Peer Pressure Works!

Well, apparently I have decided that job searches just aren’t ‘fun’ without pressure, so I have rendered myself unemployed to give the whole thing that extra jolt of “Holy shit, I need income!”

In all seriousness, as anyone who’s been reading of my mounting frustrations with all things ATS has no doubt figured, I’m really feeling quite a bit better tonight. This past evening was just the final straw, for a few reasons.

The first one, it’s time for bidding on shifts, again! Yes, because ramming through a last minute schedule change with no warning that’s going to upset dozens of staff was so much fun LAST time, let’s REPEAT the whole experience! THAT’s a recipe for employee satisfaction! I would call this unbelievable, except that, in the grand scheme of the way this company is managed, it simply isn’t anymore. In fact, it’s almost predictable in its’ utter stupidity.

But no, like a late night infomercial that thinks seeing a chef’s knife carve through a steel pole is somehow incentive to purchase a kitchen utensil, there’s more! For the low, low price of $19.95, ATS will throw in screwing me over on my 3 month review raise…AGAIN. The first time, they cheaped me out of a bit of money because, although eligible to get it, I had not yet gotten my D/A. My co-worker Richard, on the other hand, ALSO without his D/A, got the full amount. Why didn’t Richard get HIS D/A? Oh, that’s right, his license is suspended for DUI. So, if only I’d had the fucking foresight to drive drunk and get caught, I too could have gotten everything I was entitled to. This time around, they carved a little off the top because I turned down a lead line. Yeah, because trying to save everyone’s time, and letting them train someone who might still be around in a month…that’s just proof that I’m obviously not a company man. (And, hey, what an effective lead I would have made. Having all that training compressed down in to maybe a week, including ramming me through that unimportant tidbit about learning to push a fucking plane off a gate, yeah, THAT would have worked out well.) Meanwhile, AGAIN, Richard gets the full amount. Let’s look at the tally sheet, shall we?

I can read load sheets…he can’t.

I can read bag tags, and know what most of the regularly seen destination codes are…he can’t.

I can fucking drive on a flight…he can’t.

I can do all the hand signals on a push…he can’t.

I can help out with an air start…he can’t.

I can bring in a plane…he can’t.

Now, in all these cases, he was just a lazy bastard, and didn’t bother being taught how to do any of it. Fuck, the guy can’t be bothered to count goddamn bags coming up the belt! Yey, apparently, he’s more valuable than I am to the company. Yeah, suck my balls, I fucking quit. I’m done with this crap. It wasn’t the actual financial part of it that bothered me (all told, both cases put together amounted to about 30 cents an hour), it’s the fact that I do a lot of stuff out there, I learn as much as I can, I pitch in all over the place, and the result is, I get less money than the guy who works hard, but can’t be bothered to learn anything. (And yes, the job search has already begun….many resumes have been emailed out).

This brings me to the second part of this whole equation, and this is the part that is actually difficult…do I really want to keep hanging out with Richard?

Now, aside from the fact that work expectations didn’t match up in any fair way, I really do get along with the guy…about 90% of the time. The other 10% is where the uncertainty kicks in. See, Rich stops being such a cool guy when he starts to drink, and it seems a lot of his social activities basically consist of boozing it up. He’s not a mean drink, he’s not a violent drunk, he’s a fucking lippy drunk. It is actually a frightening experience being out and about with the guy when he’s in to his beers, because you never know what he is going to say, and who he’s going to say it it. It feels like you’re just biding your time until the inevitable comes, and some guy and his buddies, who he’s said something to, are busting pool cues over your face. Not cool, to say the least. So, not being completely nuts, I don’t hang out with Rich when he goes out to drink.

Problem 2 I have with the guy is a much tougher one, because it seems to derive from his mindset about himself. Rich has been pretty open about the fact that he moved out here from BC to escape a lot of troubles out there, and he wanted a fresh start. Okay, that’s fine, there’s nothing wrong with that…except that he seems categorically unable to be able to start over. All I hear from him are laments about what a bad guy he is, what a prick he is, all this other crap…and then he just keeps on keepin’ on, nothing changes, and the self-martyr complex starts turning over all over again. It’s incredible frustrating to deal with, and there’s really nothing you can do about it. I don’t know if he’s simply scared to try changing anything about himself, if he’s too lazy to put any of the work in, or if it really is some sort of self-martyrdom thing…he figures he’s a bad guy, so might as well not change course, or even make the attempt. I mean, this is a guy who has no license because of his DUI, yet he still sometimes hops in his car and drives. As if that weren’t fucking stupid enough, he often drives to a bar, has a few, then drives home. Is there a word for how fucking stupid that is? Do you WANT to do time?

I guess the whole thing pisses me off so much because, when he’s not shooting himself in the foot, he really can be a good guy to hang out with. And, to be totally honest, part of it is sort of seeing a reflection of my past self. Now, obviously, I never got a DUI, or anything to the extent he has, but I wasted a LOT of years doing absolutely nothing, and I did absolutely nothing because I’d convinced myself I was shit, I wasn’t worth it, nothing would ever work out, so why bother putting any effort in? I’m not claiming I’ve made a transition to some perfect being by any stretch, but I’d say I’ve taken several larger steps forward from that mess. I don’t like being reminded of how much time I flushed down the crapper, and I don’[t like seeing someone else do the same goddamn thing. So, I dunno…I don’t want to just abandon the guy, but I also don’t want the only reason I continue hanging out with him to be that I don’t want to ditch him. That’s not a friendship, it’s enabling him to continue sabotaging himself. Anyway, that’s about it for now…I really don’t know what to do in that respect, but I guess I’ll muddle through.