Paranoid Schizophrenia, Right to Work and other Adventures

hourlytosalary submitted 157 days ago

Well I dont really know where to start, so I think I will just go to the beginning. At the age of 22 I found myself a Military Vetran with no real skills for the civillian world. So after laying about feeling sorry for myself i went to a tech school with a fast track in Electrical Power Distribution & Motor Control for Machinery. 9 mos later I have a Diploma and a plane ticket to South Carolina. 20 days later I found myself a job working for the first in a long line of "difficult" companies.

The first of which was a company that specialised in sheet metal fabrication. I was to assemble the componets and manage the wiring harness for a machine that was tantamount to a giant dishwasher for truck motors (apparently this was a new project that the owner was trying to put together to branch out his buisiness beyond cutting and forming sheet metal). The plant manager was actually a really great guy (which compared to some I have seen since then was a blessing I was too naive at the time to fully appreciate). So about two months into the job (which by the way was paying about 1/2 what I was worth, I came to find out) the plant manager has a huge fight with the owner and resigns. About two weeks after that i find that the new project is closed and that the intended customer owed our company tantamount to $20,000.00 which for a small company is no small fee. i am moved to running a machine. This is really boring work, once a machine is set up you stand there and feed it steel sheets to chew up and hit a button....simple. Now keep in mind this company had aproximately 20 employees. 5 were supervisors. So minus the secretaries and the welder and his helper, each supervisor had 3-4 people who all pretty much already new what they were supposed to do after the first 30minutes of each day. So the five "Cheifs" would all come together in a corner by the stairs where they could have a good view of everyone working throughtout the little shop and drink their coffee. And then like clock work they would pick out one of the regular laborer's like yours trully, and proceed to give them shit ALL DAY LONG. They would laugh about the shitty chores they would think up (* example's * 1. the drain pit in the paint department had to be shoveled out 4 feet deep of old brackish water and mud that smelled like sewer , aparently the last time it had been cleaned had been 10 years prior... I got really sick helping with that job, 2. i saw another poor bastard using a wetvac to suck up paint thinner out of the mud in the back lot before OSHA inspectors showed up during winter, 3. making employees carry 12'X6' pallets to stack the heavy steel products we built which in themselves weighed a good 150lbs.... when there was a forklift not five feet away, but the shipping supervisor was in charge of that forklift and she was too damn lazy to help... she told me carrying them was MY JOB... then continued with her coffee.) All in all the Shipping supervisor was the worst. She was a complete Bitch. She liked to pick on this one lady that worked there. The poor woman was so intimidated she would become a nervous wreck and start screwing up so that the abuse became downright nasty. They would laugh and mock the various unlucky individuals of that day (but usually it was the lady).
This went on for 8 months, then my girlfreind I was living with at the time began to have some medical problems. So I had to take her to see some specialists, and I started to miss days (keep in mind the job only paid 6.50 per hour with a .50cent per hour bonus for good attendance...$7.00) so one day I come into the office to explain that my lady needed surgery so i needed a week off to help her get around, when this Shipping Supervisor makes the smart ass remark, before I can even state why I am there, that only FULL TIME EMPLOYEES are allowed in the office. I should have quit but I didnt, I stuck it out for three more days then another supervisor that I was working with decided I should be working faster on my line (by now I had been moved to the paint department washing the oils off the metal and drying them to be painted)... I tried to explain that the parts were moving faster than water can dry just sending wet parts into the powdercoat booth messing up the paint. He just ingnored me and the other two employees who stated the same thing and just kept right on overloading us... so i turned to him and said Good-Bye as politly as a stressed out person could... and walked out.

The next job I got was working for a company that made sizing for starch. I worked there for about 2 months... $7.50 per hour (I got a raise... three days a week). My favorite quote from the owner (who drove a cadillac by the way) was " I have two guys that are working for me. They both say they need more money but they seem to both be gaining weight... I guess they arent too hungry." Nice....

