Belief that White Furniture Company handled its plant closing well
Burnett believes that the White Furniture Company handled the plant closing well, though he is mystified by the modifications and repairs they were making on the building so soon before it closed its doors.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Tracy L. H. Burnett, November 15, 1994. Interview K-0088. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- JEFF COWIE:
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As an entrepreneur yourself, you're obviously ambitious and
you've learned how the system works quite a bit. How do you
feel about Hickory having shut down the factory?
- TRACY L.H. BURNETT:
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What I think about--? Well, I'm pretty sure it was in their
financial--financially in their best interest to do something like that,
I mean, you know, I couldn't understand why they did all
those modifications and repairs to the building and then close it, but
I'm pretty sure that they thought it through before they
closed it down.
- JEFF COWIE:
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What sorts of modifications?
- TRACY L.H. BURNETT:
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Like they installed this new elevator system. They were always building
new stuff. Adding on machinery and stuff of that nature. I mean
constantly.
- JEFF COWIE:
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So there were no indications that--?
- TRACY L.H. BURNETT:
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No, just out of the blue.
- JEFF COWIE:
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It sounds like you feel they handled the lay-off well, I mean, I get that
impression from you.
- TRACY L.H. BURNETT:
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Yeah. Yeah, they did it tastefully, I think. So I mean a lot of places
they would have waited to the last day and then say, "Well, you
don't have a job. Don't come back
tomorrow." You know, but they gave us like six months advance
notice, and then they done all this other stuff. Yeah, I thought a lot
of them for them doing that because, I mean, you could tell they did
care about their people--a little bit, at least. Well, a lot
I'd say. I give them that, yeah.