An Economists View of Model Railway Exhibitions

[Dava]

2 hours ago, J. S. Bach said:

NYC?

 

Baltimore & Ohio K16a, Pennsy had quite similar switchers, I don’t know about NYC

[Andy Hayter]

3 hours ago, Bon Accord said:

 

An very good friend of mine went to the Exploration/Production arm of a household name UK oil company upon gaining his MEng and stayed there, company man and all that as was his father before in the same outfit, albeit different branch. My friend's specialisation was/is Rotating Machinery, e.g. everything from Gas Turbines to pumps and he was based in the office ashore as the engineering manager responsible for a few platforms.

However in the years just before the 2015 crash when production was everything and they were making money hand over fist, there was all manner of seriously dodgy things being done and shortcuts being made just to keep production going, this in the North Sea.

For those final few years he actually kept a typed up resignation letter in his desk drawer at all times - just needing to be signed and dated - for when the day came when they wanted him to really throw away his professional scruples to sign something off as being fit and he finally said "enough". He was generally always able to talk his colleagues and those above out of doing something that would push him to that line. That automatically made him "not a team player". As you'll know you could lay on the oil industry BS with a trowel at that time, it was so thick.

I don't know how many times I told him to get out of there - as did others - but he stuck it out as he'd never been anywhere else, e.g. the oil industry version of Stockholm Syndrome.

Post price crash there was suddenly little money coming in but with an enormous maintenance backlog and no money set aside from the good days to pay for it.  At that point things started going really downhill. Aside from questionable operational decisions, breakdowns etc changed the job into a 7 day a week affair with silly hours and people were simply expected to get on with it or leave. The BS was still so thick waders were required with everyone being constantly told that things were amazing, what a great place to work etc.

Cue a round of redundancies and he knew his card would be marked as he was one of those who wasn't afraid to speak up when the need arose. Right enough he got his papers - over a years pay - and I doubt I've seen him happier.

A real company man through and through, who for years always went the extra mile out of company loyalty, yet he was destroyed by the toxic working environment so prevalent today.

Still, he's happy; started his own little company and does consultant/ad hoc work now for various firms, works when he wants and of course is happy to do extra hours when the need arises; difference these days is that he simply sends them the bill afterwards.

His hobby is also engineering, in his case road steam; he owns two traction engines.

 

I think you just proved my point.  Right guy.  Wrong job.  It happens a lot.

[Bon Accord]

2 hours ago, Andy Hayter said:

 

I think you just proved my point.  Right guy.  Wrong job.  It happens a lot.

 

My point was rather that he was very much the right man in the right job.

 

[J. S. Bach]

5 hours ago, Dava said:

Baltimore & Ohio K16a, Pennsy had quite similar switchers, I don’t know about NYC

Shame on me, I should have recognized a B&O class I-5 cabin car!

 

A variant of the K class of which only four prototypes were built:

 

 

Two operated in Baltimore, the other two in either Philadelphia or the New York City docks. However it seems like several million (in all the scales) were built: "They're everywhere, they're everywhere!'

 

BTW, it is headed to the rip track, note the bent running board.

 

 

[Michael Hodgson]

20 hours ago, C126 said:

@Reorte I quite agree happiness over-rides all in employment,

I'm not so sure that many of those who are doing two jobs but still having to use a food bank would share that view.

[C126]

9 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

I'm not so sure that many of those who are doing two jobs but still having to use a food bank would share that view.

 

Quite true.  I should qualify my statement with something like, "if you are lucky enough to have it".

[Dava]

15 hours ago, J. S. Bach said:

Shame on me, I should have recognized a B&O class I-5 cabin car!

 

A variant of the K class of which only four prototypes were built:

 

 

Two operated in Baltimore, the other two in either Philadelphia or the New York City docks. However it seems like several million (in all the scales) were built: "They're everywhere, they're everywhere!'

 

BTW, it is headed to the rip track, note the bent running board.

 

 

That’s a nicely weathered example, a KTM? I have a K16 as well, a Sunset model with a glossy paint job I couldn’t resist as a mate for the K16a tender loco. It was ‘new old stock’ (about 15 years) from a dealer in the US. It will be dirtied when I convert it to DCC. Here it is with its mate on my Coxheath Sidings microlayout (built in Canada). Nothing to do with economics except as shiny gold metal they may hold their value better than plastic.

 

Dava

[J. S. Bach]

3 minutes ago, Dava said:

That’s a nicely weathered example, a KTM? I have a K16 as well, a Sunset model with a glossy paint job I couldn’t resist as a mate for the K16a tender loco. It was ‘new old stock’ (about 15 years) from a dealer in the US. It will be dirtied when I convert it to DCC. Here it is with its mate on my Coxheath Sidings microlayout (built in Canada). Nothing to do with economics except as shiny gold metal they may hold their value better than plastic.

