--- "Mr. WD" <mister.wd at gmail.com> wrote:
> One of my favorite holiday activities is reading my
> parents' wretched
> local newspaper, The Grand Rapids Press. The Press
> has always been at
> the forefront of publishing Calvinist wankery, but
> today's front page
> feature set a new low.
>
> -WD
> _______________________________________
>
>
>
http://www.mlive.com/news/grpress/index.ssf?/base/news-39/119830773665410.xml&coll=6
>
> After 60 years, it's quitting time
> Saturday, December 22, 2007
> By Tom Rademacher
> The Grand Rapids Press
>
> When Rosie Wysocki hired on at American Seating way
> back in 1947, an
> executive predicted that because she was a woman,
> she wouldn't last
> long.
>
> Rosie shot back, "I'm going to prove you wrong if I
> have to work here
> 100 years."
>
> That executive is long gone. But Rosie has endured
> and, at the age of
> 87, put in her last day Friday at the Grand Rapids
> institution,
> logging more than six decades as a full-time
> employee.
>
> At just shy of 60 1/2 years, she may well be
> American Seating's
> longest-serving employee ever, which is saying
> something for a company
> that has been around since 1886.
>
> Company Chairman and CEO Ed Clark knows of a couple
> of folks with more
> than 50 years but none in excess of 60.
>
> Dozens of people showed up Thursday at a luncheon
> staged in front of
> Rosie's work station, known as "C-13." It's where
> she weighs and
> packages hardware from 6 in the morning until 2:20
> p.m.
>
> She is paid just less than $17 an hour for her labor
> -- a far cry from
> the 89 cents per hour she hired-in at on Aug. 1,
> 1947.
>
> A native of Grand Rapids, Rosie dropped out of Union
> High School in
> the 11th grade during World War II when her father
> fell sick. She
> first signed on with Hayes Manufacturing at 85 cents
> an hour but was
> laid off on V-J Day.
>
> In applying for better pay at American Seating, she
> submitted a
> reference from her parish priest from St. Adalbert
> Basilica. He
> recommended her with this handwritten testimonial:
> "She is a woman of
> good habits as far as I know as a pastor," and
> signed it, "Sincerely
> yours, the Rev. John Maksymowski."
>
> Rosie stands barely 5 feet -- "Put down 5-1; it'll
> make me feel
> taller," she instructs me -- but her stature is
> legendary at this West
> Side business.
>
> "She's going to create a huge void here," said Paul
> Dieterle, who
> directs human resources. "And I'm not just talking
> about her job
> packing hardware."
>
> No lollygagging here
>
> Indeed. Rosie is a living, breathing throwback to
> another era, when
> you savored your job at any cost, worked whatever
> hours the boss asked
> and were thankful for a paycheck at week's end.
>
> "You know what I can't stand?" she asks. "People who
> say, 'That's not my job.'"
>
> According to Rosie, people worked "a lot harder then
> than they do
> now," and to illustrate, she tells a story about how
> she once stopped
> working to blow her nose:
>
> "What did you stop for?" she says a foreman
> challenged.
>
> "I don't want my snot on the merchandise," she told
> him.
>
> "Don't let it happen again," he barked.
>
> It's the sort of confrontation that could breed
> contempt in another
> employee, but not Rosie. "I never met a boss that I
> didn't like," she
> says. "You do your job and nobody bothers you. You
> lollygag around,
> though, and you hear about it."
>
> A widow since 1981, when she lost her husband, Stan,
> to a heart attack
> at the age of 64, Rosie focuses on her three
> children and a half-dozen
> grandkids -- the reason, she says, she has worked so
> long.
>
> "They didn't come out of college with the great big
> bills," says
> Rosie, who helped all of them with school finances.
> "And let me tell
> you, they're all smart kids, too."
>
> Smart enough, you might argue, that two of them --
> sons James and
> Edward -- have retired before Rosie.
>
> Rosie has been working so long, in fact, she has
> been collecting her
> pension for more than 17 years, not to mention
> Social Security. All of
> which makes one wonder if she's well off. So I ask
> her, "Are you a
> rich lady?"
>
> She lightly slaps my hand and says, "None of your
> business. Put that
> in your pipe and smoke it!"
>
> She enjoys casinos
>
> She lives simply, in a modest home on the West Side.
> She eschews going
> out for lunch during the work week, instead packing
> a bologna or tuna
> fish sandwich. "You want some?" she teases. "But you
> can't have any
> fruit -- I ate that."
>
> When I ask if she's ever taken an exotic vacation,
> she says, "You
> better believe it," and singles out, of all places,
> some place called
> Bullhead City, Ariz. "You should see their casino,"
> she marvels.
>
> Apparently, that's her only vice -- a little
> gambling. As far as
> liquor and tobacco go, she has never tried either.
>
> "I don't even take the church wine," she says of the
> Communion
> offering available at Mass.
>
> And as for smoking, she blurts out, "Do you see a
> chimney sticking out
> of my head?" Still feisty after 60-plus years on the
> job.
>
> Even though, with the grandkids out of college,
> she's retiring from
> American Seating, who's to say she's done working?
>
> Waving a thumb to the north, where American
> Seating's chief competitor
> is less than a mile away, she winks and says, "I
> hear Irwin Seating's
> hiring."
>
> Tom Rademacher's column runs Sundays, Tuesdays and
> Thursdays. E-mail:
> trademacher at grpress.com
> ___________________________________
>
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
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