Warning, if you are approached to work in a management position for Silver Springs Citrus run. I started what I thought would be a good position working for a small but busy citrus plant in Florida. I had left a good position paying well but wanted to relocate south to get ready for retirement and felt that I could settle in and help the company.
The first week I was there a warning flag went up as I had no office as department manager and there was no written information. Asking why, I was told we had to remember everything. Talking with the employees I had found that over 30% had been to jail and there some could not read or write. I was willing to help them still.
I was a little amazed that many of the employees had been fired at least once and you were in good standing if you had never been fired. As I dug deeper I found that some of the employees had been fired as many as five, yes five times and the company had a turnaround rate of 104% per year.
Then the hours started to build after just a few short weeks my hours were slowly beginning to increase, I was now up to 60 hours a week coming in at 6 AM and leaving sometime after 6 PM.
The plant manager then pulled me into his office and asked why I was not working the weekends I explained that I would start trying to come in on Saturdays. He then explained that the job was seven days a week and I better make an effort to work the seven days or he would terminate me. He then reminded me that Florida is a right to work state and he could terminate me at his whim without reason or cause.
Again my responsibilities were increased as I was asked to stay with maintenance to work on problems and assist electronic techs in fixing equipment problems and was told to stay until the broken equipment was repaired. My hours continued to increase still.
I found that we were adding water to fresh orange juice; this is illegal and would end up getting me put in jail. I found that if concentrated orange juice was spilled on the floor it was common practice to put it back in the drums and add it to your orange juice, have a glass on me.
When we would collect juice because we made too much we would put in back in 55 gal drums in plastic bags, damn shame the bags were torn and the paint chips would get in the juice plus whet ever else was in the drum.
As I tried to stop these practices my hand would be slapped I was told to turn the other way as these things happened.
The plant itself was falling apart, a maintenance nightmare with the poorest sanitation practices I have ever seen it was run with no care for the customer.
Enough was enough I quit but not before a QA manager had quit. My recommendation is to look closely before you take any position with this company. As a side note they are owned by Toyota Tsusho America who, when I called claimed never owned the company but if you look outside you will see yes they do. Do your research and say no when its your time to be offered a position.
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