I don't usually take my work or issues that happen at work home with me but the past couple weeks have been taxing to say the least. I really like my job the trouble is I have more than one. Half my day is spent doing my maintenance control job and the other half is spent representing the maintenance craft as a union steward. I enjoy doing both, one feeds my need to be anal and organized the other feeds my love to research and debate (argue). The maintenance control job is cake, the easiest job I've had in my 24 years of service, as my co-worker Dave always says "and they pay us for this." After spending 21 years as a dock worker on the mail processing side, having someone watching you at all times and never getting the satisfaction of completing the job (the mail never stops), the work I do now is like a walk in the park on a Sunday afternoon. With that aside, my union work has been crazy. The Postal Service is in just as much financial troubles as every other company out there, quite possibly more. Therefore they are doing everything in their power to reduce the number of employees. Discipline has gone through the roof.
Right now I'm representing a woman who was removed from service because of her disability! Can management do this? NO, but they did it and I've been tasked with getting her her job back. The woman has been off work since July and to top it off she is in the middle of a custody battle with her ex-husband. I'm sure the judge will look kindly on her as she has no job to support her kids. I put together a kick ass case, I'm not going to go into all the details of the grievance process but last week I discussed the case with the PO representative. I laid the entire case out, and he had absolutely no argument, he could not counter one thing I said. Management has no case. We spent a good 45 minutes talking, discussing, arguing, and at the end of it he says "I'll consider it and get back to you on Monday." Fine!
Monday arrives........waiting......waiting...waiting...
finally at 1:30 in the afternoon he calls me and says "I'm denying the case." We talk a little longer, he says he will mail the denial letter along with management's argument. This is one of the most frustrating parts of being a union representative. I spend hours, days, weeks preparing a case and all management has to do is say "denied." Now the case will be docketed for arbitration, which will take months. In the mean time the woman is still out of work, no money, the holidays are coming up, the economy sucks so her chances of finding other work are slim to none. The thing that chaps my hide the most is that I know management does not have a case and they know they do not have a case but they would rather waste the time and money of going to arbitration.
I guess my point in all of this is that last night I met some friends out for a beer and a couple games of pool. I am not a pool player, don't really like the game but they were playing when I arrived and I was put on a team. Fortunately I was on Val's team, Val is a very good pool player; we played against Tara and Marlayna. We lost three games in a row, Val was having an off night and I sucked. Tara and Marlayna were very happy which was good because they take the game much more serious than Val or myself. After we finished playing pool the four of us were drinking our beers and chatting. I'm not sure exactly what Tara said, I just remember how I reacted, very much out of character for me. I know I went on for a good 5 minutes before I caught myself and shut up. I know that it put a damper on the rest of the evening and we left shortly afterwards. This morning I sent off an apology to Tara and explained how my day had sucked. Tara was very understanding, no hard feelings.
I hate when that happens, I'm frustrated and angry about one thing and it comes out on the people I care about. I guess it's natural and other people do it as well but I still don't like it. I'm usually really good about leaving my work at work and my home at home. I think I need a vacation.
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