 

Dava

Yes US Hobbies/KTM. One of my two favorite B&O steamers; the other is an EM-1; 2-8-8-4. I remember a center-fold photo in Al Staufer's B&O POWER (I think) that showed triple-shotted EM-1s pounding up Sand Patch. I am no real steam fan but, oh, to have been trackside! Talk about heavy metal thunder!!!

[Dava]

I had a brief fantasy about buying an O scale dismantled brass ‘Big Boy’ which came up for offer last month. Logistics & costs of importing from US would have been daunting. Plus the challenges of rebuilding it. My wife asked ‘where would you run it?’, I couldn’t answer that. I found this converted K-Line Plymouth soon after, it’s more my kinda critter. 
 

[tomparryharry]

On 18/04/2023 at 18:30, 57xx said:

 

Indeed, completely the opposite of the real world I've been employed in for the last 30+ years.

 

I went to work, and for my time there. I gave 100% attention to any job I had. For that, I bought my house, which was the principal prize. My bosses all knew of my involvement with steam preservation, and most of them fully supported it. I had a complete use of our machine shop, and any work outside hours was ok. Some of my colleagues just signed in, work, and signed out; which was the sum total of their work experience. Many expressed astonishment of seeing  me working 'out of hours' on some project or other, but one senior manager said; "If he's in work, he's on call".  I didn't get away with murder, but I had a lot of fun 'stretching the envelope', and boy, did it get stretched....

 

It just depends on who you are and how your personality is wired.  Me? Twisted? I couldn't possibly comment. 

 

Finally, how to p!ss off a boss. Smile at them. Anytime you see them, just smile.  The recipient of the smile is normally caught up in their own little world, with all their problems, perceived or otherwise. To see someone smiling is out of character for them, whereas, they cannot.  It works. Believe me, it works.....

 

[johnofwessex]

1 hour ago, tomparryharry said:

 

I went to work, and for my time there. I gave 100% attention to any job I had. For that, I bought my house, which was the principal prize. My bosses all knew of my involvement with steam preservation, and most of them fully supported it. I had a complete use of our machine shop, and any work outside hours was ok. Some of my colleagues just signed in, work, and signed out; which was the sum total of their work experience. Many expressed astonishment of seeing  me working 'out of hours' on some project or other, but one senior manager said; "If he's in work, he's on call".  I didn't get away with murder, but I had a lot of fun 'stretching the envelope', and boy, did it get stretched....

 

It just depends on who you are and how your personality is wired.  Me? Twisted? I couldn't possibly comment. 

 

Finally, how to p!ss off a boss. Smile at them. Anytime you see them, just smile.  The recipient of the smile is normally caught up in their own little world, with all their problems, perceived or otherwise. To see someone smiling is out of character for them, whereas, they cannot.  It works. Believe me, it works.....

 

 

Presumably when you were doing whatever you were doing on steam work it must have helped develop you r skills so in fact your employer may well have benefited, clearly they were wise enough to realise this. 

[TheQ]

The only "group" which I worked for, where outside interests made a difference, was the RAF, aviation followed by sport was helpful to your career, especially if it was a sport supported by station teams.

Civilian companies generally weren't interested.

 

Over the years I found more and more corporate crap coming from above, often couched in a language no one understood. It was generally ignored by everyone in order to get the work done.

 

One complete xxxxx up by my last company that introduced a annual assessment system that was so complicated using unknown words, or words not meaning what they were using them for, they had to introduce a training course to get anyone to complete the forms.

 

Particularly irritating was mission statements,  notices all about team work and how the company had your career in mind. When you knew it was all BS trying to make you happy to work for ever lower pay in real terms.

 

As it was in the section of 5 people I last worked in , 

I do model railways. 

1 did live steam 3.5 inch.

3 of us sailed,

1 did non railway model engineering .

None of which was supported by the company nor were they interested.

 

 

 

 

Edited April 23, 2023 by TheQ

[tomparryharry]

2 hours ago, johnofwessex said:

 

Presumably when you were doing whatever you were doing on steam work it must have helped develop you r skills so in fact your employer may well have benefited, clearly they were wise enough to realise this. 

Well, it did happen to a degree.  One occasion was 'overner' whilst on rest day nights. The fitters bought in a broken bracket for a hydraulic ram. Being the only welder on the site, I proceeded to weld it up. After all, it was Quid Pro Quo. Who wouldn't?  One free period entailed running a foundry melt shop. I didn't want to, but there is was. Mucho kudos, 12 hours @ double time, and a rather big pat on the back. It wasn't being Super Good, just happening to be in the right place, at the right time. Other works staff completely outdid me.    One weekend saw some traction engine wheels in our shotblast room. Just over 6'6", and about 18" wide. Came up lovely, as well.....

