RAILROAD SIGNALS of the U.S.

 

RANT #4
A Case For Unions

 

RAILFAN GUIDES HOME
RAILROAD SIGNALS HOME


I'm not a big fan of unions, having belonged to two of them, and neither one of them did any good for me, and to be perfectly honest, probably were more damaging to me than not.  But the antics of management in a "free" work environment makes you think it may not be a bad idea.

With that said, a number of years ago, I was rehired the largest private employer in the area (which I got laid off from back in 91).  This fellow who was one of my bosses way back in the old days (late 70's), rehired me.  Let's call him John or #1.  He has a second in command (#2), we'll call him Tom.

Now, you have to figure with the push on ethics (which we get subjected to the company propaganda on every year, and if you don't take the online course, you get hauled into the office for a sit-down), that the good-ole-boy system might be out of business.  Nope, it's still around.  John is getting ready to retire, he was supposed to go out in a few months, and because of greed, has decided to stay around another year, as if 40 years isn't enough!  In preparation for this, John made Tom a supervisor just after I got hired, and added another layer of useless management. 

So now Tom is my direct boss, instead of John, but sometimes you wouldn't know that cause I get conflicting directions from them at times, apparently they don't talk as much as they should.  When John doesn't want to get his hands dirty doing the dirty work, he will get Tom to do it for him, so now Tom becomes the bad guy.  I feel for Tom cause he's stuck in the middle, but I only feel that way to a point.  You see, Tom is very indecisive.... It's much like asking a politician a question and expecting a straight answer..... sheeeeeeet, it ain't gonna happen.

Well, we have other things going on too.

John likes to walk around and check on things in the morning, but since he does this around 7am before anyone else is around, he'll find something that annoys him and then flies off the handle, and without asking questions of people that might shed some light on the problem, he goes into emergency overload.  This is a problem because sometimes it has a net negative effect, and instead of fixing a problem, he creates more.  OK, that in and of itself isn't too bad.

Let's take the example of one of the fellows that works for the Tom & John team.  We'll call him Bobby.  Bobby likes to come in early and get a head start on the paperwork and make callbacks that are part of his job.  The normal start time is 11am, but often, Bobby comes in as much as 20-30minutes early.  Now, you think that any decent manager with half a good streak in him would take it for what it is, but when this here Bobby feller wanted to take off a half hour early to go to a football game, he was denied.  HOW SMALL IS THAT?  Is this the only way for Tom to show his power?

It just ain't right.

Now, let's go on to another event.... taking in the ethics thing.  My boss John bids on some work, and he gets it.  But a problem arises.  He either mis-quoted or mis-calculated the number of hours required to complete the project, so he directs the people working on this project to charge their time to another budget.  A budget that has only the umbrella contract name in common.  Now, I don't know how ya'll feel about something like this, but it goes against the business ethics they are so fuckin hot-to-trot on teaching us and telling us this is supposed to be how we are to conduct ourselves (and don't get me going on the whole ethics shit in a company, cause I can rattle your brain on that one for an hour!  :-).  If I dare to bring it up to him, again, he would tell me it's none of my business, as he has told me about other things.  The even "badder" thing about this, is that #2 hims and haws trying to make excuses for why #1 did it that way.  Go figure... management doesn't have to follow their own rules.

It just ain't right.

Now let's go on to overtime issues.  Like any other overgrown big corporation, we are inundated with policies and procedures.... except in the case of OT if you're not in the union, of which there are 3 of them at our main location near the airport.  Everyone, from the Toms and the Johns, to the timecard Nazi, to the HR pawns, tells you this is the way it is, but don't come up with much (often) than saying they use the federal wage guidelines AS A GUIDE.  But the basic problem is that 1) they are guidelines, read GUIDELINES, 2) nowhere is there any company policy stating which guidelines they do follow and do not, and 3) for the policies we can't find any hard proof for, WHERE THE HELL DO THEY COME UP WITH THIS SHIT?  I've just gone thru three weeks of trying to get bonified answers out of anyone, and all I get is double-speak, a no-answer answer.  I even had #1 look me straight in the eye, with rage no less, and tell me "I will prove you wrong".... (six months later, he still hasn't proven shit and pretends that none of it ever happened!!!)..  I finally gave up today and said we were getting no-where with this discussion... and the college educated professionals are probably patting themselves on the back cause they feel like they won, when all they have done is proved to me that they don't deserve to hold the position they have because they got their head up their asses and can't offer solid proof for the question.  They don't see that guidelines are just that, they are not official company policy, and as I also pointed out, even company policies have been dispensed with when the parties get along.  Get on their bad side, and they'll rip you a new asshole.

