Actually in a non-insane world I would of been given the initial role and not asked to give up all benefits for a medium increase in pay. Company stance was previous technician was a contractor, so replacement should be a contractor. So I was expected to just give up all my benefits and hope they get restored some time in the future.

Speaking of employees as investments, every employee had to have "goals" each year. He added the requirement that one of the goals had to some form of training. No not the regular training you were required but something extra. For example training class from a manufacturer of a system we used or a industry training like a lean manufacturing certification or cqt/cqe certification. Since it was an official "goal" he could get budget for it(with in reason). No other manager in the company to my knowledge did anything similar.