Newell is a multinational corporation that owns among other things, Sharpie brand, Rubbermaid brand and Yankee Candle brand.

Today our local paper announced that 350 jobs would be leaving the area as Newell consolidates businesses and seeks efficiencies in operations.

This story is so far from unique that it wouldn't be worth noting, except that I think I have a bit of a unique perspective on the subject; having worked 6 years at Yankee Candle, having helped design the facility they are closing, having been both loved and mistreated egregiously by the company, and by having an audacious plan to get just a tiny bit of retribution or remuneration.

Around the year 1997, I was 18 years old with a wife and baby son.  I was working at a local vegetarian food factory doing manual labor, packaging and light warehousing.  I saw an advertisement in the Greenfield Recorder for warehouse workers at Yankee Candle with a starting pay over $12/hr.  When I got that job I thought I was the luckiest person on earth.  This would be enough for rent and food and a car (1997) if I busted my butt. Prior to this my only daily transportation was a mountain bike.

I started out on Christian Lane in Whately loading boxes onto belts and into order-picking bays, and transitioned to driving a forklift shortly thereafter.

I learned to drive a forklift by visiting an offsite warehouse with another young employee where Mike Kittredge stored some of his car collection, right along with excess candle merchandise.  My first pallet move was over the hood of a black porche 911 turbo.

I met some of the most amazing people at Yankee, and am still very close friends with a guy who now lives in Sacramento, CA.

When I started working there, Mike K was still the owner - he hadn't sold to the first of many subsequent owners yet. 
Things were good in the Mike K years.  There was free Pizza for lunch every Wednesday. 

While the pizza came on Wednesdays, there were always leftovers on Thursday and often still on Friday.  This meant that my total lunch costs for the week usually worked out to about 80 cents, as Monday and Tuesday I would eat a pouch of ramen noodles with microwaved water, and pizza for the remainder.

Around 1999, Yankee began to build a new office headquarters and a new distribution center (both now closed or scheduled to close). The new DC would use the latest warehouse management software, so trainers were needed to teach the staff how to use these tools.

Managers and Supervisors in the company selected some of their most capable floor workers to become Trainers. I made that list.

After a successful transition, the company made my role permanent and I became a Warehouse Management Systems Specialist, which was a SALARY!

No longer hourly, I'd have security to raise a family, with a second baby on the way.

At the same time, things were changing for Yankee - Mike K sold the whole shebang to a Private Equity firm.

The salary, I found out was the lowest legal salary that could be offered without having to pay overtime and other hourly benefits. 
The minute I became a salaried employee, my relationship with the company changed. I was told to work all shifts, ensuring training was consistent throughout.  I was told to stay as late as necessary to get certain jobs done.

Our first INVENTORY after the switch to the new WMS system was a huge debacle and I was told "you do not go home until this is done". I was on site 20 hours one day and across 3 days was in the facility 50+ hours.  I was so sleep deprived that I found myself one morning in the women's bathroom wondering what the machines on the wall were for, and why they weren't there yesterday.

I saved up vacation time, sick time and whatever else I could so that I could be with my wife when my second son was born.  I had 3 weeks accrued.  The day he was born, 5 weeks premature, moved to Baystate Neonatal Intensive Care unit, I got a call from work.  There is a problem you need to come in.

I told them I have time, I have a sick baby, a distraught wife.  They said be here or you no longer have a job.

I worked 12 hour days at Yankee and from there went daily to Springfield to spend the night with the baby, stopping at the company gym to shower.

I was tasked once with finding out why our shipping costs were wrong with a certain carrier.  I worked with another leader, a very smart woman, and we figured out the issue was double-billing in the software we were using.  We alerted the company which in turn got a rebate check from that carrier for over $750,000. 

I was thanked with a $100 YCC gift card.

I owe a tremendous debt to this company. Yankee put me on an airplane for the first time in my life - I went to visit distribution centers in Salt Lake City Utah and call centers in North Carolina. They paid me well. They taught me a ton.  People were kind most of the time.

In or around 2002, the changes that private equity had put into place were making life at Yankee pretty bad.  Pizza was still free, but only 1x per month.  The pool tables were removed from the breakroom, and the summer picnics no longer had Vacation Prizes, Lobster and Steak on the grill. Those were the superficial niceties that disappeared, but the real trouble was when the company decided to institute productivity quotas.

If you've never worked in a factory or manufacturing facility, a quota is a set amount of work the average worker should be able to complete in a given workday.  This seems reasonable enough, but anyone who works for Amazon or C&S will tell you, management slowly turns the dial...higher and higher until the average worker fails and only the strongest, hardest working survive...until they also burn out and get replaced.  Remember, workers are not people under a quota system, they are tools that can be replaced when they fail.

A forklift operator that I'd worked with for many years at Yankee approached me at my cubicle one day, I, having a luxurious office job. He told me that while they were setting the quotas, it would be helpful if the workers knew the metrics being used, so that they knew where they had to perform best and where they were being judged less harshly.  

Inside that request was a moral quandary.  

Is my responsibility to the mega corp that paid me, or to my co-worker who simply wanted to make each work day a bit more survivable?

I chose to help him.  I told him the internal metrics that would be used.

Someone overheard us, again, it was cubicles not some clandestine meeting at Wolfies, and ratted us out.

I was pulled into HR, where I first lied, then knew I was caught.  I called a high school friend who ran the "packaged applications" (IT) department of Ringling Brothers Circus and he got me a job in DC. That was how I left Yankee.

I reached out to some friends still there years later and was told in no uncertain terms that there was in fact a DO NOT HIRE list and that I was on it.

I'm kind of proud of that fact now, but at the time being barred from employment with the biggest name in the county was a challenge.

OK, to wrap this all up -

Newell just announced they are closing this Distribution Center.  Last year they closed that new Corporate Office building.

In related news,
Mike Kittrege's son Mick has recently listed his father's house in Leverett on the market for $23,000,000.

It has a bowling alley, movie theater, lazy river, classic car garage, tennis courts...

Mike worked hard to earn those things.   He was smart.  He was kind.  He was savvy. Mike deserved this, all of it.

I don't know Mick, I've met him 3 or 4 times...shared lunch with him and a friend twice...argued with him about the stupid Dunkin' in Bernardston...he might be as great as his Dad, I don't know.

But he didn't start a business in his Mom's basement. He didn't bust his ass to become a Billionaire with a 270 foot yacht.  

He was just lucky enough to be born.

I think the best way to honor Mike Kittredge's true legacy would be to open that mansion as a public park and use some of his riches to pay to keep it clean, open and free.

Mike was a rockstar, figuratively and literally (the house has a full stage).

At the very least, I mean really the very least...Open a weekend invitation to former Yankee Candle Employees to visit the house or the yacht.  Let them drive one of the cars, drink one of the $500 wines.  Why not?