The Truth About the Atlanta Move

For those of you who don't know, I currently work for GE Transportation in Erie, PA. I got my job after an internship back in 2015, and I started in the Edison Engineering Development Program in July of 2016. About a year later, I've found myself taking a third rotation down in Atlanta, GA. However, the Atlanta move hasn't exactly been smooth. The Effects of Business Climate Before I can really dive into the reasoning behind the move, I should probably talk a little bit about the state of the business. After all, it drove both our decision to move and the struggles we had along the way. GE Stock Takes a Nosedive It's no secret that GE Transportation is having a tough time. In fact, the stock market is a pretty good indicator. The overall business was on a steady climb since 2008, but it's now taking another deep plummet. Since January, stock has dropped about $7. Transportation is probably one of the bigger reasons for this decay. You can't exactly cut your production in half two years in a row and expect everything to be fine and dandy. GE Stock Since 1980 According to Google Finance Most people in the business attribute this phenomenon to a down cycle which is not the way I'd be looking at it. It's only a matter of time before disruptive tech finds a way to uproot the way we think about freight. That's a bit more than just a down cycle. We need to innovate. Personal Experience I experience the effects of this business climate just about every day. From tighter budgets to travel restrictions, just about every cost is scrutinized. Layoffs are only a small part of what goes into cutting cost. The following list contains all of the cuts and limitations I am aware of: LayoffsTravel RestrictionsReduced Rewards and RecognitionTighter budgets I'm sure there's quite a bit more going on, but I only see a small piece of it. Fortunately, the local community keeps close tabs on the business. Below I've compiled a series of local articles to chronicle the recent history of layoffs and cost-cutting: Slowdown prompts GE Transportation layoffs in ErieSlow times continue at GE TransportationLayoffs hit GE Texas plantGE doubles down on cost-cutting movesA year of challenges for Erie’s GE plant Overall, the climate is pretty rough. Hundreds of people have lost their jobs, and my situation is looking uncertain. We're told that this rotation program is under some form of protection, but I'm not sure I buy it. To respond, I've been trying to put myself in a position to ensure a level of job security. Though, the details of those plans will remain private until they're more concrete. But Why an Atlanta Move? Back in February, Morgan started looking for a job. At that time, we agreed that we would try to find jobs in the same city. In order to do so, we leveraged the current opportunities I had available to me to limit our choices. Besides Erie, GE Transportation had opportunities in Chicago, San Ramon, Melbourne (FL), and a few other satellite locations. In general, however, the three main sites were Chicago, Melbourne, and Erie. Neither of us really wanted to stick around Erie, and we both valued warmth and diversity. The obvious choices were Melbourne and San Ramon. We couldn't really afford a move to California, so we started exploring our options in Florida. Investigating Atlanta Everything was going well before I found out that I could potentially work in Atlanta. I had a coworker who already had a role down there, so I figured I'd take a look. It wasn't long before I was convinced that Atlanta was the place to be. Apparently, the Atlanta office was working a few application-level software projects. That was quite the contrast with Melbourne which primarily focused on embedded projects. If you know me, you know I love to work in higher level languages like Java. Naturally, I ended up reaching out to several managers before deciding that I was confident I could get a job. As a result, we both decided to pursue positions in Atlanta. Rotation Denied A few months later, the list of rotations was released. I scanned it over in a panic because I just had this gut feeling that the role wasn't going to be approved. To no surprise, the role was missing from the list. I promptly reached out to the owner of the list to ask if it contained all of the potential rotations. You can probably guess I was pretty disappointed with their response. To confirm, I reached out to the manager of the role. The following was their response: The proposal for the role Data Analytics Engineer was denied as it was not suited for the Edison program, per the committee. I was looking forward to having you join our team and am disappointed that it was not approved. Improvisation At this point, it was sort of too late—Morgan already had a job. As a result, I was forced to improvise. A few weeks later, the company announced major layoffs which affected the Atlanta team. This definitely didn't improve my situation, but I was lucky enough to find a workaround. As of right now, my current manager is allowing me to repeat my rotation from Atlanta. However, I have not been offered any support for relocation, so financially things are a bit tight right now. In addition, my last rotation is still up in the air. I can try again for an Atlanta rotation, but there is no guarantee that the role will be approved. I've gotten quite a few nasty comments about the whole situation as if I had any control over it. I may have made some risky decisions, but there's no way I could have known the situation would have unraveled in the way it did. Over the next year, my life is sort of volatile. I'm doing my best to handle it by living frugally and saving tons. In fact, I plan to have my student debt paid down by next year. By that point, I'll be stable enough to take a financial hit. I have plenty of contingency plans in the event that things do turn sour. I'm sure you'll hear all about them as the uncertainty starts to collapse. Until then, everyone is just going to have to deal with the fact that it's my life. I appreciate the advice, but most people I know never moved further than down the street. If y'all could keep to yourself, that would be great. In the meantime, I'll be busy doing me. /rant

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