SMOKEY'S SOAPBOX
JOB STRESS
I am finding that my job is starting to take it's toll on
me. I feel that my depression is in part due to the work
place. There is an attitude going around that is not just
Railroad. It is industry wide.
We go to meetings on a regular basis. The last on that I
attended was supposed to be on motivation and attitude. All
I seemed to have gotten out of it was, "what more I could do
to help the company and get the manager's butts out of a
crack". Their attitude is for us to give, give and give. They
seem to make it pretty plain that we are not to expect
anything from them. The work is to be done regardless of what
I think. My input has been taken completely out of it. Thank
God for the Hogg law. If it were not for that twelve hour
work limit law, they would keep us out there till we dropped.
They just can not seem to get it through their heads that
are not number one. The good Lord and my family takes up
two spots. I place myself in there and then somewhere past
that, they get fitted into my plans. Number four is about
the best that they could ever hope for.
There are fewer and fewer doing what more of us did in the
past. My belt is girded up to the point I can't breath and
they just keep wanting more and more out of us. They cut
more employees off and expect us to take up the slack.
Surely they are not so dumb as to think if they had no
employees, they could get all the work done. Even a steel
cable will break when it is stretched too far.
Some management personnel are fairly well educated but, they
don't seem to be able to grasp what is really going on. It
starts at the top of the ladder and goes to the bottom with
orders to produce more from the employees and cut the
expenses, regardless of how it affect production. Their mind
is truly on one track. I suppose the concept looks good on
paper but they just don't seem to have any new ideas of how
to accomplish their goals. They have surely road that one
horse to death and in the meantime they have "managed" to
get their employees to the point where they no longer trust
anything management says or does.
I have always been a person of routine. I try to get my work
and everything else into a routine. Things start to pretty
well fall into place and when things seem to be running
smoothly, management always seems to want to take this time
to come in and change things. The things they come up with
must have surely came from sitting up all night trying to
figure out just how they could screw things up more and keep
their employees off balance.
They worry all the time about not getting all of the work
done. They have never seemed to realize that it is their
interference that makes it nearly impossible to get the work
done. Just why can't they back off and leave things be? It is
as if every new Trainmaster or management person that comes
to town, wants to hike their leg on everything around just to
mark their territory. Their great new formula for success
turns out to be the same old formula that all the ones before
them have had and tried. It did not work then and it doesn't
work now.
Smokey
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I am finding that my job is starting to take it's toll on
me. I feel that my depression is in part due to the work
place. There is an attitude going around that is not just
Railroad. It is industry wide.
We go to meetings on a regular basis. The last on that I
attended was supposed to be on motivation and attitude. All
I seemed to have gotten out of it was, "what more I could do
to help the company and get the manager's butts out of a
crack". Their attitude is for us to give, give and give. They
seem to make it pretty plain that we are not to expect
anything from them. The work is to be done regardless of what
I think. My input has been taken completely out of it. Thank
God for the Hogg law. If it were not for that twelve hour
work limit law, they would keep us out there till we dropped.
They just can not seem to get it through their heads that
are not number one. The good Lord and my family takes up
two spots. I place myself in there and then somewhere past
that, they get fitted into my plans. Number four is about
the best that they could ever hope for.
There are fewer and fewer doing what more of us did in the
past. My belt is girded up to the point I can't breath and
they just keep wanting more and more out of us. They cut
more employees off and expect us to take up the slack.
Surely they are not so dumb as to think if they had no
employees, they could get all the work done. Even a steel
cable will break when it is stretched too far.
Some management personnel are fairly well educated but, they
don't seem to be able to grasp what is really going on. It
starts at the top of the ladder and goes to the bottom with
orders to produce more from the employees and cut the
expenses, regardless of how it affect production. Their mind
is truly on one track. I suppose the concept looks good on
paper but they just don't seem to have any new ideas of how
to accomplish their goals. They have surely road that one
horse to death and in the meantime they have "managed" to
get their employees to the point where they no longer trust
anything management says or does.
I have always been a person of routine. I try to get my work
and everything else into a routine. Things start to pretty
well fall into place and when things seem to be running
smoothly, management always seems to want to take this time
to come in and change things. The things they come up with
must have surely came from sitting up all night trying to
figure out just how they could screw things up more and keep
their employees off balance.
They worry all the time about not getting all of the work
done. They have never seemed to realize that it is their
interference that makes it nearly impossible to get the work
done. Just why can't they back off and leave things be? It is
as if every new Trainmaster or management person that comes
to town, wants to hike their leg on everything around just to
mark their territory. Their great new formula for success
turns out to be the same old formula that all the ones before
them have had and tried. It did not work then and it doesn't
work now.
Smokey
GO BACK TO PAGE TWO
GO TO PAGE FOUR, DITTO
BACK TO MAIN PAGE