Christmas-Party
The other day, Wednesday, December 17th, 2014, I attended the annual Alumni Christmas-party.
The so-called “Alumni” are the union retirees (Local 282, the Rochester local of the nationwide Amalgamated Transit Union) of Regional Transit Service in Rochester, NY. For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS), the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY and environs.
The Alumni was a reaction to the fact Transit management oldsters ran roughshod over union oldsters — a continuation of the bad vibes at Transit: management versus union.
Transit had a club for long-time employees, and I was in it. It was called the “15/25-year Club;” I guess at first the “25-year Club.” But they lowered the employment requirement, and renamed it “15/25-year Club.” The employment requirement was lowered even more; I joined at 10 years.
My employ there ended in 1993 with my stroke; and the “Alumni” didn’t exist then. The Alumni is a special club — you have to join.
The Alumni is also an official branch of Local 282 of the Amalgamated Transit Union.
Driving bus was supposed to be a temporary job until I could find more suitable employ.
But it ended up being a career, 16&1/2 years.
It ended with my stroke October 26th, 1993. I was retired on disability, but recovered fairly well.
Everything works; I can pass for never having had a stroke.
My stroke was sort-of a blessing: I was tiring of driving bus, and wondered how I’d last 14 more years.
When I graduated college in 1966, I had no idea what to do with my life.
I wouldn’t be drafted into the Vietnam war-effort; I was 4-F. I developed a duodenal ulcer in college.
After I graduated I returned home to northern DE, the same madness left behind while in college.
For four years I had been on-my-own, free of parental meddling.
Returning was exasperating.
I also returned to the same employer I had during summers while in college. They liked having me around, but it was awful.
We were sandblasting the inside of a giant oil-tank.
And doing it from 10 p.m. until 6 a.m. to avoid baking in the tank.
Sand from the sandblasters would mix with tar, then had to be removed.
That is, shovel up the tarry sand, then heave it outside through a manhole.
A few weeks after we began, a union-steward demanded I join the painter-union.
I refused; I hadn’t earned my college-degree for this.
Beyond that, I was tired of living at home. My father was unpredictable and almost insane. My mother was concerned, but couldn’t do anything. My father was head-of-the-household, a cantankerous zealot.
So I finally decided to move out on my own. I would go to Rochester (NY) to be near my eventual wife.
She was attending library-school at Geneseo state college (“jen-uh-SEE-oh”). She had graduated college in the same class as me; and library-school was also a shot-in-the-dark.
I wound up in a tiny sleeping-room in Rochester; my life wasn’t much, but at last I was free of madness.
But my money was running out.
So I went to a downtown clothing-store looking for Christmas workers.
No doubt this is what my father was hoping for: re-enactment of the Biblical prodigal-son story.
(And what does the fatted calf think?)
But no way could I return to madness. —Thereby saving the fatted calf.
I was thereafter branded as “rebellious.”
I was hired, and began working in their tailor-shop; minimum-wage, which at that time was $1.60 per hour. I had earned way more during my summer employ with the painters, maybe $3 or more per hour.
This lasted almost a year, and I befriended some tailors whose son was a rising star at a large bank next door.
They suggested I apply, and picked out suits for me.
I was hired by the bank as a “chief-clerk trainee” at $100 per week. My wife-to-be had also begun work at the same bank as a teller.
I lasted about three years, during which time I married. The “chief-clerk” position was withering away as branches became more dependent on a downtown “central-proof” department.
I ended up as a chief-clerk at a busy suburban branch, but it was awful because the branch-manager was a jerk who liked to override me.
If I’d known then what I know now, I’d have protested; an Assistant Branch-Manager did.
“You say you want me to manage, but when I do you override me, in which case gimme a transfer!”
With the chief-clerk position withering away, I was directed toward front-desk duty. Meet the public and sales, for which I was poorly suited.
Finally the bank offered me a transfer to auditing, more-or-less a prison-sentence. It was in a dungeon.
I refused, so was therefore cut loose. Fired, whatever; I don’t know. The bank was mad I wasn’t a viper, hot to rip off customers.
The branch staff held a going-away party for me; another good one lost by the branch-manager.
The restaurant-staff congratulated me on my promotion, to which I said “Yeah, promoted out the door.”
By then I had become interested in photography, so the branch-manager tried to line me up with one of his customers: an aerial-survey company using photography.
