffee shop in Reno, I was working from 4:00 am to 5:00 pm everyday, helping a customer close out a year end project (and no my customers don't get charged for my time, it's a benefit of buying things from me) I was ill, had no voice left and was eating poached eggs on toast at 2:00 in the afternoon.

Ok, so now it's between Thanksgiving and Christmas and I have had enough.  I have been in bed recovering from a surgery for about 3 weeks and this is the classic GE Supply situation: I am sick, but taking vacation time, while actually working.  Over the years, I have had to rest in bed and work at the same time and have made GE millions of dollars regardless.

So I give the GE Supply Ombudsperson a call in the attempt to fend off "the flower" and his incessant demands that I quit.  After about 15 minutes the nice Ombudsperson (let's call him Peter Rabbit) said he had a conference call and had to go.  Sometime later I received the reply to our telephone conversation as depicted below (1).

A CALL TO THE GE SUPPLY OMBUDSPERSON - FIRST CONTACT! AND ANSWER !!

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(1)

I have assigned case number case xxxx-xxxx.  Please call Brad Green, GE Supply Human Resources Manager, at 203 xxx xxx office or 860-xxx_xxxx cell to schedule a mutually convienient time to discuss this case.

 Here is a summary of the notes that I took during our discussion:

 Rob believes he is being discriminated becasuse of a disability.  Rob is a gulf war vet with 40% disability because of a broken neck in the Gulf War.  Rob also has Gulf War Syndrome, an endocrine system disfunction.  He beleives he is a top perfromer who makes all his numbers.  2 Yrs ago he moved to the coast (200 miles away from office), with the approval of his manager.  He has a pilots liscense which he uses to 'commute' between office, customers and home. 

His current manager, Scott Lafluer, wants him in the office 3 days per week to do training for other employees at the branch.  He believes this is part of an effort to get him to quit his job. 

 Thank you for calling, I will keep the case open until resolution.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Imagine that, I took a look at the email and my hopes of any meaningful interaction with the GE Supply Ombudsperson, well let's just say I was disappointed.

I mean after all, there is that simple little tool on the Outlook toolbar called "spell check", Green is actually spelled Greene, I am not a Gulf War Veteran and I don't use a pilots liscense to commute, I use my airplane or my car. 

CLARIFICATION HERE GUYS, IMPORTANT, READ THIS!!

 EMAIL CORRESPONDENCE

During that period of time, I received an Email from "Pinocchio" asking my opinion on our business relationship regarding another GE company, GE Fanuc.  In his Email, "Pinocchio" said that he had an upcoming meeting with the Fanuc VP of Sales and wanted some ammo for the conversation I was happy to oblige: 

 
ROB SENDS AN EMAIL TO "PINOCCHIO" (2)!!

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

(2)

Jim,

My most recent experience regarding Steve Szamocki was in regards to ASCO. You are probably aware of all this but if not here is what I know.

Background:

ASCO Stockton recently built a large Switchgear for Bank of America. During the fabrication of the equipment, an independent distributor told BoA that Field Control was an obsolete product (actually announced mature) and started one hell of a fray between ASCO and BoA. Ultimately it came back to haunt us at GES and involved pretty much clamming up on our part. Steve Szamocki from GEF assumed the lead role on behalf of GEF for resolution of the conflict and to basically resolve the situation. In my phone conversation with Steve some months ago regarding this issue, I was left with a sense that he was not blowing smoke and that there will be resolution.

Hope this helps, thanks for the card.

Best regards,

note, the blue lettering indicates a reply.  I know you already know that.

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"PINOCCHIO" REPLIES TO ROB AND OTHERS!! {watch out for that nose, or is it a Pool Cue.} (3)

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(3)

I pulsed the team re: GE Fanuc. . .I will bring these topics up to Steve Szamocki at the Leadership Meeting, but I wanted to copy you on the feedback:  

Sacramento

• "We have forced Asco to change from Logicmaster to Proficy due to the obsolescence of the CPU364. Also they will not use Field Control any longer as this product went to mature status and BofA will not accept. Since we are forcing Asco to change their entire software and hardware, we are opening up the possibility of them bidding this on Freemarkets which is what the Emerson sourcing group is attempting to do. We have been fighting this off, providing them with cost analysis and reasons this would not work. Hopefully we can hold them off, as Siemens has a big push at Emerson."

• "Obsoleted the CPU364, and the replacement CPU is the CPU374. There has been a product hold on this product and they will not be shipping until mid January. This has not been a good thing, as we have been trying to switch users to a product that is on hold and not available. This is also forcing anyone using Logicmaster to change to Proficy, which is not an easy task."

