BaltACDThose that haven't worked under the conditions that railroaders in Pool or Extra Board service cannot comprehend what those working conditions actually are. They can't comprehend the 2 AM phone call to report for duty at 4 AM Monday. Working to get their train assembled.
I dunno about that Balt, I've endured my share of surprise calls that lead to 30 hour shifts, or to being called out of town on an hour's notice...and I was salaried, to boot.
Any job worth having experiences hardships. That's why they pay above minimum wage.
[quote user="Convicted One"]I dunno about that Balt, I've endured my share of surprise calls that lead to 30 hour shifts, or to being called out of town on an hour's notice...and I was salaried, to boot. Any job worth having experiences hardships. That's why they pay above minimum wage.
Me too Convicted One, and I would do it all again, with perhaps a few days excluded that no one could control.
Convicted One BaltACD Those that haven't worked under the conditions that railroaders in Pool or Extra Board service cannot comprehend what those working conditions actually are. They can't comprehend the 2 AM phone call to report for duty at 4 AM Monday. Working to get their train assembled. I dunno about that Balt, I've endured my share of surprise calls that lead to 30 hour shifts, or to being called out of town on an hour's notice...and I was salaried, to boot. Any job worth having experiences hardships. That's why they pay above minimum wage.
BaltACD Those that haven't worked under the conditions that railroaders in Pool or Extra Board service cannot comprehend what those working conditions actually are. They can't comprehend the 2 AM phone call to report for duty at 4 AM Monday. Working to get their train assembled.
When you get that type treatment as a one off, or even once or twice a year it isn't THAT objectionable. When that is representative of your NORMAL work experience, day in, day out, week in, week out - that is when the 'indians' want to revolt - and do so in many cases by obtaining other employment.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Rio Grande Valley, CFI,CFII
BaltACDThose that haven't worked under the conditions that railroaders in Pool or Extra Board service cannot comprehend what those working conditions actually are.
But you have to explain all this to people that have the attention span of half a tiktok video.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.
Heard something on radio today that I have NEVER heard before!
CSX advertizing as a equal opportunity employer, no degree required for CONDUCTORS.
This is in the Baltimore area, I don't know if they are running ads in other areas.
BaltACD Heard something on radio today that I have NEVER heard before! CSX advertizing as a equal opportunity employer, no degree required for CONDUCTORS. This is in the Baltimore area, I don't know if they are running ads in other areas.
zugmann But you have to explain all this to people that have the attention span of half a tiktok video.
Euclid zugmann But you have to explain all this to people that have the attention span of half a tiktok video. Oh I think they will be able to understand it if it is clearly explained. But the explanation contains many interrelated facts. Explainers of something like this tend to state one fact after another, thus building the explanation “one brick at a time.” They know where all those facts lead, so they assume one hearing the explanation will understand it if they are shown the same pile of facts. ...
It can be fully and factually explained to someone and they will go - I know, I know I know. But until the reality of the real situations hit them squarely up side the head - THEY DON'T KNOW.
CSSHEGEWISCH BaltACD Heard something on radio today that I have NEVER heard before! CSX advertizing as a equal opportunity employer, no degree required for CONDUCTORS. This is in the Baltimore area, I don't know if they are running ads in other areas. I have seen electronic billboards in the Chicago area with similar messages from CSX.
You will see them in JAX as well.
An "expensive model collector"
Ads are on Facebook, too.
Any number of trucking firms are posting the same "Help Wanted" ads. It would appear that jobs that involve a fair amount of time away from home are viewed as to be avoided and getting new hires is difficult at best.
zugmann Convicted One Over the past month or so, I've come to the same conclusion. The draconian rules wouldn't even be necessary if every employee was a model servant But that's not what happened. It's a cute story - but far from reality. What really happened is they laid off a lot of people, got rid of many scheduled and regular jobs, and when people started quitting and new people stopped trying to hire on, they freaked out because they couldn't staff the pools/lists like they did just before the new operating philosophies. But that isn't as fun as a story to tell on railfan boards.