That went nowhere, so I began a seven-year sojourn trying to figure out who I was, and where I fit in the employment world.
I got more interested in car-racing photography, and tried to freelance. I sold some photos to national magazines.
I also started writing sportscar racing coverage for a small weekly newspaper in Rochester.
I never made any money at it. It was more a tax-dodge depreciating my camera equipment.
Meanwhile my wife and I moved out of our first apartment into our second, and then bought our first house, based on my wife’s income.
My wife had also changed jobs to Lawyer’s Cooperative Publishing , which became her 33-year career. (Lawyer’s is now part of Thomson-West.) She started as a proofer, then supervised the Library, and eventually became a computer-programmer.
Our first house was next to a girl who drove bus for Regional Transit.
I had already spent a few months interviewing at public-relations firms based on my writing at that weekly newspaper.
But it was going nowhere, so I decided to try bus-driving.
And so began the reason I’m a Transit retiree; 16&1/2 years of driving bus, where it was pleasant to safely maneuver large vehicles, but our clientele was rancorous and cantankerous.
My income was pretty good at first, more than my wife. We had a cost-of-living escalator in our contract, which kept me ahead of my wife.
But that was taken out, and eventually my wife passed me.
I also began doing a voluntary union newsletter on my computer. It blew a lot of time, but I enjoyed it.
Management loathed it, but couldn’t fire me. I was a stellar employee.
Furthermore, if they had fired me, the local politicians who read my newsletter, and funded Transit, might hold their feet to the fire.
My stroke ended my job driving bus, and I didn’t return, as well as I recovered, and much as my stroke-rehab wanted.
I found employ at a local newspaper, which didn’t pay as well, but was much more my style.
But I continue to attend Transit-retiree gigs, like this Christmas-party.
I’m sort of out-of-it, but I made friends at Transit. And we have so many stories to share.
It was a difficult job, but could be pleasant. What I enjoyed most was pulling out; after that I was pretty-much on-my-own.
• My wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her dearly.
• RE: “sandblasting......”— Compressed-air blasts sand and air through a hose at the surface to be sandblasted. Like sandpaper, scale and old paint is removed. Sandblasting is usually performed before painting, sometimes down to bare metal.
The so-called “Alumni” are the union retirees (Local 282, the Rochester local of the nationwide Amalgamated Transit Union) of Regional Transit Service in Rochester, NY. For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS), the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY and environs.
The Alumni was a reaction to the fact Transit management oldsters ran roughshod over union oldsters — a continuation of the bad vibes at Transit: management versus union.
Transit had a club for long-time employees, and I was in it. It was called the “15/25-year Club;” I guess at first the “25-year Club.” But they lowered the employment requirement, and renamed it “15/25-year Club.” The employment requirement was lowered even more; I joined at 10 years.
My employ there ended in 1993 with my stroke; and the “Alumni” didn’t exist then. The Alumni is a special club — you have to join.
The Alumni is also an official branch of Local 282 of the Amalgamated Transit Union.
Driving bus was supposed to be a temporary job until I could find more suitable employ.
But it ended up being a career, 16&1/2 years.
It ended with my stroke October 26th, 1993. I was retired on disability, but recovered fairly well.
Everything works; I can pass for never having had a stroke.
My stroke was sort-of a blessing: I was tiring of driving bus, and wondered how I’d last 14 more years.
When I graduated college in 1966, I had no idea what to do with my life.
I wouldn’t be drafted into the Vietnam war-effort; I was 4-F. I developed a duodenal ulcer in college.
After I graduated I returned home to northern DE, the same madness left behind while in college.
For four years I had been on-my-own, free of parental meddling.
Returning was exasperating.
I also returned to the same employer I had during summers while in college. They liked having me around, but it was awful.
We were sandblasting the inside of a giant oil-tank.
And doing it from 10 p.m. until 6 a.m. to avoid baking in the tank.
Sand from the sandblasters would mix with tar, then had to be removed.
That is, shovel up the tarry sand, then heave it outside through a manhole.
A few weeks after we began, a union-steward demanded I join the painter-union.
I refused; I hadn’t earned my college-degree for this.
Beyond that, I was tired of living at home. My father was unpredictable and almost insane. My mother was concerned, but couldn’t do anything. My father was head-of-the-household, a cantankerous zealot.
So I finally decided to move out on my own. I would go to Rochester (NY) to be near my eventual wife.
