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Union Pacific
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I came upon the latest issue of Trains at my local grocery store today and was mildly surprised to see the cover devoted to my former employer. For a little over five years (January 11, 1998 to September 13, 2003), I was a minion/manager within the ranks of the UP Loco Dept. I live in the land of Brand X (BNSF) now, and seeing as how I no longer have an ear to the proverbial Grapevine, I purchased an issue to see how things were progressing without me. <br /> <br />I was not surprised to hear that the same trials, tribulations and woes I dealt with are still present at Uncle Pete's Rabbit Ranch (a clever moniker I picked up from a good friend at Pocatello). I chose to leave the UP for a multitude of reasons but mostly because I wanted to put a smile on my face again. I started out as a fresh-faced college kid; eager, ready and ever-willing to do my duty for Mr. Davidson and Country. However, as the years progressed, I found my eagerness and naivety being rapidly replaced with pessimism and indifference. There were many times that the satisfaction I gained from a hard day's (or night's) work could be shattered in an instant by a call from Omaha or Roseville. The entire management culture was something akin to a prison in French Guiana. General Grand Poobahs would come out from Omaha to talk to the troops about winning the good fight and espousing a kinder, gentler style of management. Then, behind a closed conference room door, the Poobah would proceed to reduce the local management (myself included) in to a pile of sniveling and shattered humanity. Then, they would proceed to take us out to lunch at the local Chinese place, all the while with a smile. <br /> <br />The arrogance that Mr. Frailey noted knows no bounds and is somewhat understated. It varied from manager to manager in the amount they spewed but really, to survive, you had to act accordingly. You had to belittle and derate your fellow managers in order to keep them from using you as a mat upon which they would wipe their trademark penny loafers. (Penny loafers in a locomotive shop never made sense to me; I preferred steel-toed Red Wings and was the black sheep for it.) The management trainees that were coming out of Omaha were, by far, the worst. It was as if they took an intravenous injection of evil-and-nasty first thing in the morning; they were a strange bunch, to say the least. <br /> <br />In the end, I had had my fill. The bloody conference calls, the daily semi-recorded pep-talk from the Grand Poobah in Omaha, the lack of initiative to make the company a better place and the careful maintenance of the status quo; they all came together to form a single straw that broke the camel's back. I had always wanted to work for Union Pacific since I was a 'little' LostMTKid. However, the UP I had dreamed of was long dead and perhaps nothing more than the idyllic dream of a 5 year kid that was carried over into adulthood. I left the UP in Sept. 2003 with no regrets. I abandoned my business degree and decided to pursue a longtime interest in the social sciences. I now have what I would selfishly describe as an all-around good life. I learned alot from my time with the Union Pacific but I would never return (i've had my collective fill of railroading for a living), nor would I ever recommend a management position to another eager and ever-willing college kid. Someone at the shop once told me that there are bigger and better things in this world than the Union Pacific Railroad...and he was right. <br /> <br />My kudos to Mr. Frailey for a well-written article. <br /> <br />
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