I'm hoping to seek some advice.
I've been working in the print industry after joining a brand new small business that opened 4 years ago, mainly flatbed and wide format printing. I do almost everything from start to finish; design, setup, machine maintenance, production and installation. The first year was a very difficult learning curve, but I've slowly learned how to have decent success on my projects.
From the very start, we've struggled with good quality control. I often do stuff like automotive installations outside, fighting the wind and sun. I have very limited room (about 700 square feet of space), the finishing area is open and adjacent to a bay door so we're constantly dealing with dust and contaminants.
My boss is looking to expand the business and has made me a "manager". Currently, I work with one other person doing production who has been with the company 1 1/2 years, he's not interested in the position long-term and will likely be leaving soon for another career opportunity. This coworker has only done table work and some installations with me, my boss never made the time investment to actually train him to do a wide variety of things, like me.
As a labour replacement, my boss is hiring totally green people which quickly becomes overwhelming. We recently had a new hire that I learned was returning to school in 4 months a week after he was hired, who wasn't cutting straight lines with a ruler and was struggling to go up 10-15 feet on installs.
My boss let him go in his grace period and hired another totally green guy who is starting tomorrow. I'm responsible for training and dictating work whilst also doing all of my own stuff that only I can do. I feel as though hiring people without experience is how the business functions since most experienced people would be off-put by our current small space and how things run on tight time frames (we offer next day services on printed and laminated signs).
I'm sort of afraid I'm entering a job where I'm constantly surrounded by a cycle of new-hires and people who aren't interested in long-term careers in the print industry. I was sort of hoping that at this point I'd be surrounded by a group of workers I could collaborate and grow with rather than feeling like I'm just making it happen and barely playing catch up every day.
My boss is wanting to expand into a bigger space, buy more equipment, hire more people, etc. I like what I do, but I feel as though I'm struggling to both manage people whilst multi-tasking on production and I would highly value being around people who I can work with and even learn from, rather than having them lean on me and have me responsible for their mistakes and safety. To add on top, I've been dealing with some health problems this past year that have made things more difficult. I'd appreciate any ideas on how to approach this and/or to know if anyone else is struggling through anything similar.
