Lunch report - Wednesday 16th February 2011

[BillEvans1956]

Midweek already and my third Lunch Report. Only two more to go then. But, I’m getting desperate for someone to take on the role for next week. I’ve approached several, hoping to find a willing volunteer, but no-one has stepped forward yet. So, I may just have to pick someone at random off the Members’ listing. Who will it be, I wonder? If anyone here has a burning desire to do the Lunch Reports next week, please PM me soon. Please - otherwise it will be a random selection. Better to have a willing volunteer methinks.

Lunch: What a day! Hardly stopped for any lunch to speak of. The company I work for (‘slave for’) is undergoing a massive restructuring. Big impact on jobs; including mine. We are in transition at the moment, but the next 3 months will be hard. Job losses for sure.

G&L Topic of the day: Curious to know what sort of volume of guitars come out of G&L every year and where they all go to? That is, what countries do they end up in? Mostly USA and throughout Europe, I imagine. But, does anyone have any idea at all of the details? Just out of curiosity folks. The G&L website has details of distributors right across the globe - even Tahiti (although it is a ‘Huntington Beach, CA’ address) – so it looks pretty comprehensive. And, what’s the most unlikeliest country you’ve seen a G&L guitar being played in or up for sale?

Non-G&L Topic of the day: So, I’m off to Greece for a week at Easter. A bit of a walking holiday in the more rugged and wilder parts of the Peloponnese. The Mani region. Lots of history there. Home of the Spartans, etc. 50 miles to cover in the 7 days we are there, so it’s ‘Walking for Softies’ really. Hardly a trek. Something like 4 different ‘hotels’ in that time. The Taygetos mountain range is pretty wild, but we only get into the foothills – only to 600 metres. Maybe we should go back again and do the big stuff? We have our bags moved for us onto the next ‘hotel’ each time too, so we just carry all we need for the day. A bit of a first wedding anniversary thing too. Looking forward to it. So folks, what have you all got planned for your vacations this year? Something special as a ‘getting away from it all’ excursion? Let me know.

Adios, for now.

Bill

[LouL]

Lunch: Bill, I feel your pain. I've been in the professional world for 14 years and in that time, my companies have been sold 3 times and I've been outsourced once (but was lucky enough to get rebadged to the new company). I can't even count the number of times I've been "restructured" over that period. One job I was at must have restructured 7 or 8 times in a 4 year period.

G&L: Very good question. It's definitely not as common a brand as some other ones. I had never heard of it until a year or so ago when a salesman handed me one.

Vacation: Planning on taking the kids to Disney World for the first time. Looking forward to seeing my Little Princess with all the Disney Princesses.

[blargfromouterspace]

I have no idea how many G&L make in a year. I'm going to guess 10,274 for 2009. 10,276 for 2010. That's for the US made ones, I'd guess that many more Tributes are made than that.

Holidays: I get so envious of you people living in Europe, you can go to a whole bunch of different countries for very little money - hell, you can even drive to them!

I wanted to do a hike through the alpine region here in Victoria after my girlfriend and I accidentally ended up there one day. I did some research and it's one of the toughest walking tracks around and requires 2-3 days of planning and food drops. I haven't been on a multi-day hike before so we've abandoned those plans. Instead we're going on a wine tour of the Yarra Valley, which is only about an hour from here, and my girlfriend has offered to drive so I can get thoroughly sloshed on the local wines. That's happening this weekend, and I can't wait.

[Boogie Bill]

That's an interesting question about the number of guitars G&L produces. Your estimate is about 50 guitars a day. Not sure they do that many. Interesting to find out.

Craig...any ideas?

I think it's great that the board has a more international flavor. I know we've had guys on the board from Germany, England, Australia, Czech Republic, France, Denmark, Finland, Brazil, Mexico, japan and Malaysia. Don't feel bad, I live in Portland, Oregon...and it can still be hard to find G&Ls!

I think the economy is so bad, there are often hundreds of applicants for openings. One certainly has to be grateful for the job, but it's tough when the company is hard on it's workers. I'm also one of those people who need to "flee the building" at lunch. One of my last jobs was great about that, and they really understood. We all sort of got away with a lot (lol), but we got the work done.

My girlfriend Leslie is in the middle of our income tax season. We took just a quick two day trip up to Seattle at the end of January to see the traveling Harry Potter exhibition, and saw a few friends and clients Fun show and fun being "home" again. It will be after April 18th before we really get another break.

Bill

[Dave_P]

Good luck with the restructuring Bill, it's never fun. Been through it once, avoided another time(found another job), then got laid off only to get my job back only to leave for a different company. What did all that get me, doing the job of 2-3 people by myself. The upside, I'm literally by myself, sub-contracted to another location with no boss on site. The downside, I work with a lot of corporate groups, and to note yesterday's lunch report and the desecration of lunch, some of them even host meetings 7am on a Sunday. Talk about sacrilegious!

I really have no clue on the number of G&L's produced annually but, like others, am interested to know

I could really use a holiday about now, but I'm looking at August before I can get a proper one in. I am really looking forward to it though. A week in New Hampshire in a cabin by a lake, at least that's what I've been promised I'll get a away for a couple of weekends before then hopefully.

-Dave

[yowhatsshakin]

Fortunately, I have been able to avoid too much turmoil. I have witnessed my episodes of carve outs, belly flops, mergers, etc. but have been spared for the larger part. And whenever I didn't see a future for myself anymore at the place I was working, I switched companies and even a career once. Rather like to leave on my own term than waiting for the ax to come by.

