When we got together at Christmas, Sean and Malcolm asked me about my Dofasco hard hat that David had told them about. So, we dug the hat out of storage. I'll be taking it to the greenhouse on my next visit.
They also asked a couple of questions about my career at Dofasco, so I decided to update my memoirs and share the info from that section.
The Early Days
When the Bar-Don Lanes opened in Stoney Creek, dad was instrumental in forming two leagues, the Saltfleet Men’s League and the Saltfleet Mixed League. He had bowled in a Dofasco league for a few years prior.
It was at the Bar-Don that I got my first job as a pin setter at age twelve. We started out setting pins six nights a week, and were upset when they cut us back to four.
My dad died when I was in grade ten at Saltfleet High School. The next school year I started helping the janitor sweep floors after school to make extra money. I did my homework while I set pins at the bowling alley.
The summer my dad died, and the following summer as well, I worked as a mailboy at Dofasco, carrying requisitions throughout the mill to obtain the requisite superintendents’ signatures. Dofasco turned a blind eye to the fact that I was only 15 that first summer. I think that I made about $30 per week.
At age 16 I added a third part time job at Clayton's Men's Wear, working Friday night and Saturday.
When I was 17 and had completed grade 12, mom asked me to quit school and start working full time. For a year, I worked at Clayton’s Men’s Wear (at $35. per 46 hour week), until he got a job flying supplies for the construction of the DEW Line and decided that he needed a more mature person to run the store in his absence. Although I was offered a job by Stu Chapple to work at Lee Hardware and had also been approached by Walter Scott, the manager of the Royal Bank, I decided to try Dofasco, where I started at $45 per week.
The Dofasco Days
For the first year, I worked as a night checker in the Time Office on Depew Street, picking up time cards throughout the mill and calculating the hours worked for each person and entering into the appropriate time sheets. For the first three months of that stint, I also worked days at the Men’s Wear store to help the new manager get into the swing of things. I would get about three hours sleep Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, eight hours on Wednesday (a half day at the store), and virtually no sleep Friday when the store didn’t close until nine. After closing the store at six o’clock Saturday night, I could sleep around the clock because I didn’t have to go back on nights at Dofasco until Sunday midnight. I lost 15 pounds that summer (from 135 down to 120).
After a year on nights, I was brought on to days and for two years worked on payroll, calculating the pay for the hours that the night checker had entered. I then had a short special assignment checking off the construction workers who were building the tower anneal, climbing steel girders to check off the workers to make sure that the payroll wasn't padded by the construction company.
Then back to payroll. At my performance review I told the boss that I wanted a transfer. None of my coworkers had any ambition and I didn't want to spend the rest of my career calculating daily pay rates. I was then sent for psychological testing and after a grueling day was told that I should quit Dofasco and go back to school to become an accountant (which I couldn't afford to do). Instead, Dofasco put me on the Sales training program and I spent the next year and a half working in various labs throughout the plant, including several months in the Steel Casting department (Dante’s Inferno). I think that I was being trained for Casting Sales but, fortunately, an opening came up as a Hot Rolled Sales Service Rep. From there to Hot Rolled Supervisor (when I got the white hat), and eventually Manager Sales Service and Administration, in charge of Sales Service, Order Entry, Invoicing and Claims.
When I got that job, all service reps were male. The Personnel Department interviewed both sexes, but females were never hired. I started attending those interviews and when the female candidate was the best, I hired her. I did make sure that I picked a real winner to minimize the chance of failure so that my purpose was achieved. When I retired, the Sales Service department was about 30% female.
I followed a path that would be impossible today without a university education. My determination to achieve and dedication to the job, together with an analytical bent and long hours, helped me to finally become Director of Sales Planning and Administration, with a staff of about 80 people and a spot in the “Management Group” which got to eat in the separate executive dining room, rotated through attendance at monthly Company Directors’ Luncheons. and received stock options which augmented my salary.
A couple of years before I retired, the President, Paul Phoenix told the management group that we needed to reduce staff by 20%. I promised my people that if they helped us reach that goal I would make sure that nobody suffered, We achieved the goal and there was just one other department that managed to do that. But it wasn't a "must" so the corporate goal was not achieved. Two presidents later, it did become a "must" and what we had previously achieved was ignored. Find another 20%. Since I felt that I couldn't make good on my promise to save their careers, I decided that I should be the first to go, which is why I retired at age 55. In the end, only one of my people lost her job.
If I had stayed another couple of years I would have been rich! Arcelor took over Dofasco and then Mittal took over Arcelor. And they gave the management group substantial stock options which they were later able to cash in for about a million dollars. C'est la vie!
After retiring, I worked for Laurence Marshall at Larry’s Trucking and at Golden Horseshoe Tire for about three years, as Credit Manager, management assistant and finally as Purchasing Manager for Truckland, after Laurence had sold it and it changed names. The new owner went broke after a year and my job there ended.
Perhaps my most satisfying job has been my activity as I tried to help David wherever he needed assistance., from driving loads to Brooklyn, to running the garden centre down front, to head gardener. Watching your son overcome the obstacles and challenges of entrepreneurship to build a successful business and spending time with your grandchildren on the job is as good as it gets.
.jpg)
.jpg)