• "The phone system at Fanuc and customer care is extremely weak. When you call them you must have a "CSN" number to even talk to anyone. Even if you have this, you go through many prompts and almost always go to someone that cannot help you. This is probably the worst phone system of any vendor we have dealt with. When you finally get in contact with someone that can help, it takes forever for them to get an answer and respond."  

FYI. . .Bottom-line, the service, support and relationship seems to be heading in the wrong direction. Hope this helps. We need Fanuc and want to grow with them, but they aren't making it easy.

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ONE SIMPLE CALL TO THIS CUSTOMER - WILL TELL ALL!

"Well now", I said to myself, "Pinocchio" is spreading some MIGHTY FINE FERTILIZER, the kind that comes from Happy California Bulls!

After all I represented " GE Supply, Sacramento" to GE Fanuc and I could see where this was going in a hurry.  I sent the following Email back to "Pinocchio" and made my position clear.
 

ROB REPLIES TO "PINOCCHIO'S" EMAIL  (more really important stuff below) (4)

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(4)

Jim,

This is certainly NOT the case at ASCO and has no reflection of the previous email that I sent you.  I certainly DO NOT WANT Fanuc to think that this is a reflection of how I feel about our partnership.  Is this an attempt to damage my reputation with Fanuc, or reprisal for calling the Ombudsman last week?  I have made it clear that I will not lie to customers or submit false SPA's to the factory in order to get more margin for GES Sacramento.  Again, this and other issues certainly appear to me as punishment for doing what I believe is correct within the framework of the GE Integrity program.

I hope that I will hear from the Ombudsman soon as I am fearful of having further communication.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

SO I DECIDED TO SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT!!

The Black lettering is from "Pinocchio's" original email, the Blue lettering I inserted and sent back to "Pinocchio" (5)

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(5)

Sacramento

·          "We have forced Asco to change from Logicmaster to Proficy due to the obsolescence of the CPU364.  Fact: only on applications requiring a 374 CPU, a small percentage of ASCO components. Also they will not use Field Control any longer as this product went to mature status and BofA will not accept.   Fact: this is the result of an Independent distributor not Fanuc. Since we are forcing Asco to change their entire software and hardware, we are opening up the possibility of them bidding this on Freemarkets which is what the Emerson sourcing group is attempting to do. Fact: field control is about 25% of the hardware that ASCO uses, most of the rest is rack mounted IO. ASCO purchased Proficy (then Cimplicity Machine Edition) about four years ago we did not force them to do anything. ASCO brings up the freemarket crap whenever they get mad about GE Acquiring Zenith.   We have been fighting this off, providing them with cost analysis and reasons this would not work. Hopefully we can hold them off, as Siemens has a big push at Emerson."  Fact: we are not fighting some terrible battle here due to Fanuc. Recently Fanuc provided 40 FREE software keys to ASCO at Fanuc's expense.  The Fanuc folks both here and in NJ are doing an excellent job in assisting this valuable customer.

·          "Obsoleted the CPU364, and the replacement CPU is the CPU374. There has been a product hold on this product and they will not be shipping until mid January. This has not been a good thing, as we have been trying to switch users to a product that is on hold and not available. This is also forcing anyone using Logicmaster to change to Proficy, which is not an easy task."   Fact: only if you use a 374 cpu

·          "The phone system at Fanuc and customer care is extremely weak. When you call them you must have a "CSN" number to even talk to anyone. Even if you have this, you go through many prompts and almost always go to someone that cannot help you. This is probably the worst phone system of any vendor we have dealt with. When you finally get in contact with someone that can help, it takes forever for them to get an answer and respond."   Yes the phone system sucks. 

FYI. . .Bottom-line, the service, support and relationship seems to be heading in the wrong direction.    Hope this helps.   We need Fanuc and want to grow with them, but they aren't making it easy.

Jim

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IT WAS ALREADY TOO LATE, SOMETIMES YOU JUST DON'T SEE IT COMING!!
 

Undaunted I decided I should contact the GE Corporate Ombudsperson and seek assistance, I mean after all I was following the official GE Corporate procedure here.  Well the Corporate guy (no pet name necessary) simply sent my email back down the pipe to "Peter Rabbit". 

At that point I made arrangements to call the HR person, "Bradford the Educated" on the phone.  I thought it odd that the timing of the phone call had to be arranged almost to the minute, but whatever it takes to follow the "Spirit and the Letter" and the GE way (Oh yes, and for "Bradford the Educated" to get his tape recorder ready). 

Please go to story page 2

2 3 4 5 6  Epilogue   BLOG

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5/17/2007 Lots of things finally fixed - Hi, Ms. Paladin, glad to see you finally taking a look.