Free Taters in Tennessee

As a leader (you are likely a leader in some aspects even if you don’t have it in your title) you need to be aware that when some people are given a benefit, even in extreme circumstances, they may expect it to continue.

I used to work at an aluminum smelter in Tennessee. There were ~200 reactors all linked together and a ton of electricity was pumped through the reactors to convert alumina to aluminum. Individual reactors would reach end-of-life and be taken out of service to be refurbished. This process included removing most of the molten liquids before taking them offline. The refurbishment took several weeks.

One night a storm knocked out the power to all ~200 of the reactors. The molten liquid froze to essentially rock. This led to a few months of refurbishing the reactors and starting them back up one by one. Everybody had to work extreme amounts of overtime to accomplish this. At one point the plant manager decided to start providing lunches for the employees to take the edge off a little. Sometimes this was from Mcalisters which had these huge baked potatoes.

When most of the reactors were back online everybody transitioned back to working normal shifts. The plant manager decided to stop providing lunches when the overtime was no longer required.

There was a small but vocal group who started complaining that they no longer received free lunches.

The message here is that we need to be careful that employee expectations can shift pretty quickly, even during of extreme circumstances.

Discover more from Calm Critical Work

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading