[lbo-talk] Salon's Advice Columnist: No Sob Sister!

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Thu Oct 20 09:55:15 PDT 2005



> here's a little clue. I was in a shitty job. I stood up for myself, got
> laid off for refusing to work 16 hrs and have a much worse life now.
> Assholes that tell you otherwise are assholes. Now I work 16 hours a day
> and face the prospect of working that much every day, seven days a week
for
> many many years in order to survive. And yes, the prospect of moving ito a
> homeless shelter is a very real one. this asshole needs to catch an errant
> clue. what a fucking asshole.

Interesting. I was in a shitty but very safe (government) job as well. I also stood up, filed a grievance with the union, I thought we "organized" people for the cause, but when the investigators arrived, I learned that I was alone - only one other person testified. Well, "we" lost. They could not fire me, but the asshole bosses made my life miserable. I got some legal advice, visited a shrink, resigned, and filed a court claim for mental health injury. I won back pay, but was without a job. My former co-workers thought I was nuts, giving up a secure government job for nothing at all.

Guess what happened next. I enrolled in a graduate school, did some consulting for local gov't while my ex was waitressing - so we could barely pay our bills. A few years later we split up - she got Fulbright and then went to the New School, while I went to Rutgers, got my PhD and the current job at Hopkins. It won't make me rich, to be sure, but I am not starving either.

Now comes the funny part. They guys who backed out of the grievance and decided to stick with their bosses - they all lost their jobs when the place was restructured a few years later. They could not fire them, all right, but they made them redundant. One of them died in a DUI accident, another went back to Poland where he ain't making it either, still another one got a restraining order from his wife, enlisted and served in Iraq where he got wounded, still another one retired - I lost track of the others.

So it did pay for me to stand up.

Wojtek



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