Benjamin Strange
Commercial User
- Dec 25, 2002
- 9,737
- 310
- 49
- Disclosures
- Owner / Tech: Strange Guitarworks
I too briefly worked at the Mesa Boogie factory. Even though I had (and continue to have) an ongoing good relationship with the team at Mesa, working at the factory didn't work out with me either. I saw similar things that you did, but perhaps I had a different perspective on them.
First and foremost: it's a FACTORY. It's not a skilled job. If you were hired to work on the assembly line, then you had all of one job to do: move units. Despite what marketing materials tell you, your Martin, Fender, Marshall, or Mesa/Boogie aren't painstakingly crafted by skilled artisans: they are built by people who are willing to do repetitive, boring work, day in day out. While being on the assembly line can give you some insight into the manufacturing process, it doesn't qualify you to make suggestions or introduce new designs. The company was slowly built from the ground up over the last 40 years by one man, Randall Smith, and he still does the bulk of the designing. You lasted less than two weeks, so don't be insulted if your suggestions weren't taken seriously.
Yes, there's a lot of Laotian and Hispanic people working there. So what? People tend to find jobs through friends, and if you're an immigrant, chances are your friends are of similar racial or cultural background. These are good paying jobs for people with minimal education and limited English, so of course they end up recommending their friends for positions that open up. I don't speak a lick of anything other than 'Merican, and I got along with them just fine (after work basketball games were a highlight). The thing is, many of these fine people had been working for M/B for over 10 years - what does that tell you? Clearly they're very productive and get things done without complaint. Also: $13 an hour, with lots of benefits, is really good for factory work. California minimum wage is $9. There's a good reason why M/B employees stick around for decades: they're paid well and treated well. And yes, many of them really care about what they do.
I think a lot of these companies develop sort of mythical status in the eyes of us musicians, and my experience at Mesa was also disappointing in that regard. I was initially interviewed for a senior position, which ended up going to somebody with far more experience, but Mesa wanted to hire me anyway just to get my foot in the door. I started on the factory floor as well, and learned some of the hard lessons that you did: it's not magic. It's boring. There's little skill involved. That's just the reality of any sort of manufacturing, be it clothes or cars or tube amps. The fact that Mesa can do it, in America, paying well over minimum wage, building a quality amp, and somehow still manage to turn a small profit is pretty remarkable. Mesa Boogie isn't perfect, and yes - they could certainly be better about communicating the reality of the job and improve training. Perhaps they've gotten so used to what the work is like, and with such little employee turnover, they've forgotten what it's like to be the new guy.
My situation is somewhat different is that I quit to take another job. Mesa was wanting to move me though the factory, train me in all aspects of the gig, and then move me into Artist Relations - but their timeline for that was much slower than what I had initially thought. I couldn't stick around and wait for that opportunity to come around, so I left on good terms. I'm still good friends with many of the guys in the higher up positions, and my respect for the company hasn't changed much. What I did learn is that factory jobs aren't much fun, regardless wether is M/B or anything else, and I'm just not suited for repetitive work. Yeah, I understand you didn't dig how things went, but you must understand that there have been people working in the factory for over 20 years, so perhaps it's not Mesa/Boogie's fault nor your fault, but just a matter of things not working out for your particular working relationship. Don't take it too hard and move on.
First and foremost: it's a FACTORY. It's not a skilled job. If you were hired to work on the assembly line, then you had all of one job to do: move units. Despite what marketing materials tell you, your Martin, Fender, Marshall, or Mesa/Boogie aren't painstakingly crafted by skilled artisans: they are built by people who are willing to do repetitive, boring work, day in day out. While being on the assembly line can give you some insight into the manufacturing process, it doesn't qualify you to make suggestions or introduce new designs. The company was slowly built from the ground up over the last 40 years by one man, Randall Smith, and he still does the bulk of the designing. You lasted less than two weeks, so don't be insulted if your suggestions weren't taken seriously.
Yes, there's a lot of Laotian and Hispanic people working there. So what? People tend to find jobs through friends, and if you're an immigrant, chances are your friends are of similar racial or cultural background. These are good paying jobs for people with minimal education and limited English, so of course they end up recommending their friends for positions that open up. I don't speak a lick of anything other than 'Merican, and I got along with them just fine (after work basketball games were a highlight). The thing is, many of these fine people had been working for M/B for over 10 years - what does that tell you? Clearly they're very productive and get things done without complaint. Also: $13 an hour, with lots of benefits, is really good for factory work. California minimum wage is $9. There's a good reason why M/B employees stick around for decades: they're paid well and treated well. And yes, many of them really care about what they do.
I think a lot of these companies develop sort of mythical status in the eyes of us musicians, and my experience at Mesa was also disappointing in that regard. I was initially interviewed for a senior position, which ended up going to somebody with far more experience, but Mesa wanted to hire me anyway just to get my foot in the door. I started on the factory floor as well, and learned some of the hard lessons that you did: it's not magic. It's boring. There's little skill involved. That's just the reality of any sort of manufacturing, be it clothes or cars or tube amps. The fact that Mesa can do it, in America, paying well over minimum wage, building a quality amp, and somehow still manage to turn a small profit is pretty remarkable. Mesa Boogie isn't perfect, and yes - they could certainly be better about communicating the reality of the job and improve training. Perhaps they've gotten so used to what the work is like, and with such little employee turnover, they've forgotten what it's like to be the new guy.
My situation is somewhat different is that I quit to take another job. Mesa was wanting to move me though the factory, train me in all aspects of the gig, and then move me into Artist Relations - but their timeline for that was much slower than what I had initially thought. I couldn't stick around and wait for that opportunity to come around, so I left on good terms. I'm still good friends with many of the guys in the higher up positions, and my respect for the company hasn't changed much. What I did learn is that factory jobs aren't much fun, regardless wether is M/B or anything else, and I'm just not suited for repetitive work. Yeah, I understand you didn't dig how things went, but you must understand that there have been people working in the factory for over 20 years, so perhaps it's not Mesa/Boogie's fault nor your fault, but just a matter of things not working out for your particular working relationship. Don't take it too hard and move on.
