[RKDinOKC]

He was actually fired from the "family" business twice.

By half brother Tom married the founder's daughter and was the only son in law of only daughters active in the family business. My Dad worked at the company as a machinist before Tom married into it, but also refused any of the promotions he was offered. It wasn't because he felt like they were offering him the promotions because of my brother, it was because he hated the politics going on in management and wanted to just do his job and go home. Stayed working as machinist the rest of his life there. Sad because he could have easily worked up to being shop foreman and made a HECK of a lot more money.

For a few years in the early 70's Bob worked for Kimray when the company was also doing medical stuff. He built the kidney dialysis water bath they made. They had to let him go because he was not getting his hours in, showing up late, etc.

In the late 80's Bob came back to work at Kimray as a night shift machinist after failing at trying to be a free lance head hunter. He had worked at a big personnel company for years and thought he could do it on his own. He did a horrible job at Kimray. He only did 60% production on any of the jobs they put him on and was constantly complaining about the job, how things were being done, the management and how the company was being run. After 5 years of it Tom finally had to fired him.

Bob got grand kids and moved to Tulsa to be close to them and worked for Walmart so he could get discounts on sporting goods. He was fired from Walmart 2 weeks before he had worked there long enough to get company retirement benefits.

Kinda sucks because what he did at Kimray made me have to work even harder NOT look like I had the job just because I was family. When I worked night shift in the machine shop I did 110% production and was moved around a lot being put on the rush jobs because of it. There was one job I was running a machining center with two chucker machines and 8 drill presses and tapers that did all the machining on a valve body. One chucker would machine on end of the part, the other the other. During those machines cycle times you used the drills and taps to finish out the part. Was doing 110% of what time studies said was 100% production. The day shift had two people running that machining center and were only doing 85% production. When I got production caught up and was moved to a hotter job they had to put 2 people on it because one couldn't keep up the drilling and taping with the cycle time of the chuckers. Was really pissed when I found I was the lowest paid machinist on night shift.

Found out the night supervisor thought it was funny he was able to keep the president's brother from getting pay raises. Didn't run to my brother though. Thought that since the though it was funny I would have some of my own fun. Walked into his office at the beginning of a shift and said I wanted to talk about a raise...holding a shot gun. He turned white, looked very shocked, and excitedly said, "You got it." Then I looked down at the gun, looked at him laughed and said, "Oh I'm sorry. Me and a couple of guys are going quail hunting as soon as we get off and I didn't want to leave this in my Blazer with all the parking lot break in's we've been having. Can I keep this here," and set it in the corner of his office. Then I set down and discussed my pay and production numbers and how disappointed to find I was the lowest paid machinist and that I wonder what my brother would think of him if he found that out." He tried to give me some crap about how I was always goofing off. Which I am sure was the excuse he was officially giving them. Told him it didn't matter if I WAS goofing off if I was doing the highest production for a shift on any job they put me on and reminded him there are production records I can pull to prove it. Got a big raise and the normal raises everone else did after that. Arsehat zombishes.

That kind of BS is why my Dad didn't want to be any part of management. Nobody ever said anything to me, but I think it got around what I did. A couple of times after that I noticed the founder watching me work. One time he even came up and told me I was doing a great job and I could do that for him any time.