I was a process engineer in Manufacturing at the plant level, so I can only speak of what I saw in this area. Where do I start ? In the late 1990's Shaw started passing over solid, technically sound people and started promoting "used car salesmen/game show host" types. Most of these people were good talkers who excelled at little more than finger pointing and throwing people under the bus to cover up their incompetence.
After more than a decade of this, most of the manufacturing managers are technically clueless about their own departments and unwilling to listen to the people who can actually fix things. (I had a plant manager tell me that we needed to be doing our preventative maintenance during production while the machines were running. You can't make this stuff up.) It is a very difficult place to work if you just want to come to work each day and do your job.
Finally, in manufacturing, once you hit the 15 year mark, you get a target on your back. Unless you know someone high up who will protect you, there is a very good chance that you will be forced out. Don't think that being the most competent person in your department will save you. This will actually have the opposite effect as your "manager" will see you as a threat and you will be forced out to make room for some "hot new managerial talent" that they can pay less and intimidate. This practice has actually cost the company million$, but they don't seem to have learned anything from it yet.
The company places no value whatsoever on job knowledge, experience, and/or expertise. They do not care anything about people (salaried or hourly) at the plant level.
