The Great Bourbon Resignation...

[dcbt]

https://vinepair.com/articles/bourbon-great-resignation/

[flahute]

Very informative - thanks for posting!

[Anwalt]

Appreciate the link.

 

Informative, insofar as it goes.  Marred by the excessive virtue signaling and emphasis on Woke causes, as opposed to merely reporting a larger trend that affects us all.   Plenty of white guys have quit/moved, but we can't mention too many of them, wouldn't fit the agenda.  Sad to see something as straight-forward as a drinking magazine corrupted in such a fashion.

[smokinjoe]

2 hours ago, Anwalt said:

Appreciate the link.

 

Informative, insofar as it goes.  Marred by the excessive virtue signaling and emphasis on Woke causes, as opposed to merely reporting a larger trend that affects us all.   Plenty of white guys have quit/moved, but we can't mention too many of them, wouldn't fit the agenda.  Sad to see something as straight-forward as a drinking magazine corrupted in such a fashion.

Agreed. 
There are so many holes in the stories of all of these poor poor whiskey people who are so abused that they feel they must step out, that if it were a boat it would have sunk before the ink of this story dried.  Not one mentions it (they never do), but they all are chasing the almighty dollar.  Which is great!  But, stop with the poor poor pitiful me shtick, and own up to the real reason.  
And, if anyone of them thinks Venture Capital groups are the solutions to the daily grind of their jobs, they are in for a rude awakening.  The stress, expectation of results, constant monitoring, and measurement, will make their time at the big boy distilleries look like a walk in the park.  

[Anwalt]

34 minutes ago, smokinjoe said:

There are so many holes in the stories of all of these poor poor whiskey people who are so abused that they feel they must step out, that if it were a boat it would have sunk before the ink of this story dried.  Not one mentions it (they never do), but they all are chasing the almighty dollar.  Which is great!  But, stop with the poor poor pitiful me shtick, and own up to the real reason.  
And, if anyone of them thinks Venture Capital groups are the solutions to the daily grind of their jobs, they are in for a rude awakening.  The stress, expectation of results, constant monitoring, and measurement, will make their time at the big boy distilleries look like a walk in the park.

 

Yup.  Anytime there is more than one person in the room, there will be politics and "human issues".  Going from corporate to start-up is just trading a known poison for an unknown one in most cases.  I wish all entrepreneurs luck.  Especially the new ones.  They'll need it.

 

I wonder what % of these new bourbon ventures will end up producing something superior to what the old corporate masters are making.

[Richnimrod]

1 hour ago, Anwalt said:

 

Yup.  Anytime there is more than one person in the room, there will be politics and "human issues".  Going from corporate to start-up is just trading a known poison for an unknown one in most cases.  I wish all entrepreneurs luck.  Especially the new ones.  They'll need it.

 

I wonder what % of these new bourbon ventures will end up producing something superior to what the old corporate masters are making.

 

Also: YUP!    If you wanted to hedge your retirement funds with a very-nearly-sure-thing, try to find somebody to bet that more than a scant few of these folx will find enough success for a long enough time to make even 'par distillate' (forget superior!), let alone age enough of it to maturity in order to mix and blend enough of the best of it to make even a local-distribution amount that approaches the quality of the majors... and don't even talk about the PQR.   Will there be the odd batch of nice stuff?   Possibly; maybe even probably.   Will they make good enough stuff to get the 'big bux offer' and cash out?   Given the tater-quotient, it's certainly possible some will.   But, that monetary success doesn't equate to "superior to what the old corporate masters are making".    Not gonna happen!

[Harry in WashDC]

16 hours ago, Anwalt said:

Appreciate the link.

 

Informative, insofar as it goes.  Marred by the excessive virtue signaling and emphasis on Woke causes, as opposed to merely reporting a larger trend that affects us all.   Plenty of white guys have quit/moved, but we can't mention too many of them, wouldn't fit the agenda.  Sad to see something as straight-forward as a drinking magazine corrupted in such a fashion.

I read through the thread before posting.   A lot of the quotes sounded really familiar - echoes of comments I made and contemporaries made to each other BUT ONLY to each other as we approached retirement age/opportunities.  No sense provoking MGT by making our thoughts known prior to actually pulling the plug.

 

 

[Anwalt]

8 hours ago, Harry in WashDC said:

I read through the thread before posting.   A lot of the quotes sounded really familiar - echoes of comments I made and contemporaries made to each other BUT ONLY to each other as we approached retirement age/opportunities.  No sense provoking MGT by making our thoughts known prior to actually pulling the plug.

 

All the right people are silenced.  Disagreeing with the present orthodoxy means loss of income, retirement and perhaps worse.  Especially in government, but increasingly in the larger corporations.  Thank God I have my own thing and that part of my brand is my not-left-wing politics.  Makes me harder to cancel.  

 

If larger companies are guilty of racism, sexism, etc. (and they are), it's in the opposite direction of what the article depicted.  Indeed, it is open policy.  Making the article and its authors less than credible.  Indeed, the article mentioned a predictable and predicted consequence of such sanctioned racism, sexism, etc:  People who belong to favored classes and receive employment or promotion are often thought to have been...favored.  And not promoted or hired due to their actual ability.  Duh.  PS:  I am officially an oppressed minority.  But look like (and evidently act) like an evil, white, Y-chromosome person.  So I get to sit on both sides of the table and listen to what each "side" has to say about the other.  Big fun and highly revealing.