An interesting G&L poser indeed. I was just doing a couple of calculations in my head using Jaime's (= blarg) numbers A total of 52 workweeks of 5 days with a total of 40 a day would give a total of 10,400/year. And 40/day with ~12 minutes on the PLEK doesn't seem unreasonable. So that's the production side.

Now you need to sell them too . So lets see In 2009 and 2010 I got 24 G&L in total. That translates to about .1% of the total number produced So you need about a 1000 nutcases like me and you're there I can see that happen

As far as vacation goes, my wife and I love to camp out on Mt Rainier. The White River camp ground is by far our favorite spot. Easy to go to different places and hike parts of the Wonderland Trail or the meadows around Sunrise. Looking forward to it already!

- Jos

Edit: Fixed a typo and a computational error . Oops!

[cmguitar]

I wonder about what G&L sells too per year. A guess 10,000 sound like a good number.
Whats Tribute sales and what % it is in G&L sales.

As far as vacation with a mom and pop biz like I have it doesn't exist.
The wife and I went to Isla Mujeres Mexico Christmas 2007
Went to Denver in 2001 for a wedding.
Over Thanksgiving holiday wife and I spent the night in a little town 90 miles away from my home. Just to get away.Don't have any getaway plans and too afraid to make any.

Chet

[Aussie]

Restructures : Ah the R words - Reforrm, reorganise, restructure - thought I'd heard them all until last year when Revitalising was trotted out. Only been in one. It started before I joined the organisation back in 1992 and its still going on! I work in the Health System .... restructuring (etc) is what we do!

G&L Volumes. I remember reading somewhere that it takes 20 – 60 minutes to plek a guitar and that new and well set up guitars are generally at the quicker end of the range. So if we assume that there is only one Plek, that because its in a production setting it can maintain 3 guitars per hour, and that the factory works a single 8 hour shift per day, for 5 days per week for 50 weeks per year …. then that would be …. 3x8x5x50=6,000

Feel free to change any of the variables if you have better info than my assumptions.

Holidays. Probably aim for just a week in the forests and vineyards of the South West in October (Spring).

Cheers, RobbIe

[yowhatsshakin]

…. then that would be …. 3x8x5x50=6,000

Sounds more reasonable (and above all correct ) than my numbers. Now you only need 500 nutcases like me getting one per month to exhaust the supply

- Jos

[Craig]

Sorry folks, I do not know this information, but do know that G&L's management would
not want this to be publicly disclosed.

[darwinohm]

Bill, I am finally back from Runestoning. Thanks for your LRs this week. It is good to see new members step up and especially international flavor. It is apparent from the posts that everyone shares the same job market issues. It is a global condition.

My whole group at a computer manufacturer was eliminated in 2002. I was 3 years from a full retirement. I spent about 5 months deciding on what I wanted to do next. My severance package was a year of pay so I had some time. The work environment today is to do as well as you can and move on. I do not believe that many of you will stay in the job as a lifetime job and many will be moving from company to company. Companies seem too be more into buying intellectual property today rather than developing it within. So the best in all are sought out by companies and the better you become, the more you will probably jump companies. The alternative is to be self employed which is the route that I chose. I was my own boss, managed my own time and it became very rewarding. The biggest reward was retiring a month ago. It has been a month and Ginny and I are still talking!!

I am not surprised that G&L does not share manufacturing numbers. That would probably be done by number 1 to convince you that they have the best product. I would like to see them as one of the top builders but it could have an effect on quality, possible production issues, material shortages and other issues. Higher production doesn't necessarily lower prices. They make an outstanding product and what we don't know may not hurt us.

As for holidays and vacations, every day is now vacation or a holiday. It has been many years getting there and is certainly appreciated. I am still short on time to do things, but now I don't worry about it. Darwin

[BillEvans1956]

Instead we're going on a wine tour of the Yarra Valley, which is only about an hour from here, and my girlfriend has offered to drive so I can get thoroughly sloshed on the local wines. That's happening this weekend, and I can't wait.

Now, that sounds like a great way to spend the weekend. I hope you've sobered up by now? Bill

[BillEvans1956]

Fortunately, I have been able to avoid too much turmoil. I have witnessed my episodes of carve outs, belly flops, mergers, etc. but have been spared for the larger part. And whenever I didn't see a future for myself anymore at the place I was working, I switched companies and even a career once. Rather like to leave on my own term than waiting for the ax to come by.

Good. I'm giving it 3 to 6 months. If things don't work out for me, I'll start looking elsewhere. Maybe even sooner. Trouble is, I live in a part of the country where good jobs are hard to find. And, I'm not getting any younger. We'll see... Bill

[BillEvans1956]

…. then that would be …. 3x8x5x50=6,000

Sounds more reasonable (and above all correct ) than my numbers. Now you only need 500 nutcases like me getting one per month to exhaust the supply ;)

- Jos

Hmm. Getting another guitar? No! I can't justify it to myself or to my wife. Please don't tempt me. Bill

[BillEvans1956]

My severance package was a year of pay so I had some time. The work environment today is to do as well as you can and move on. I do not believe that many of you will stay in the job as a lifetime job and many will be moving from company to company. Companies seem too be more into buying intellectual property today rather than developing it within. So the best in all are sought out by companies and the better you become, the more you will probably jump companies. The alternative is to be self employed which is the route that I chose. I was my own boss, managed my own time and it became very rewarding. The biggest reward was retiring a month ago. It has been a month and Ginny and I are still talking!!

Yep. Severance pay is still not an option for the part of the business I'm in (yet). Management are convinced that 'natural wastage' will reduce headcount and that 'redeployment' will sort out those who can't find the job they want within the company. I'm biding my time; waiting for what the future brings, and then decide. Bill