Another problem.... #2 likes to think he takes an interest in those working for him.  He has about 10 guys working under him, with more than half of them working in a lab at the other end of the building.  It is often two or three weeks in between his visits to this lab.  That's unforgivable for a supervisor to be that casual about his people.

Oh, oh, oh.... here's one of my favorites.   We get annual performance reviews.  The guys in that far off lab often wonder how they get rated when they never see their boss, much less does the boss have any fucking clue as to what these people are really doing, and how well they do it.  John (again) says, BTW, that none of this is any of my business.  But how do they know what these guys do, when the interest level in what they do is almost nil until there is a fire to put out??  There is at least one engineer type that interfaces with them on a regular basis, and there is also a "lead" person in that lab, but do they ask either of them about how these guys are performing?..... fuck no.  They'll ask an inspector guy how they are doing, but he doesn't know a resistor from a fucking capacitor, so what does he really know about how well they do (OK, he can comment on how well they do their paperwork.... scuze the fuck out of me!).

It just ain't right.

Let's discuss a more recent event...... My toolbox.  I get into a lot of things ,and when I first got hired, #1 took me around, got me this second hand tool box, and proceeded to load it up with about half a dozen tools from another areas leftover tool collection, some of which weren't even new.  Another supervisor, who wasn't even in out group, kindly bought me a few other tools, but not near enough to do the job I was being asked to do.  So I went out and bought my own three high Sears toolbox, and started filling it up with tools.  I would buy them as I needed them.  OK, not much of a problem till today, cause up till now, I was doing a good job with these tools.  But I pissed #1 off today, and he told me to take the toolbox home... so I loaded it into the truck.  He said he would get me the tools I needed, but he brings over the worst lame ass excuse for a tool kit I have ever seen.  There's almost nothing in it that I can use to build things with, when I have to do exact measuring and sheet metal work.  What a fucking asshole!  He tells me to tell them what else I need, and he will get it.  Well, if he didn't want to pony up 4 years ago to buy me tools, what makes him think he's going to now?  Can you say Nuthin?.... It's five months later, and he still hasn't bought me more than a drill set and pair of wire strippers, I still can't do the sheet metal work I used to, so now I sit around with my thumb up my ass waiting for the machine shop to do the stuff I used to do........

Let's tap into another pet peeve of mine... taking photographs.  I asked #1 a long time ago for him to let me have a photo pass, cause only those that have one can take pictures in the building.  His excuse is that only professional people can have a photo pass, and I'm not a professional... well, what about Marvin, he has one, and he's not a professional???  So the guy that did have the pass has left the building, and he gave the responsibility to a 22 year old girl who just got out of college and doesn't know her ass from a hole in the wall when it comes to taking pictures... mind you, I don't have anything against her, she's one of the nicest people in the group, but she doesn't know anything about photography.  Ask her if you want a large or small aperture for a large depth of field, and I betcha she will say, "huh?"  #1 is still supporting his position as the #1 asshole of the building!  I might also add, that if you go onto the server, where most of the pictures they take are stored, about half of the pictures are out of focus because no-one in out group knows how to use the fucking camera properly!!

Boss #1 likes to go along every day thinking that he has complete control over everything, and that everything is running smoothly, but if he only knew the truth about how dissatisfied most everyone working under him is, and can't stand him, maybe he would wither change his ways or just leave, but as ignorant as he is, he won't do either..... The bad side of all of this is that his method of management went out with the stone age (or at least semaphores to keep things a bit more current), and he still thinks that yelling at people, or depriving them of the things they either need or want, is a good thing.  What an asshole!

One of the things about getting older, is that you get too cynical, too easily. If things don't look right, you get pissed-off easily.  You get pissed that policies and procedures don't get instituted consistently, or with a lack of sound judgment, or because the boss is doing it because of his ego and spite or just plain old doesn't like or agree with what you said.

More on Tom and John in rants number 6 and 9... happy reading!

It just ain't right.


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New 24JAN2008 
Last modified 28 Nov 2013