I love the job I have and I'm proud of the work I do. I live in Ohio, the birthplace of Orville Wright (Wilbur was born in Indiana according to Wiki) and the plant I work for manufactures and assembles the wax molds for turbine engines for flight. These molds will eventually move on to bigger and more exciting places where the wax will be replaced by actual materials that make a plane fly! I feel like I'm part of the continuing legacy of flight.
By nature, I don't like heights and I'm terrified of air travel. I think I'm just the right person for a job like this. Nobody trembles at the sound of a huge plane taking off the way I do. If anybody understands the margin for error in these delicate assemblies of modern machines that we depend upon to keep us safe, it's me with all my quirks and phobias.
I don't even listen to the radio on the way to the airport on the rare times I have to fly. I'll get spooked by a Don McLean song and turn around and go back home.
I xray the small core parts and then the film is processed, developed and inspected for breaks in the cores of the parts. My work diminishes the possibility of plane crashes. I handle these parts very gently even though nobody really had to tell me to. I'm meticulous about the way I arrange parts on film to that they're seen clearly. I love looking at the films when they come out of the developer. I feel satisfied when they're clear and symmetrical and perfect and lemme tell you, ALL of my shots are beautiful. With these parts in my hands, I am responsible for lives. The guys and gals who inject and create these parts are responsible for planes staying in the air, too.
There are several other cells in the company that do the assembling of the parts after they've passed my inspection. These cells are filled with people in the same situation. They work for years and years without permanent hire or even due raises.
The problem is not with the job but the company who employs us. Some of us are not employees, we're temporary workers. Some of us have been temps for years without the possibility of permanent hire. We survive on a barely livable wage and we have no health insurance. We live in constant fear of being fired without recourse or good reason. The temporary agency that employs us is rumored to be owned by the same person who owns the company. The same agency that gives us employment also hangs over our heads like a threatening guillotine. If we don't like it, they just get another temp in our place. I've seen so many people come and go in a year, I can hardly hope to get comfortable or friendly with anyone before I come in to work to find that they've been replaced or fired.
And the company CEO taunts us with Romney/Ryan signs that line the grassy treelawn in front of the building on top of it all.
My days are numbered at this place because I can't work under these conditions for years. I'll find somewhere else to work but before I go...before I go...I've gotta say something, I've gotta write something, I've gotta heckle something, I've gotta do something...I can't just walk away until I let these bastards know what they are and how I feel about them.
What can I do?
I'm currently looking for other employment and I have some things lined up that might work out for me. Whatever happens, I'm gonna get outta this place and never look back.
Last week they fired a 60 year old man for passing bad parts through inspection. He had been working there (permanent hire) for about 3 years. The problem with this is the unorganized and overworked management that doesn't take the time to get everyone on the same page about things like calibration of the machines used to inspect, etc. I'd been hearing this man complain about the discrepancies and the confusion and the improper training, etc. This company finds a way to blame the vulnerable worker rather than the inept management and supervision every single time.
The CEO employs both her children and her personal friends in high ranking supervisor positions and pays them well. While we're forbidden to even bring our cell phones into the building, her daughter walks around talking on her cell phone, mocking us all. The nepotism and the racism is unlike anything I've ever seen. They never appoint any person of color to a supervisor position. Instead, they'll bring white people that work in other departments to take over supervisor jobs while the well trained and loyal Mexican Americans, African Americans languish at a machine with no wage increases and no hope for advancement. I've been completely flabbergasted at the choices they've made for supervisors while a black guy or Latino is clearly the most qualified and experienced. It's like they can't picture themselves having to defer to anybody but a white person. It's blatant and outrageous. It's happened to me twice. I don't care anymore. I don't want them to hire me.
One of the guys got hired and got no wage increase so now that they take out for health insurance, he makes a lot less money than when he was a temp and he's never getting a raise. Nobody gets a review anymore. They used to happen quarterly and now they happen...I don't even know. I haven't had one yet and it's been a whole year. I'm not the only one.
One employee told me he makes only about a dollar per hour more than when he was hired 7 years ago. He's practically chained to this place because of his age. He's nearly 60 and he's has two major surgeries that had to replace actual body parts. He's had his hand crushed in a machine and restructured. He works hard and he's smart and responsible. I can understand why he's reluctant to leave. This place has taken one of his hands and he doesn't want to leave it there. Some other company might notice his injuries and defects and pass him over because he's nearly 60 and hasn't even got a whole left hand.
We were all forced to attend the annual Christmas party thrown by the CEO last year. We have to sit there and listen to the CEO ramble on about how much she appreciates her employees for 2 or 3 hours and then we line up like slaves to get our checks and $25 gift certificates at the local grocery chain. For 2-3 hours we sit at tables and enjoy buffet style crap food and watch the idiot CEO spin around and do "ethnic dances" while we all yawn and try to pretend we appreciate it.
I was so pissed at that Christmas party, I heckled the entire thing. I was way in the back so of course, they couldn't hear me but my coworkers sitting by sure did. "I will not dance for you oppressive freaks. I will not be your monkey! Gimme me goddamn check, bitch, so I can go home! Oh, who gives a fuck, gimme my check! This food sucks! Gimme my check, you twisted freaks!".
All this so the Queen Bee and her lucky sperm-egg spawn creatures can smile and feel good about "giving back" to their workers. Fuck off!
