[speaker001:] Texas how you doing
[speaker002:] all right
[speaker001:] good good good have you been participating in this uh program very much
[speaker002:] oh uh ever since they really got started
[speaker001:] oh okay
[speaker002:] uh maybe a phone call a week or something like that
[speaker001:] yeah yeah I try to get one a day and I'm leaving the country here in next week and I wanna get every I want to get as many as I can uh okay Bill you about ready to get started
[speaker002:] I guess so
[speaker001:] uh Bill what kind of a company you with
[speaker002:] I'm with a electronics company
[speaker001:] oh okay
[speaker002:] uh I've been an engineer all my life and uh that's one of the the issues that I have with the company that uh you know salary is is one benefit but uh I feel as an engineer that uh you know I take pride in my work and uh getting credit for that and recognition for the work that you do and uh having challenging work uh doing challenging assignments is one of the one of the payments that you get for your time
[speaker001:] right uh do do you think the benefits package is fair
[speaker002:] I think our benefits package is pretty fair at the company
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] but uh you know it's uh sometimes quite a struggle to uh to do work that's challenging and find challenging assignments
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] I feel that one of the things that happens in this country is that uh you know engineers become what I call clerical engineers they spend their time pushing paper and doing mundane tasks that could be assigned to uh to other people
[speaker001:] yeah you sound like you sound like my own situation uh how how old are you Bill
[speaker002:] I'm uh fifty four
[speaker001:] oh hey I'm fifty seven sounds like same situation here uh I'm with TI of course and our our benefits it it's interesting uh because that's one of the biggest gripes in the company is the benefits whether it be the health insurance or or the food or or other things
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] uh however recently I've had a chance to sample the outside and uh probably by industry standards we're probably in the top seventy percent
[speaker002:] um-hum yeah
[speaker001:] uh the uh uh I've I've really in fact what I'm doing is I'm uh retiring effective Tuesday and going with another company
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] uh primarily for some of the things that you stated uh I've spent uh eight of my last ten years in offshore sites in Asia
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] and I've just had a real ball and uh since I've been back part of my job is is trouble shooting into the offshore site plants which is okay but the other part the other part's pushing paper
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] and uh uh which I don't like I got the opportunity to go with another company in fact uh a uh a semiconductor uh uh assembly house that supplies us uh where the uh where the job will be a hundred percent going into their various plants trouble shooting
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] and and I'm going to do that beginning the first of May but uh uh interestingly interestingly interestingly enough though uh the the biggest grind I've been with I've been with TI thirty two years uh the biggest gripe in TI is the benefits package but as I go looking at other companies as I've I've had a chance to do uh it's really not all that bad uh the one of the biggest gripes of the benefit package is the insurance program and I guess they've all fallen victim to the high rising costs of medical care
[speaker002:] um-hum yes I think so
[speaker001:] and and I I think that's the type of thing that uh uh that it that it amounts to uh what kind of vacation policy how long have you been with your company Bill
[speaker002:] I've been there thirty two years
[speaker001:] thirty two ha ha sounds familiar what kind of vacation uh uh restrictions do you have or or shouldn't say restrictions policy
[speaker002:] yeah well after being there for this long I get uh four weeks a year and I have an option to uh trade salary for an extra week
[speaker001:] oh neat neat neat uh when when did you get into the uh uh when did you go through the break where you started getting four weeks
[speaker002:] uh let me see how does it work uh after you get two weeks up until five years and then you get an additional day uh each year thereafter up until ten years
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] and then thereafter every other year you get an additional day so by the time you've been there twenty years you get the four weeks
[speaker001:] um-hum you get a full four weeks yeah yeah we get two weeks after a year uh uh three three three weeks between five and fifteen and four weeks over fifteen
[speaker002:] hum okay
[speaker001:] and uh uh are you allowed to how many days are you allowed to accrue
[speaker002:] none no carryover whatsoever
[speaker001:] oh so you have to flush it out at the end of every year or or you lose it
[speaker002:] right
[speaker001:] okay well we've got we're allowed to accrue a fair bunch I'm not exactly sure uh on a year to year basis what it is because I accrued most of mine before they put in the restrictions uh and then they they grandfathered our old days
[speaker002:] um-hum right
[speaker001:] uh but what it what it uh the bottom line is that when you die retire or quit the most you can get paid for is seventy days
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] which is fourteen weeks which is which is a pretty nice little bonus so I think with with retiring here in the next three days
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] uh I have eighty five days vacation and and it would have been nice to been able to use up fifteen of them in April but I had so many things I had to do before I finished I didn't get to do that so I'm in essence going to be giving those back to the company or most of them back
