Hello All,
This is my first post. I think that reaching out to fellow furniture makers would help me get a gauge for common industry practice.
I'll try to make this as brief as possible but I think it's important to give you guys a few details:
I'm a professional furniture maker at a small furniture firm in NYC. About a year ago I decided to make a change from the company that I started my furniture making career at. I spent almost 2 years there, and I've been at my current company about a year. Both companies are very similar in size and capacity. At my first job, the owner of the company was very open about access to the shop/machines for personal use during off hours. After 6 months there, I got a set of keys and I was given 24/7 access to the shop for personal use, even for doing side jobs on commission. I was even encouraged, by the owner and my manager, to take on commissioned pieces to get used to working at the pace of a professional shop vs furniture making school. Needless to say, it was an extremely well liked benefit by me and the other 4 furniture makers.
While I loved my time at my first job, last summer I decided that it was time for me to move on. I felt like I was stuck at the bottom of the totem pole, and I quickly found a job at another company where I was a bigger part of a smaller team. Before I took my current job, I made sure to ask whether the shop is available for personal use. It was communicated to me that yes, the shop was available off hours for personal use as long as it was scheduled in advance. I figured, maybe wrongly, that that was totally reasonable. At my first job, it was technically the case too where we had to file a piece of paper to let my boss know when we were going to be using the shop. It was a CYA formality, and never enforced.
I waited to pop the question about personal use of the shop for almost a year at my current job, because I felt it was important to build trust with the owner before asking for a set of keys. I've been given the runaround ever since. I simply do not feel like I am welcome to use the shop for personal projects. It's been told to me that I'm not allowed to be in the shop without the shop manager or finishing manager present due to insurance reasons. This isn't about me being alone in the shop. I have no problem with using the shop when one of the managers are there, but being at the mercy of someone else's schedule is a far cry from having total access like my previous job. It seems to me like personal use is allowed, but only once in a blue moon, when a manager is available, and for a few hours at a time. It's hard to complete complex or large personal projects under those constraints.
Regardless of the fact that I was told otherwise before I was hired, I'd like to know what other people's experiences are in these situations. Is it a shop by shop thing? Is it generally industry practice to let employees have open access during off hours? Or, was my first job the exception rather than the rule?
Thanks so much for your help!
S