What the fuck, over?

I was going to blog about this a few weeks ago but I got tied up in other stuff...

Two things I found out the other week working up in Nicholas county. First, you can always tell someone who hasn't had to carry a radio for a living for very long.

They never shut the fuck up on in.

And second, the mine security shift supervisor is a 30-year company man/coal miner who's too old to continue to go underground, knows absolutely nothing about security and is too stupid to retire.

Unlike last night where I was at a mine on Virginia where I work alone, the one up in Nicholas county has a whole security staff, headed by a shift security supervisor, who like I said is just a company guy who can't sit at home.

So I'm working up at the mine, I have my own little space to patrol and guard. I'm pretty much by myself even though there's a crew working with me but I never see them throughout the entire shift. Just their incessant voices on the radio...

Non-stop...

"Hey Johnny, you shoulda' seen that bass I caught last week!"

"No kiddin! Big huh?"

They won't shut the fuck up. So I turn the radio down real low so I don't have to listen to their shit, but that was a mistake I made I later found out.

Every two hours the supervisor does a radio check to all the units. This is standard procedure in most places where you have a large staff, so I wasn't put off by it. What transpired later that Sunday almost put me over the edge.

So as the day progresses, the radio chatter dies. Good methinks. But I forget all about the radio checks. No big deal. My battery died, and the supervisor will come out later to check on me.

So the day progresses and I never see the supervisor. At 1800 my relief shows up and tells me to head to the prep-plant, the supervisor wanted to talk to me.

Ok.

So I head on off to the office to see the boss. I get there and he has a Disciplinary Action form for me to sign.

What the fuck?

So I read the paperwork...

"I failed to respond to repeated radio calls in violation with company policy"

I look at him and ask; "You're shitting me, right?"

"You didn't answer the radio!"

"Well dickhead, my battery's been dead since 1300! Why the fuck didn't you come out and check to see if I was ok? I could have been trapped down some mineshaft or something!"

"That's not my job!"

"The FUCK it isn't! You know what you can do with this? Shove it up your fat, lazy ass!"

And with that I turned and left before I knocked him into another time zone. The fucking balls this guy has. I get home and call my area supervisor to tell him the whole story and he promises to smooth things over. He did as it's been three weeks now and I haven't heard anything more about it. But I can guarantee one thing, I won't be working up there again.

Almost the same thing happened to me a long time ago when I first went on the job up in Philly. I was walking a beat from 1600 to 0000. It was a pretty sweet gig, I didn't have to report to the District, I had a handset already and I'd just show up, park my car at the local firehouse, report on to dispatch and start hoofing it.

But I had this lieutenant. (The same one from the Punctuation Pirate post) And he would play these bullshit little games. Along my beat I had several storefronts to check periodically. And he would leave these little notes in the doorways for me...

"P/O Wolfenden, when you receive this note, call me by callbox at the district..."

I'd find several through the shift, and I'd diligently would follow his instructions. Until one night I guess I was just in a shitty mood and was sick of his shit. I didn't want to play his little fucking games anymore, so after the first phone call, I just continued my tour and tossed away the other notes he'd left for me.

Six hours later...

He finally shows up in his RPC... "Why didn't you call me when you got my instructions, officer?" He yelled.

"Why didn't you come check on me earlier? I could have been laying in an alley bleeding to death!" I asked.

He turned white as a sheet and left. I never found any notes after that.

So what's the lesson today, boys and girls?

The Peter Principle is still alive and well and control freaks shouldn't be in charge of a hot dog cart let alone someplace where people's lives are at stake.

But still these morons keep finding me...

Copyright 2005 Thomas J Wolfenden