Finally I got my "BiG BreaK". While looking for a job after quiting the sheet metal shop I met the maintenance supervisor for a local factory. This was a large company that employed a good 40% of the small town I lived in. So he finally called me and said I would get the job as his assistant. Now during the interviews prior to this (which took place in my own home... turned out he not only went to the same church as I where I met him, but he also lived around the corner), he kept asking me if I had problems with anyone on medication. At the time I was like well if you needed to take a pill and it was not illegal; go for it. So I got hired... $11.25 per hour wooo hooo!!! considering what kind of a budget I had been living on I felt rich! ! I was on top of the world. Now as time went on I figured out that he was a little ...off. the other guys in the maintenance shop kept asking me how I could deal with him? Sure he yelled a lot, sure his face would get red, and sure half the time what he was bitching about didnt even make sense... but he let me buy all the tools I wanted, he let me run my own projects, he let me pretty much come and go as I pleased. Fact is most of his bitching was about politics, other departments in the factory, other shifts, and ocasionally he would think he had been robbed when he misplaced something. I loved the guy, really I did, I would say as a supervisor,HE ROCKED, he left the running of our department to me. When we hired new guys he let ME train them, when he took time off I was in charge of all the projects. If I did screw something up he took the heat for me, he let me have time off when i needed it even though our company had a point system, where in if you missed too many days or were late you were docked points to the point that you were terminated... I think it was 3 points for unexcused absensce with no call , 2 for lateness, one for unexscused absence with a phone call... up to 13 points per year.... I should have been fired several times if not for him... (I still was taking my lady to the doctor for this or that... but that turned into an entirely different talk show altogether). I remeber one day at lunch (small town you see) I ran into the owner of the metal shop. Since I wasnt working for him he was all freindly and all Like "How are you?", I replied " I am GREAT I am getting paid TWICE what you paid me". then i walked away while his jaw hung to his chest, just dumbstruck that i had the audacity to say that.

I worked for my new boss for a while and when he would get wound up i would remind him to take his pills (he was a Paranoid Schizophrenic by the way) for this and the fact that I always showed him respect no matter what crazy thing he was doing, he trusted me completely and he new i would look out for him too. There were sometimes when it would get a bit too much, I remeber at one point he had me and the entire crew lined up and he was screaming about something like wire labeling or some other little thing and his veins were coming out of his neck and he was BRIGHT RED like a beet. So I calmly turned to my guys and said " Isnt he Cute when gets like that?"... He just stopped in mid rant totally speechless then the color came back to his face and he kinda blushed like he was embarrased and went back to the office. We all laughed about it later, but I was in the military so trust me when I say getting screamed in the face is like no big deal to me... I just receive the information at a higher volume, thats how I look at it, why should I get upset. He never yelled at us again. Unfortunately that did not stop him from going off on a tangent with others. The last straw for him came in the form of a female shift supervisor. He had this poor woman in tears in front of her whole crew. the problem was that almost daily we were required to repair a machine in her department used for testing product. This factory ran 24/7 50weeks a year on thre shifts. So everymorning I would go out and recover the item to be repaired. the repairs were such that it took 1-1.5 hours before the machine could be returned for service. keep in mind we have a whole facility to work in, so this was costing us a lot of time... so one day he snapped. They sent him home with out pay while they decided to evaluate the problem. To make matters worse he sent an e-mail to the plant manager stating what type of weapons he owned at his home. Now being that it was a small town and that this was before Columbine and all that terribleness with mass shootings, everyone new he was blowing off steam and meant nothing by it (nowawadays he would have been in prison). However it turns out he had accidently sent the same e-mail through the entire company network... which included the corporate office of the conglomerate that owned our small division and all the VP's. So needless to say they fired him, I had also seperated from my wife (we had married earlier that year but that is another story), I new the guy that was to take over my department and while he and I were good freinds, I knew i could not work for him, so I decided I had had enough of South Carolina and its right to work laws. So for those of you that dont know what it means to work in a "Right to Work State" let me give you the abridged version as I saw it. You can be fired for ANYTHING, you have no rights because you will be fired for standing up for yourself "insubordination", your pay will always suck because complain and you will be fired "there is always somebody cheaper", quality of life sucks because you have no money and there is no more coming in (the other reason I left is I new I would never find another position that paid as well or had the same quality of benefits and the only reason I had those was because of the corporation that owned us... which has since pulled out I have heard). The pollution laws are more lax and water contamination was a real problem, but the towns economy is reliant upon the few jobs there are so they turn a blind eye. Unemployment is like 25-30% less in right to work states (or so I have been told by Union Propoganda). But the sales pitch is that you dont have to be a UNION Member in order to work " you dont have to pay Union dues".... it is total crap. You want to know what my health plan consisted of while working for the sheet metal buisness... AFLAC that was it !!! I pay more for medical insurance now than any Union Dues have ever cost... and those guys even throw in retirement. Since then i have worked in Texas, Oklahoma and now California. I have done everything from new construction for guys who micromanaged everymove I made to make sure they were getting the most out of me they could, to shops that let me run my own clock and let me travel on company time. I have had from crappy benefits to excelent packages. I have worked for factories that only hire once in awhile to keep their people, and others that had "REVOLVING DOOR" policies that justified "Firing at will"... because "Everyone is Replaceable". I finally am doing what I trully love, I sell electrical equipment. I am on a salary and have a regular schedule. i love the challenge of helping people solve their problems and I get a kick out of all the neat equipment I get to play with. My benefits are good and I work for a small family owned company that has been around so long that I feel like I dont even really sell at all because everyone knows who we are and they quality of work we do. I am still quite young no worse for wear and I actually enjoy coming to work for the first time in my life.