Friday, August 19, 2011

Shock And Awe

It's been a long time since I wrote a blog entry, I know, and really there is no excuse as there is plenty to be yelling about these days.  The last few weeks have been insane for me and all of my peers at work.  Our company is on strike and for someone who has never experienced anything remotely close to this, every day is a new hurdle, a new challenge, a new feeling and a new education.  I'm calling this post "shock and awe" and I'm breaking it up into 2 sections....

Shock:  I am whole heartedly shocked that there are human beings that can be so despicable toward the people they work with that it renders me speechless (which is nearly impossible).  I get that strike's bring out the crazy in some people, and I can understand trying to get a message across by picketing and chanting. I am also a big believer in standing up for what you believe in. However in this instance, I question how many of the people who are on strike actually know what they're standing for? Are they educated on the issues their leaders are fighting about?  It makes me wonder....What I cannot understand is the vandalizing the property of the company that they work for, spitting at their peers, heckling, harassing and abusing, throwing objects at others, putting their own families in harms way....WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE???  Not nice. Not nice.  While I am not personally out on the front lines doing the jobs for the people who abandoned them, I am in contact with my friends daily.  The stories are unbelievable and the actions of the strikers are horrific and it makes me furious that this is happening.  Put on your big boy pants and come to the table and negotiate.  This is a different country and a different economy than it was 100 years ago....you cannot expect no change.  And oh by the way, there are 45,000 people out there that would be more than willing to do the jobs you walked out on, no one is indispensable. 

Awe:  I am in constant awe of the people who have have been deployed to cover the jobs that have been abandoned.  With no knowledge of these job functions these individuals have attended intensive trainings and spent countless hours learining these jobs. They have been sent all over the country to fill in, to work insane hours in all kinds of weather, to take the abuse and to not talk back.  They have been pulled away from their families, their daily schedules, their comfort zones.  They work for weeks at a time without days off, 12-18 hour days...and the list goes on. They put up with the harassment, the heckling, the torture...and not one of them has cracked at the pressure (and I'm sure some of them have wanted to).  Some of them have been documenting their experiences in blogs such as: http://eatsreadsthinks.com/.  They amaze me, they make me so proud to know them, they make me protective of their well being and they deserve to be thanked a million times over.  I am amazed by each and every one of them. 

I pray that this strike comes to a resolution soon so I can have my friends back.  I also know that once everyone is back to their "normal" jobs, none of us will ever be the same again.  This has been an amazing experience, one that I would have preferred to have avoided, one that I hope to never experience again. 


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