 

Most people do not announce their departure before leaving, except to give minimum notice.  The downsides are too great.  Ditto suggestions for improvement in all too many company cultures, especially large, bureaucratic cultures.  There is little loyalty between employer and employee in the American workplace.  That trend accelerated as American companies outsourced en masse.  Workers returned the favor.  And now the mores (lack thereof) of the younger generation (silent quitting, half-assed performance, subsidies from Mummy & Dada, etc.), and the new political orthodoxy (Be Woke or Be Quiet) are throwing gasoline on the fire.

 

Exception to the above:  Most union shops.  Those people have never had any loyalty to begin with.  I worked with/against US and German unions to a limited extent.  What I saw:  American unions (and especially UAW and anything State-run) want lots of money and to work very little/no accountability.  German unions want excellent pay - and they'll work for it.  Big, big cultural difference.  And big, big difference in results, see, German export machine.

 

I remember being a law-school IR intern in a large, midwestern UAW factory where workers were quite well paid, circa 1994.  At 2 pm the workers (I use the term loosely) sat at the tables and played cards until 5 pm.  I inquired about that.  They told me "they made their piece rate".  Having grown up in Youngstown, I knew the game.  I said "Lemmie guess.  When negotiating the piece rate, everyone worked really, really slowly - or else they got "talked to" in the parking lot.  Right?".  Dead silence and stony stares.  Those guys deserved to have their jobs outsourced.  Everyone else, not so sure.

 

Like the Woke movement, the roots of American union power and attitude (destructive anger, envy) are political.  Ditto, to a large degree, the proclivity for large bureaucracies run by "experts", HR, etc. And not to put too fine a point on it:  They share the same political source.

 

I also remember a brief stint in a German factory to make some money to get over to France & Spain.  Totally different mentality.  Those guys were well paid.  But they worked for it.  No sitting around 5/8's of the way through a shift - oh hell no.  Culture matters.

 

What a world we live in.  We have more plenty that would even have been imaginable not long ago, for which I am seriously grateful.  But sadly, unearned wealth often spoils the recipients.

 

 

Edited September 28, 2022 by Anwalt

[PhantomLamb]

Just being honest, how many of us are going to have a job as cool as the majority of these people?  Anyone can complain and woe is me.  If you don't like it, just leave.  Don't make a soap opera out of your departure.

[fishnbowljoe]

Wow @Anwalt.  Your post brought back some memories. A good friend of mine graduated from high school in 1972. This was two years ahead of me. This was in the Indianapolis area. He got a job with a company that made auto parts for Ford. In 1974, he was driving a brand new Ford Mach I Mustang. A couple of us went to visit him one evening at his job. Yeah, things were that lax back then. We asked at a front desk where to visit him and we were directed to the lunchroom. It was like a bar without the booze. Some guys were reading books or newspapers, others were playing cards and smoking cigars and cigarettes. Smoke hung in the air. We found our friend and mentioned we didn’t want to interrupt his lunch. He laughed and said, “What lunch? We’re done for the day.”  Then he explained to us what you mentioned in your post above. They’d turn up the speed on the conveyors for their assembly lines and bust ass for around half the day. Once they hit their quota, it was off to the lunch room. Here’s a spin on that. Just before holidays, they’d alter things slightly. They’d work a little longer, or slow the conveyor speed back down almost all the way and work all day. They’d come in slightly above their quota and get a little bonus on their paychecks. I asked why they didn’t try and get bonuses all the time. I was young and not so smart back then. My friend answered, “We don’t want them to raise the rate.” Indy was a mecca of manufacturing back then. I had friends that worked for Ford, GM and Chrysler. Ford was the worst. My god parents worked on the east side and I’d visit them often. Right near their house was a large RCA plant where my father worked in security. That whole east side area was like murderers row back then. Ford, Chrysler, Western Electric, Wonder Bread, RCA and others. Sadly, the last time I was there, it looked like death row.  

[Anwalt]

13 minutes ago, fishnbowljoe said:

Wow @Anwalt.  Your post brought back some memories.

 

Yup, it was the same growing up in Youngstown.

 

I remember a neighbor who worked at the GM Lordstown plant.  He used to brag about when he was angry, he'd leave lunch inside the door to rot.  Or nuts & bolts to rattle.  He wondered why so many "traitors" switched to Hondas.  He bragged about strike pay.  He bragged about pay when he was laid off.  Until the pay stopped and the layoff didn't.  The, suddenly, woe was him.

 

His neighbor "worked" at a steel plant.  He checked a gauge twice a night and set two alarm clocks to wake him up to do it.  Shocked when the steel plant shut down.

 

A sibling's first job was (briefly, thank God) with the Ohio Attorney General. He was quickly told to knock off the "bright-eyed & bushy-tailed young gun" thing.  You see, he was making others look bad.

 

I know what those people are about.  Most of the good ones get out. Or keep their mouths shut and their heads down and sometimes become "less good" in the process.

 

Unions once served a purpose.  The pendulum has swung much too far in the other direction and the piper came looking to be paid.  The piper is still owed, see "government unions".