I was minding my business one day and the CEO walks through my area loudly asking my supervisor if "we really need TWO people in xray". Of course, my supervisor said "Heck yeah! There's a lot of work over here!". For doing nothing but working hard, I have to suffer this woman on a warpath walking around me casually threatening my job security. She'd love to cut my head off to save not even $15,000/year. She'd love to overwork and overwhelm my coworker with double work and then she'd walk through and complain about why no parts are moving through the company to other cells because they're all hung up in inspection.
What a sadistic asshole, she is.
A hired employee was recently fired because he was arrested outside the company and on his own time for drug trafficking and then he failed a drug test. I don't blame the company for that but what about the in-house employee assistance program that is supposed to help people overcome drug addiction? I've seen and heard of people who have been demoted for drug abuse, poor work performance, alcoholism, etc and they're still standing. They're all white, too. I should clarify; this guy who was fired was also white but he's a "hillbilly". Facial hair, tattoos and the whole anti-corporate get-up. And the drug trafficking? I can't help but consider that he wouldn't have been doing that if he had been paid a decent wage or if the company cared enough about him to implement their program that helps employees with depression. The man's young daughter died about 2 years ago in a terrible accident.
I dunno. It's complicated.
Our weekends are held hostage until the last minute on Friday when we're told (TOLD) to come in on Saturday for overtime. This is something that I rarely have to do but I watch other people's disappointed faces darken with the prospect of missing a child's birthday or a family outing or even just a day of rest before Sunday. This company gives me every reason to think that if it weren't for labor laws that guarantee a minimum wage (which they pay a little above, I'll give them that much credit) and a weekend, they'd have us all in there 7 days a week, barely surviving on $2 per hour. I'm wondering why they don't just outsource this whole facade to some overseas hellhole where they can do just that. Probably because the CEO left her own overseas hellhole to come here and oppress US. Thanks a lot.
Yes, this woman, this CEO is an immigrant who votes for Romney, the man who could give a shit about dark immigrants. She's a white immigrant so obviously, Mitt isn't going to deport HER white ass, just the Mexicans that she depends on for cheap temporary labor.
And the Romney/Ryan signs.....arrggghhhhhh....
I hear you loud and clear, lady. I bet you do love Romney's twisted "I love firing people" ass. You prove everyday how much you despise your workers. We did not live under any delusions that you might not have contempt for us. Thanks for pouring salt on our already festering wounds.
I can't wait to get hired somewhere else. If I get a few last days to clown these mutherfuckers, I'm gonna have a blast before I go.
I'm definitely gonna troll their goddamn "suggestion box". "I suggest that you oppressive bastards pay people a livable wage and give them wage increases according to merit like any decent company would do..." "I suggest that you stop all this nepotism and racism and let the best workers, whatever their gender or race, have the opportunities for advancement the way your children and friends do..."
They actually promoted a guy who nearly killed another employee because he hangs out and is buddies with the CEO's son. There was a raging fire and mushroom cloud explosion 30 feet from where I work caused by this guy. Another employee had just pulled his head out of the chamber within seconds of the explosion caused by this nitwit. He walks around like he owns the place. If anybody else did such a thing, they'd be gone.
I'd like to heckle their next abusive employee meeting where we're all humiliated (again) and told when we should use the bathroom and buy drinks from the vending machine. I like to raise my hand and ask; "So does that mean we all get wage increases?" when they stand in front of us and smirk about obtaining another million dollar client. When they say no, I'd like to fire back, "Well then why should I give a shit that you greedy sons of bitches are gonna make more money when we're not?! Don't throw this shit in my face while you still oppress me. I hope a union comes along and kicks the crap out of you..."
And then I'd walk out (escorted) smiling and saying "fuck you" to everybody I always wanted to say it to.
I'd love to write a nice typed and proper business style letter to the CEO telling her how evil she is and how stupid she makes women look. She's a constant goofball who understands nothing about floor operations and everybody knows how she got that job by dating the previous owner. She stands in front of us bragging about how she came to this country with nothing, worked her way up and now....
And now she's the overlord of oppression that keeps the rest of us down. "Oh, you girls will go far in this company because you speak English..." Yeah, right. The only fluent English speakers that will ever go anywhere in this company were born from her body.
And I NEVER disparage women in high ranking positions. I never try and push the meme that she "slept her way to the top" but this woman actually did just that. And now she struts around us like she's rewritten history when everybody knows exactly how she became CEO.
I'm not gonna vandalize anything or cause an uproar, I just want to plant seeds of troll in this place before I go. I want it all to be on me so nobody else will get punished for my antics.
I'd like to be profound in my trollery and find the right words to say because when I get angry, "Fuck you!" is right there waiting to jump out my mouth. A well placed "fuck you" is good sometimes but it's too good for them. It would only degrade me and justify them.
Have you ever been in a situation like this? What did you do?
There's no way I'm not gonna let somebody have it before I go. I'd just like to do it so they never forget. I wonder if I can report them to some kind of agency or...I have no idea what to do and I ALWAYS knew what to do. I'm a Chicago trained community organizer for life and now I find myself in the leader position, needing badly to be organized by somebody subjective, somebody not angry and clouded like me.
I get so angry that I can't think straight. Maybe I should just walk away quietly and let it be. I dunno. I'm just really pissed.
Fuckin Romney signs taunting me everyday. Grrrrrr....Maybe I just needed to vent.