[speaker002:] um
[speaker001:] but at least I get paid for seventy days which in your situation you don't I mean when you go out you probably get just the ones you have in that current year right
[speaker002:] that's right
[speaker001:] uh-huh uh-huh that's interesting interesting
[speaker002:] now we're allowed to accrue sick leave but uh
[speaker001:] oh okay well see we we don't have any any such thing as sick leave uh if you're exempt and you've been here over three years or four years or something like that you can be sick up to six months and still get paid and and and uh uh that uh do you have a uh long and short term disability program
[speaker002:] hum okay yes we do
[speaker001:] yeah and we get half half pay uh or full pay for six months and half pay for the remainder of the disability I guess how it works
[speaker002:] hum
[speaker001:] and uh uh that's interesting how how many vacation days do y'all get
[speaker002:] you mean uh mean holidays
[speaker001:] yeah I meant holidays yeah
[speaker002:] uh I don't know the exact count uh they took away some of the minor holidays a few years back and we get Christmas week off
[speaker001:] oh okay okay so it probably all adds up to the same
[speaker002:] so yeah we traded in Veterans Day and uh and I guess Good Friday or something like that uh in favor of having a week off at Christmas I I'm not too enthusiastic about taking a vacation at Christmas time because
[speaker001:] yeah it yeah yeah no I guess that's true I I guess see most of us and like yourself where you've got four weeks you can take plenty throughout the year and still have a week even if it weren't a company holiday you'd still have some time left over at Christmas
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] and uh I I guess what happens is we don't have Christmas week we have Christmas plus a day around Christmas a day before or a day after as official holidays
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] but there's so many people that are so senior and have so much time off so much vacation time coming that you will find virtually no one in the plant
[speaker002:] well I think that's the reason our plant went that way what we we have uh a lot of government contract work and we find that in that last uh couple of week of the year all the government people are use it or lose it situation
[speaker001:] yeah probably yeah yeah so they're all gone
[speaker002:] yeah so all our customers are nonexistent
[speaker001:] yeah yeah that's that's what happened to us I think the last the last holiday we got was in the middle uh seventies and uh uh and that one was the uh Friday after Thanksgiving and I think the reason we got it for a holiday was nobody worked it anyway
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] it just kept us from taking a day's vacation
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] uh we get we get uh New Years Day Good Friday Memorial Day July Fourth Labor Day uh Thanksgiving and the day after and then Christmas and a day either side of it
[speaker002:] oh okay
[speaker001:] which which comes out to about nine and uh and and just since I've been here I mean when I got here we didn't even get Memorial Day
[speaker002:] yeah huh that's strange
[speaker001:] and it it wasn't recognized here in the deep South and we got uh uh and Good Friday came along I think uh in about nineteen seventy we got a chance to vote on it and we had to vote on on that versus the Friday after Thanksgiving because we didn't get that day then
[speaker002:] huh
[speaker001:] and I always felt that it wasn't a religious motive that gave us Good Friday the the the employees voted for Good Friday it was just that New Years Day to Memorial Day was such a long stretch without a holiday it was nice to put one in there in the spring
[speaker002:] yeah we're sort of in that situation we do get uh uh George Washington's birthday but it's still a long dry stretch from then until uh Memorial Day
[speaker001:] oh okay so you yeah are are you fairly satisfied with your health insurance
[speaker002:] uh I'm kind of cross with it this year we changed uh uh managers for the plan we had been with Blue Cross and Blue Shield and uh we got to know them pretty well and how to work with the system
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] but they've gone to a managed care program and we had to even even though we were right in the middle of the area we had to opt out because there are no physicians in the area that are taking patients
[speaker001:] oh my goodness
[speaker002:] and it's absolutely pathetic up here uh so far the insurance company owes us about two thousand dollars and the checks are not coming in
[speaker001:] my goodness that's tough uh we had uh we've been with Aetna actually I think we find fund our own insurance program Aetna just administers paying the bills
[speaker002:] yeah that's the way our company works
[speaker001:] yeah and and and the uh uh they started out with having Managed Mental Health Care
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] and then they went to Managed Hospital Network where you had to go to a network hospital and we just got a notice the other day saying that uh that we're going to have uh uh network doctors
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] and and they're going to the way they're going to work into this is they're going to look at the doctors that have been providing care for people and uh write to them all and tell them that they've got an opportunity to be part of this program and they and
[speaker002:] yeah our in our area they all turned it down they say forget it uh if this patient wants to wants to go somewhere else let him go there
[speaker001:] no kidding