Firing Myself Before Lunch

by Morning Machinist

Jon House
September 21, 2025

“Typical Monday. Nearly fired the entire staff today.

Using up the balance of my 2025 material. Engineer made a dimensional length change by 1/2" on my only product line.

Planner made routing changes.

Programmer wrote new programs to eliminate cutting 1/2" of air for new size.

Machinist side mills 1st saw side to square up parts today. This leaves .040" on the opposite end to finish in cnc operations.

QA found that all 88 parts are oversized an extra 1/2" after 1st side was milled. Now programmer has to add cuts to the new programs.

The saw operator decided to saw all material, for same drawing number, at one time BEFORE engineering change was made.

QA was not working that day. No extra material to saw quickly.

So, based on the lack of communication, and an over eager saw operator, who would you fire?

I failed to mention that I, being the owner, am the engineer, the planner, the saw operator, the QA guy, the machinist and the cnc programmer.

One man operation.

Can I blame my wife?”

Shoutout to Steve Wilson in the MACHINIST Facebook group for that post. Over 42,000 views, 530+ comments in just a few days!

Top comments include:

“Charge the customer for making changes after progress underway.”
“I would give myself a leave of absence”
““DAMMIT STEVE IS THIS YOUR FIRST DAY?” - Steve
“Rough day I think I’d take the rest of the day off to think about it but definitely blame night shift.”
“Do you have shop dog ? They are always good to chew out and come back for more”
“You need to keep this shit to yourself, if boss finds out you're fucked!”

Itasca, IL | Tech-Max | Mfg Process Engineer - CNC Machining, CNC Machinists (for Mazak & Fanuc), CMM / Hexagon Arm Operator
Buffalo, NY | Moog | CMM Programming Manager, Senior CMM Programmer (RELOCATION OFFERED)
New Holland, PA | Signal Machine Company | CNC Mill Machinist