She was attending library-school at Geneseo state college (“jen-uh-SEE-oh”). She had graduated college in the same class as me; and library-school was also a shot-in-the-dark.
I wound up in a tiny sleeping-room in Rochester; my life wasn’t much, but at last I was free of madness.
But my money was running out.
So I went to a downtown clothing-store looking for Christmas workers.
No doubt this is what my father was hoping for: re-enactment of the Biblical prodigal-son story.
(And what does the fatted calf think?)
But no way could I return to madness. —Thereby saving the fatted calf.
I was thereafter branded as “rebellious.”
I was hired, and began working in their tailor-shop; minimum-wage, which at that time was $1.60 per hour. I had earned way more during my summer employ with the painters, maybe $3 or more per hour.
This lasted almost a year, and I befriended some tailors whose son was a rising star at a large bank next door.
They suggested I apply, and picked out suits for me.
I was hired by the bank as a “chief-clerk trainee” at $100 per week. My wife-to-be had also begun work at the same bank as a teller.
I lasted about three years, during which time I married. The “chief-clerk” position was withering away as branches became more dependent on a downtown “central-proof” department.
I ended up as a chief-clerk at a busy suburban branch, but it was awful because the branch-manager was a jerk who liked to override me.
If I’d known then what I know now, I’d have protested; an Assistant Branch-Manager did.
“You say you want me to manage, but when I do you override me, in which case gimme a transfer!”
With the chief-clerk position withering away, I was directed toward front-desk duty. Meet the public and sales, for which I was poorly suited.
Finally the bank offered me a transfer to auditing, more-or-less a prison-sentence. It was in a dungeon.
I refused, so was therefore cut loose. Fired, whatever; I don’t know. The bank was mad I wasn’t a viper, hot to rip off customers.
The branch staff held a going-away party for me; another good one lost by the branch-manager.
The restaurant-staff congratulated me on my promotion, to which I said “Yeah, promoted out the door.”
By then I had become interested in photography, so the branch-manager tried to line me up with one of his customers: an aerial-survey company using photography.
That went nowhere, so I began a seven-year sojourn trying to figure out who I was, and where I fit in the employment world.
I got more interested in car-racing photography, and tried to freelance. I sold some photos to national magazines.
I also started writing sportscar racing coverage for a small weekly newspaper in Rochester.
I never made any money at it. It was more a tax-dodge depreciating my camera equipment.
Meanwhile my wife and I moved out of our first apartment into our second, and then bought our first house, based on my wife’s income.
My wife had also changed jobs to Lawyer’s Cooperative Publishing , which became her 33-year career. (Lawyer’s is now part of Thomson-West.) She started as a proofer, then supervised the Library, and eventually became a computer-programmer.
Our first house was next to a girl who drove bus for Regional Transit.
I had already spent a few months interviewing at public-relations firms based on my writing at that weekly newspaper.
But it was going nowhere, so I decided to try bus-driving.
And so began the reason I’m a Transit retiree; 16&1/2 years of driving bus, where it was pleasant to safely maneuver large vehicles, but our clientele was rancorous and cantankerous.
My income was pretty good at first, more than my wife. We had a cost-of-living escalator in our contract, which kept me ahead of my wife.
But that was taken out, and eventually my wife passed me.
I also began doing a voluntary union newsletter on my computer. It blew a lot of time, but I enjoyed it.
Management loathed it, but couldn’t fire me. I was a stellar employee.
Furthermore, if they had fired me, the local politicians who read my newsletter, and funded Transit, might hold their feet to the fire.
My stroke ended my job driving bus, and I didn’t return, as well as I recovered, and much as my stroke-rehab wanted.
I found employ at a local newspaper, which didn’t pay as well, but was much more my style.
But I continue to attend Transit-retiree gigs, like this Christmas-party.
I’m sort of out-of-it, but I made friends at Transit. And we have so many stories to share.
It was a difficult job, but could be pleasant. What I enjoyed most was pulling out; after that I was pretty-much on-my-own.
• My wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her dearly.
• RE: “sandblasting......”— Compressed-air blasts sand and air through a hose at the surface to be sandblasted. Like sandpaper, scale and old paint is removed. Sandblasting is usually performed before painting, sometimes down to bare metal.
Labels: 282 Alumni
posted by BobbaLew at 1:13 PM
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