My management turned on me when I said I was voluntarily going to leave Ford. It’s like they were angry with me for leaving since they trained me. Anyone have a similar or not so similar experience?
9 replies (most recent on top)
I did the original post. Someone asked me, “What did I expect?” Another person talked about staying in touch with employees you liked to not staying in touch.
I left the company in 2004. Before I left, I had several years of consecutive O’s. I have an engineering master’s degree and was an ex-FCG. Well, once I said I was leaving I was told I was a “waste of skin” and would get the “sh-t assignments” in the mean time. I was trying to summarize what I was working on (so when I left my successors would know what to do) and literally had the documents thrown back at me. Also, some GSR’s were nice about it and others made several snarky comments. The whole exit experience was terrible. I will never set foot in that h**ho-e again.
Let me tell you. I didn’t bother staying any longer after that happened and I went home that day and never returned lol. Don’t feel bad for me though as I was leaving due to founding my own company and have since retired at age 44 after it sold. No tears shed here. Life is good post Ford.
I never treated any of my employees this terribly… good ones… bad ones… ones I had to let go due to performance issues… good ones that left that I was stressed over them leaving.
What advice do I give other entrepreneurs
looking to leave their day jobs? I tell them to be prepared as your management will turn on you, it can get ugly and make sure you have a plan. Never in a million years did I expect to be treated this way. I was completely caught off guard.
So what did I expect? Just to be allowed to work my final month, wrap up loose ends and not have an abusive work environment. I don’t expect to keep in touch or have a “warm fuzzy” relationship with management. How about some decency please? Good riddance.
I guess it is like any company you work for. You are going to have those people you worked for you did not like and then you have the ones you loved and enjoyed to work for and you keep in touch with them. After a while the ones you did not like you put it behind you and move on. Does not mean you send them a xmas card but you do not stay in touch with them. Some of us who worked at other OEMs still keep in touch with a few people across town.
Based on my experience and the experiences of others that I personally know, you are more likely to have a negative relationship, or no relationship, than a positive one. I'm older, so my sample size is reasonably large.
Probably Henry Ford III will remain on good terms. Unless, he turns up at GM or Stellantis.
https://www.motor1.com/news/514219/henry-fords-grandson-leaving-company/
OP. What exactly were you expecting?
Have observed a variety of responses to people leaving.
Good hearted well meaning managers will wish you well and be glad of your successes.
Mean spirited selfish managers will go out of their way to sabotage your future successes.
Others simply view you as a non-entity when you leave Ford.
A word of advice, NEVER tell your manager or coworkers where you are going, and don’t let them know where you are until you are firmly established. One Ford tool regularly sinks others future careers by finding out where prior subordinates work and then finding a way to “casually” meet the prior subordinates new managers and then conducts a whisper campaign to sink the prior subordinates career at their new employer. Yep he is a piece of work, and very skilled at manipulating others.
I mention this as these types of people are chameleons and people don’t always realize we go they really are at their core.
Second word of advice, block your supervisor, manager and most of your coworkers from seeing your social media accounts on LinkedIn and the like.
Now their are a few good hearted managers who will be happy for you, and even provide references for you despite the Ford policy against doing so. I am retired from Ford now, but still provide references for the stellar employees who left Ford.
We were forbidden to be references for teammates who were let go as part of downsizing
In my experience, no. Once you leave that final time you become an afterthought to the company regardless of remaining friends to your teammates. When you leave you usually get a rehire or no rehire mark on your file if you choose to come back.
I was part of the SRD in May 2019. I have had 2 jobs since then. (One was a sweat shop. It took 3 months for me to get a laptop and access to everything I needed. I was then put on-call for the remaining 9 months. I was primary 2/3 of the time and back-up the remaining 1/3 on mandatory 12 hour days. I walked away after my year contract was up. My current job is awesome.) Anyway, Ford has disavowed any acknowledgement of me working there so I had to use my W2s as proof of employment. I know they should at least verify I worked there but they haven't. Not sure what their policy is. I still keep in touch with 2 of my teammates, one of which was part of the SRD along side me.
I am guessing it depends on the manager. I know contractors that have left and come back, but I am also aware of a "checkmark" in the process for the people leaving the company about if they could be hired again.
Don't worry OP. If you were trained recently at Ford, you are a young person. The world is your oyster. Most probably you won't be coming back to Ford anyway.
Thanks