35th Anniversary Speech

Every time someone has a work anniversary, I come out of my shell and write a long boring speech. Get comfortable. This might be a long one. I’ve been working on it for 35 years.

I admire and am inspired by the example set by guys like Eric, Shane, Rodney, Steve, Jhannio, and others. Our Textron team. When I have to work long hours, I try to remember that many work harder and longer than me.

I enjoy the comradery of our office. Hate that I sit around the corner and miss out on half the banter. Maybe that’s a good thing. If you want any dirt on Sherryl or Renee, I’m your man.

Rodney has it tough, having to supervise Brad and me. Angie is the normal one of the bunch (roll eyes).

Hopefully I’ve done a good job training Rachel and Angie. Trying to teach them some of my AS400 tricks. Just this morning I was showing Angie something to make her more dangerous. Stuff that will be worthless when we go on SAP. Only then can David Beard breathe a sigh of relief.

I tried to think of an Alex Brennan joke but couldn’t. Sometimes I feel guilty riding Alex as hard as I do. Nah! For my 35th anniversary present I’m getting that saw Alex never bought. It was the last one they had.  

You always want people to think you are a little crazy, so they will keep their distance. That’s why I’m so nice to Steve Garrett. How many chainsaws do you own? I am glad there’s at least one guy in the office who knows more Hollywood news than me.

Steve often tells old guy stories of the way things used to be back in the day. Back when we priced orders out of a big notebook on our desks. Sorry you young guys have to suffer through that.

Speaking of crazy…I enjoy working near Schuch. Ben, I’m glad he’s not pasting photos of me all around the building. It was kinda creepy one day when I got home from work, and on the fridge was a picture of Ben - WITH MY WIFE. I showed it to John. He said it wasn’t fake.  

I’ve worked here so long, our fantasy football league had to look up the stats the next day IN THE NEWSPAPER. If you don’t know what a newspaper is – ask Steve Garrett.

With all the outside processing our EZGo team has to handle, with covid and manpower issues, machine  breakdowns, changing forecasts, late orders from the mill - work never gets easier. But there is satisfaction is pulling off a miracle to get parts to the customer. Or figure out a complicated work order problem. I’m weird that way.

See I’m working in a little serious stuff between the jokes.

Thanks for putting up with me when I am in one my bad moods. That’s why Angie and Brad work from home so much. Poor Rachel doesn’t have that luxury. They could tell you stories. Please don’t ask. 

I hadn’t made anyone cry in a long time. But then we had a bad day on Tuesday. You notice I wasn’t here yesterday. Steve has only had to pull me back in the conference room one time. That I remember.

I’ve done a lot of different things here at Tull / Ryerson. Receiving. Inside Sales. Quality. Scheduling Manager. AS400 trainer. EZGo. Work Order Guru. By the way I am changing my title to Director of Work Orders (roll eyes).

Eric used to drag me over to Birmingham to do work order training. I’d walk in and Danny Roberts would have to tell me to wipe the ice cream off my face.

I’ve ridden roller coasters in Texas with Bobby Rogers and Rick Ross. Kinda creepy.

Gone out to eat with Danny Roberts and Leighann Hitt before they were married. Really creepy. Did I crash their date?

Eaten key lime pie in Chattanooga with Sue Haulk.

The fab department used to have three Murphys – Sue and Yung and me. Ask Steve Garrett about that.

I’ve hung out at oyster bars in Augusta with Rodney and Todd Harris and Josh McKeever.

I was here when Margo was hired. She’s had to put up with the pictures when my kids were born, and lately pictures of my grandchild.

This month I’ve been finishing up a project. I’m not sure any other Ryerson or Tull employee has ever done, since this building was built back when, in the 70’s? Y’all probably haven’t noticed, but soon I will have parked in every individual parking space out there in the parking lot.

I told you it was good if people think you’re a little crazy.

Written but not spoken:

Sometimes being the work order guru, uh Director of Work Orders - ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. The title is nice but they wouldn’t print it on my business cards. It doesn’t come with a magic wand. Not sure the benefits are commensurate with the responsibilities of the position.

Many of you probably have no idea what I do here. I’m not going to bore you with all the details. Like everyone else on the Textron team, and like many of you guys, it’s quite often more than can be handled in an eight hour day. Many times I am doing things that I should’ve done two weeks ago. And that’s discouraging to me when I don’t have the time to do things the right way. Sometimes I’ll let that discouragement show in my interactions with you coworkers. I apologize for that.

It’s hard for me to say no to requests to help other departments fix things that are screwed up, even though I already have a full plate with my EZGo position. For all you new people, we used to have a saying around here: “Say yes and figure it out”. Fixing work orders and costs and figuring out unique problems takes time, oftentimes several hours. It’s something you just got to keep poking around with until you figure it out. No two problems ever seem to be the same. To fix an incorrect received cost takes over ten individual steps. You can get three or four people to do their jobs to help, and that takes two or three days to explain what’s needed and why - or I can take an hour or two and knock it out myself.

Oddball that I am, I get a weird sense of satisfaction when I solve a complicated problem. I’m certainly no smarter than anyone else. In fact the opposite is probably true. I apologize when I get cranky about things like this. Guess I broke my promise not to bore you with what I do.