You're All Fired ! 1 1

[RWB]

How would you like to come to work one bright Spring morning and find this notice on the entrance door:

Edited July 23, 2020 by RWB

[Just Bob]

Yikes! I have actually been in that very situation, when I was in my twenties. Showed up for work one day and was told, "We no longer have anything for you to do. We will call all of you when we need you." They abruptly shut down the whole project, and we never heard from them again.

[VKurtB]

New Orleans?

[RWB]

Philadelphia.

New Orleans was not open as a mint.

[RonnieR131]

I told them to unionize, but they wouldn't listen. Alright then, go on home, git.

[kbbpll]

Nice to see things haven't changed much. Congratulations, those "requested to remain", you now have three jobs!

[Revenant]

4 hours ago, Just Bob said:

Yikes! I have actually been in that very situation, when I was in my twenties. Showed up for work one day and was told, "We no longer have anything for you to do. We will call all of you when we need you." They abruptly shut down the whole project, and we never heard from them again.

While I haven't experienced this personally, I found out from a former associate that I project I spent months on, which continued for months after I left, was similarly shutdown without notice and abruptly "de-staffed" to put it in the politest terms. It made me very happy that I made the decision I did and left for greener pastures. But I can't say it was surprising. The entire time we were on it we knew it could happen pretty much any time - just in the nature of the beast in that situation.

While it didn't cost me a job, I've had clients come back and just put projects on indefinite hold. You know when this happens that the project is dead though. Fortunately though it wasn't the only thing I was getting paid for at that moment.

[kbbpll]

15 minutes ago, Revenant said:

abruptly "de-staffed"

At my old company they called it being "shuttered", as if they'd ever just open the shutters again. My schmuck "boss" (at least, he thought he was) approached me on axe day and offered to help me find a job, like some benevolent overlord whose ring I could kiss. I said nah, I'm going back to my old team on Monday. The look on his face was priceless.

I wonder what this housecleaning in Philadelphia was all about. Doesn't seem like they could just stop making coins. There was a short recession in 1869.

[Henri Charriere]

8 minutes ago, kbbpll said:

At my old company they called it being "shuttered", as if they'd ever just open the shutters again. My schmuck "boss" (at least, he thought he was) approached me on axe day and offered to help me find a job, like some benevolent overlord whose ring I could kiss. I said nah, I'm going back to my old team on Monday. The look on his face was priceless.

I wonder what this housecleaning in Philadelphia was all about. Doesn't seem like they could just stop making coins. There was a short recession in 1869.

Ah, the City of Brotherly Love. I knew there was a correlation with this Mint and the advent of errors. (Just kidding, of course!)

[VKurtB]

On that day in history, Robert E. Lee visited Ulysses S. Grant in the White House, the last time the two would ever meet. Nine days later, the "Golden Spike" was hammered in at Promontory Point. Maybe they needed to cut staff due to subpar sales for commemorative golden spikes. 

[Big Nub numismatics]

Maybe they assumed that people would start circulating coins again after the civil war, and that many people weren't needed. 

Either way I can't imagine them coming home to their wives and kids so early.

[Alex in PA.]

[Coinbuf]

Certainly not the news you would want to see at the plant gates.

[Conder101]

16 hours ago, kbbpll said:

I wonder what this housecleaning in Philadelphia was all about

What it was all about was Director James Pollock.  He was Director from May of 1861 to September of 1866, not sure why he left office. Something tells me it may not have been on his own initiative. He became Director again in May of 1869 and apparently fired everybody that had been hired by his two predecessors William Millward and R. H. Linderman.  I can't help but wonder if there is a similar corresponding directive from April of 1873 when H. R. Linderman returned to office as Director.  Did he fire everyone that Pollock hired? (I would imagine Pollock already had people to step into the newly vacated positions on May 1, 1869.)

Thanks to a letter that Roger posted ATS it appears than Pollock left office in 1866 because he objected to how Johnson was running his administration.  You have to remember that Johnson was a southerner, and he apparently wasn't too pleased the north had won the war.  A lot of the things he was doing were apparently attempting to re-establish the old status quo.

Edited July 24, 2020 by Conder101

[RWB]

Good digging Conder101 !

Pollock's first successor, Millward, was largely a screw-up. When Linderman took over (April 8, 1867) he had to make major changes and equipment repairs/upgrades. Pollock's 2nd term was more caretaker than anything else. Linderman had been tapped to put together what would become the Mint Act of 1873, and Pollock wanted to rid the place of Millward's new hires and a few mistakes that crept in under Linderman.

Once the Act was passed, Linderman was offered the new Director of the Mints job and Pollock, who wanted to remain in Philadelphia, stayed at the Mint there as Superintendent. Correspondence indicates considerable tension between the two with Linderman doing his own hiring of Special Employees who outranked all operating mint officers.

[Lists of the people who were retained are also in the archives - too long to post.]

Edited July 24, 2020 by RWB

[numisport]

On 7/24/2020 at 7:47 AM, Conder101 said:

What it was all about was Director James Pollock.  He was Director from May of 1861 to September of 1866, not sure why he left office. Something tells me it may not have been on his own initiative. He became Director again in May of 1869 and apparently fired everybody that had been hired by his two predecessors William Millward and R. H. Linderman.  I can't help but wonder if there is a similar corresponding directive from April of 1873 when H. R. Linderman returned to office as Director.  Did he fire everyone that Pollock hired? (I would imagine Pollock already had people to step into the newly vacated positions on May 1, 1869.)

Thanks to a letter that Roger posted ATS it appears than Pollock left office in 1866 because he objected to how Johnson was running his administration.  You have to remember that Johnson was a southerner, and he apparently wasn't too pleased the north had won the war.  A lot of the things he was doing were apparently attempting to re-establish the old status quo.

Evidently this is happening today as we see history being erased so there is no status quo.

[RWB]

In 1869 the history was not erased, only the jobs of some people who had worked there.

[DWLange]

Employment at the various U. S. Mints was always highly politicized until civil service reforms were codified in the 1880s. After that time most jobs were secure, as long as work existed and one did his or her job properly. Of course, the mint directorship in Washington remains a political appointment to the present day. Though this position has been either vacant or neglected in recent decades, it was much more visible prior to that time, and the director was expected to submit his or her resignation whenever the presidential election resulted in a change of party in the White House. In the case of the Carson City Mint, a series of party changes led to a suspension of coining in 1885, its resumption four years later, and its final termination four years after that.

[MAULEMALL]

I believe I read somewhere that the reason for the firings was due to the new Quarters program where someone found a " 

minuet man"  on the Massachusetts coin.