[The Johnster]

3 hours ago, tomparryharry said:

 

I went to work, and for my time there. I gave 100% attention to any job I had. For that, I bought my house, which was the principal prize. My bosses all knew of my involvement with steam preservation, and most of them fully supported it. I had a complete use of our machine shop, and any work outside hours was ok. Some of my colleagues just signed in, work, and signed out; which was the sum total of their work experience. Many expressed astonishment of seeing  me working 'out of hours' on some project or other, but one senior manager said; "If he's in work, he's on call".  I didn't get away with murder, but I had a lot of fun 'stretching the envelope', and boy, did it get stretched....

 

It just depends on who you are and how your personality is wired.  Me? Twisted? I couldn't possibly comment. 

 

Finally, how to p!ss off a boss. Smile at them. Anytime you see them, just smile.  The recipient of the smile is normally caught up in their own little world, with all their problems, perceived or otherwise. To see someone smiling is out of character for them, whereas, they cannot.  It works. Believe me, it works.....

 

 

Good technique, Ian!

 

Another excellent way to piss off a boss is to realise you've done something horribly wrong, really horribly wrong, and then buttonhole him with a full and frank confession before he finds out.  They have no idea how to handle this situation, being geared for finding out you've done something terrible and coming at you all guns blazing, but 'since you're probably going to have to carry the can for this, or at least have to sort my mess out, I thought it was only right to give you a heads up'.  They gasp, gurble, go red in the face, white in the face, purple in the face then red again, jaws flapping, puffing and blowing.  Then they calm down, realise that they probably are going to have to carry the can and that you've actually done them a big favour in owning up to the error of your ways so that they can pre-empt the worst of the fallout and cover their own *rses, and nothing much else happens. 

 

When I was working for Royal Mail handling bags at Cardiff Central station in the late 80s, we worked to a loading plan for some trains, that pile goes there, including the 20.40 York TPO's sorted mail vans.  I managed to put a pile of bags for Leeds and distribution in the van for Carstairs and transfer, which would be transferred to the Euston-Glasgow TPO at Crewe.  You know that scene in the BTFU's 'NIght Mail' where the shunting takes place at Crewe at 01.00, and all the mail is transferred in barrows hauled by electric tugs?  It's like a kind of lovely choreographed ballet, everybody knowing their exact task and what at first appears to be confusion is finely tuned high precision expertise against the clock, as is all TPO work, with swingeing penalties to be paid by either party of the contract if anything is delayed, so delaying a TPO is a 'hanging offence'.  It was much the same in the late 80s, though the barrow and tugs were more modern looking. 

 

The thought of my error throwing this operation, actually a thing of very great beauty, into chaos and delaying mail for half of the UK was more than my conscience would stand, and, with the train on it's way to Newport, I 'fessed up.  Boss on duty that night was a highly unpleasant ex-Biker with a violent streak and a bit of an attitude on him, and he didn't like me much to start with; luckily he'd gone to seed and was carrying to much weight to catch me if I'd had to make a run for it, so I made my confession without letting him get between me and the office door...

 

He went through all the machinations described above, and at the purple stage looked as if a cardiac arrest was on the cards, then sent me away without further comment.  Then he reported it by phone to the shift supervisor down at the main office, and my name was being mentioned in connection with various comments (probably justified in the circumstances, it was a stupid mistake) about my competence, mental state, and parentage but 'at least he did the right thing telling me about it'.  There was some time to spare at Shrewsbury, where it was possible to correct my mistake, and the beautiful choreography at Crewe was unaffected.  I never heard any more about the incident, which would probably have got me my P45 if I'd tried to bluff it out!

[johnlambert]

As someone who manages a small team, I accept that mistakes will happen.  If people know they've made a mistake, I try to encourage them to be open about it, so we can fix it as quickly as possible.  If people keep making the same mistake, that's when I get concerned.  But my first instinct is to check that things are OK with the person.  If providing help and support don't stop the mistakes, that's when things have to get less friendly.

 

I'm never trying to catch my team out for making mistakes.  If I do find that they've made a mistake (as happened today), I'll bring it to their attention and remind them what they should have done.  My style isn't to give them the Alex Ferguson-style hairdryer treatment, at least not for a first or fairly inconsequential mistake.

 

Something that my employer tries to do, as far as possible, is ensure that people find their roles engaging and fulfilling.  It's not always going to be possible, but it's better to have satisfied staff than dis-satisfied people.  We're certainly not an organisation that expects people to give 110% to the business 25 hours a day, 8 days a week.