Convicted One Over the past month or so, I've come to the same conclusion. The draconian rules wouldn't even be necessary if every employee was a model servant
But that's not what happened. It's a cute story - but far from reality. What really happened is they laid off a lot of people, got rid of many scheduled and regular jobs, and when people started quitting and new people stopped trying to hire on, they freaked out because they couldn't staff the pools/lists like they did just before the new operating philosophies. But that isn't as fun as a story to tell on railfan boards.
Careful zugman. You're starting to come across as one of those uppity chest-thumpers that need to be "dealt with" in order for the poor, beleagured Class I railroad industry to survive.
BaltACD Euclid zugmann But you have to explain all this to people that have the attention span of half a tiktok video. Oh I think they will be able to understand it if it is clearly explained. But the explanation contains many interrelated facts. Explainers of something like this tend to state one fact after another, thus building the explanation “one brick at a time.” They know where all those facts lead, so they assume one hearing the explanation will understand it if they are shown the same pile of facts. ... It can be fully and factually explained to someone and they will go - I know, I know I know. But until the reality of the real situations hit them squarely up side the head - THEY DON'T KNOW.
BaltACDCSX advertizing as a equal opportunity employer, no degree required for CONDUCTORS.
My favorite are the companies (obvisouly not railroads) that advertise "NO THC TESTING!!!"
EuclidI have seen many videos by railroaders making great effort to explain their plight of bad working conditions. Obviously, they are trying to explain it to non-railroaders. Why would they be doing that if they believe that nobody can understand the grievance unless they are actually working under the bad conditions?
Sisyphus?
Also, sometimes it can be therapeutic to type out a response you know will be ignored. Or make a vlog, if you're into that.
I know half the stuff I pound out on here isn't going to be read. That's ok.
zugmann Euclid I have seen many videos by railroaders making great effort to explain their plight of bad working conditions. Obviously, they are trying to explain it to non-railroaders. Why would they be doing that if they believe that nobody can understand the grievance unless they are actually working under the bad conditions? Sisyphus? Also, sometimes it can be therapeutic to type out a response you know will be ignored. Or make a vlog, if you're into that. I know half the stuff I pound out on here isn't going to be read. That's ok.
Euclid I have seen many videos by railroaders making great effort to explain their plight of bad working conditions. Obviously, they are trying to explain it to non-railroaders. Why would they be doing that if they believe that nobody can understand the grievance unless they are actually working under the bad conditions?
More "chest thumping" on here? Maybe you need some "stick," whatever that is?!!!
BaltACD When that is representative of your NORMAL work experience, day in, day out, week in, week out - that is when the 'indians' want to revolt - and do so in many cases by obtaining other employment.
It was really your singing the old "No one knows the Trouble I've seen" lyric that I took exception to, it seems to have been a popular dodg'em ploy here for years. Could we also say that only a plumber understands what always flows downhill?
I think I can look in from the outside and appreciate the deterioration of the QOL issues without joining the union.
But hey, I've also had to come to understand with jobs where I objected to their working conditions, (I've had a few) that until it's my name on the door, I can make recommendations, hope for redress. But ultimately it's the decision whether to stay and endure unremedied problems, is the one under my control. Hoot'in, Holler'in, and threatening to hold my breath, usually bears little fruit.
It's unfortunate, but I firmly believe the one ace the ownership is holding is an understanding that many of the disgruntled employees are unlikely to find equivalent earnings potential doing anything else that they are qualified to do. So, management has the will to play out their hand.
It doesn't take a weatherman to know which way that wind blows.
Euclid Why would they be doing that if they believe that nobody can understand the grievance unless they are actually working under the bad conditions?
The claim that one is "only able to understand once they are a railroad employee" is mostly posturing, IMO. Similar in scope to the "the railroad was here first" defense we typically hear directed towards NIMBY's (try telling that to a Bison)
EuclidAre you saying they are complaining about something that is not real just for the pleasure of rolling the boulder up the hill?
