Deafening

I'm almost afraid to disturb the silence. It's so peaceful.

Things are still on shaky ground here work-wise. The new car was awarded to the plant in Michigan instead of Tennessee or Wisconsin. I lot of people around here cried because it went to a blue state, but those people are silly. Tennessee is a truck plant, Janesville is already closed and idled. Orion Michigan is a car plant (they're currently making Chevy Malibu overflow from Kansas City.) The choice was pretty obvious, and thank goodness it was.

Some people started acting very depressed after the announcement. I guess when you're faced with a shitty proposal and nothing, you hope for shitty. But man, would it have been a disaster. The Chevy Spark was originally supposed to be built in China, but the U.S. Government thought it would be politically incorrect to build a plant in another country when there are plants being shut down in the states. So they ordered GM to build that car on shore.

That car is cursed to fail. GM has repeatedly proven it can't compete in the small car market. In order to even have a shot they would have to build that car three shifts a day seven days a week. And they certainly wouldn't expand our staff. So somehow we would have to provide 11 more shifts per week of coverage with the same staff. In my particular role there are only four of us. That's almost three more eight hour shifts per week each of us would have to cover. Would you be happy if you suddenly had to work 24 more hours per week? Oh, and for less pay than you were getting a year ago. No thanks.

The rumor now is that Tennessee will be getting the new Cadillac Escalade, which is based on the platform that the truck currently being produced shares. There is also some talk of the pickup trucks from Shreveport being moved here when the Louisiana plant closes in 2012.