Surviving a Brutal Work Environment

I have experienced two mergers/joint ventures in my corporate career at Armstrong. The first one was a ceiling grid venture between Worthington Industries and Armstrong. It was extremely positive and productive and is still doing well to this day. The second one was a ceramic tile venture between Armstrong’s American Olean Tile and Dal-Tile, based out of Dallas Texas. This one didn’t go nearly as well. I learned many lessons from the Dal-Tile experience, mainly about my ability to survive.

When the “merger” was announced, I investigated other opportunities for my career, including a chance to go back to Thomasville Furniture as an assistant plant manager in Winston Salem, and an offer to do work at Armstrong’s corporate center. My recent experience with the Worthington and Armstrong joint venture was positive and I learned a lot at the beginning of the venture, so I thought I would see a similar approach to this combination of companies. Boy was I wrong.

Our Plant manager left us without saying a word. We only found out a week or so later he had gone to the Dal-Tile headquarters to prepare for the merger through a mysterious sounding voicemail. On the official first day of the merger, executives came to our plant and told the acting plant manager he had to fire five staff members by the end of the day.

I was the industrial engineering manager at the plant, and the only way I survived was that I was named as a supervisor. Dal-Tile only staffed their plants with plant managers, supervisors, and ceramics engineers. Any other staff was excess in their view.

I took the supervisory role because I was promised a job at the corporate headquarters in Dallas Texas. My favorite manager from American Olean would be my manager in Dal-Tile corporate. Even though things were challenging at the plant, I had something exciting to look forward to.

When I got to Dallas Texas, I found out we were in charge of assuring environmental, health, safety, and mining compliance across the entire company. There was a department responsible for this already. But they weren’t very helpful to the manufacturing and mining sites. The VP of operations put us in the middle of the plants and them.

We tried to work with the existing EHS and mining group, but they went to great lengths to avoid us. One time, my manager and I walked over to their offices to meet with them impromptu. Instead of meeting with us, they locked their offices and refused to talk with us. What a culture!

Another thing Dal-Tile was proud of was their firing practices. The employee manual started off with a paragraph explaining that Texas was an “at-will” state, which meant they could fire you at any moment, with or without justification. This was on the first page of the manual! I met many people who had been fired and then re-hired and then fired again. Amazing.

I knew the only way I was going to survive this brutal culture was to make myself as valuable and helpful as possible. I took every assignment, put in outrageous hours, and traveled at the drop of a hat, to support any of our twelve manufacturing facilities and multiple mining sites.

I had good relationships with the plant staff. Once they got to know me, they trusted me. They didn’t trust the EHS and mining group, that was for sure. They knew when I arrived, I would be there to help. Nothing more and nothing less.

I had many amazing experiences I would never have had in a more positive working environment. But, after 18 months, I was free to return to Armstrong (there was an agreement that we were off limits for that period of time). I made a few calls and was able to join the corporate group in Lancaster, working for the same manager I followed to Texas. He had left a month or so earlier and was able to convince his manager to hire me.

When I returned to Armstrong, I realized most people wouldn’t believe how we were treated at Dal-Tile. They never experienced a brutal corporate culture. So, I kept the stories to myself or commiserated with those few who survived their time in Dallas Texas and returned to Armstrong like me. Very few made it through unscathed. Those that did had some scars from the battles we fought but were also proud that we made it.

To this day, Dal-Tile is my example of “if you think your job is bad, check this out.” No one should be treated the way we were. Because of this, I really appreciate what I have and my determination to survive.