No.
Euclid And yes I agree with your point that there are people who will refuse to hear an explanation no matter how carefully it is laid out.
Convicted One Euclid Why would they be doing that if they believe that nobody can understand the grievance unless they are actually working under the bad conditions? The claim that one is "only able to understand once they are a railroad employee" is mostly posturing, IMO. Similar in scope to the "the railroad was here first" defense we typically hear directed towards NIMBY's (try telling that to a Bison)
Not impossible to understand another person's working conditions but very hard unless you have an open mind and empathy. Your essentially "love it or leave it" remark informs us that you don't.
charlie hebdoNot impossible to understand another person's working conditions but very hard unless you have an open mind and empathy. Your essentially "love it or leave it" remark informs us that you don't.
Sorry if my frankness displeases you.
I believe on a more macro level, what is happening here is ABSOLUTELY "nothing new".
It might be new to railroaders, but seeded (or "provoked", if one prefers that word) attrition is not a new tool. It came to retail when they decided that creativity was best left up to corporate minds and store employees time is best spent keeping shelves stocked. It came to manufacturing when they decided anyone in the 3rd world could pull a lever as well as anyone in America........and since they cannot offshore domestic logistics, they have to work with the means available to them.
I've had jobs where new corporate strategy dictated a thinning of the herd through any means possible, and it didn't take me long to figure out that the employees I was being forced to find creative ways to get rid of, were NOT going to be replaced. Corporate intention was to simply load up the employees "lucky" enough to stay, with the work previously performed by the departed ones (in addition to their normal duties).
As an industry matures, it's needs in employees change. Those are the things they teach you in pursuit of advanced degrees. Welcome to Capitalism 201.
We keep hearing footsteps about automated trains, perhaps (this is just speculation, so don't come out accusing me of conspiracy theory)....but it's not unthinkable the industry might try to use a work stoppage as an excuse to make the next logical step towards automation.
Perhaps they are more ready for it, than we commoners can appreciate?
Just a thought.
Sorry if I misunderstood your position. I sadly agree with you about corporate philosophy with regard to its employees. The concept of decency has largely departed all in the name of the almighty market. Automated trains, at least on major mainlines of the class ones, aren't far off.
Ah yes! The automated Board Room.
This is not intended as any slight to the working railroaders we have here....but there is this odd corporate dementia where the top dogs trivialize the contributions of the rank and file to the point they really start believing "anyone with a pulse can do (whatever task)"
And when they start thinking that way, they see everyone as just a $number, afterall, with the execs doing all the thinking, all the "hard work" is already done, right? <-----sarcasm
Brief tangent ....but after my main career, I had to fill in a few years with "bridge" jobs to get to retirement age. And one of those was retail. After 9 months the regional manager comes into the store one day, takes the store manager into the back room...comes out 10 minutes later, hands me her keys and tells me that I am the new store manager.
What he didn't tell me that day was that all thinking parts of that job were being moved upstairs, and that I would essentially be foreman of the sales floor, with a fancy title. And immediately they began enforcing a rigid points system, that really was just a formula designed to reduce staff.
It killed me to have to write up my most productive staff for being 2 minutes late....knowing that a third write up meant mandatory dismissal. Especially after the discovery that there would be no new hires to replace them. Attrition was the new order.
I think the moral here is that once the companies start readily dismissing even their best producers over picayune reasons (the "stick", in other words) it's foolish to take anything they tell you at face value. "Bigger things" are almost always part of the mix. After a couple years of being "rack foreman", I started feeling more like a stooge than a manager, and put in my notice.
The guy who had handed me those keys ended up quitting 6 months later. It's easy to paint an evil face on the bearer of bad news. But with his departure I came to suspect he had been in the same boat I had been in...just a little "closer to the flame".
I'd like to think that my resignation might have inspired him.
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