The responses to my retirement post are a real eye opener.

[walkingman]

4. I can totally relate to your experiences. I also worked in a similar environment.

I retired in 2003 at the age of 52 and will celebrate my 20th anniversary of retirement next year. I was a union member (still a retired member) for 25 of my 33 years. All in all it was a great experience. I am thankful for the help that myunion gave me in helping me get transfers a couple of times over that period and also for the leadership of two of our Local Presidents.

I took a technical position (salaried) after several years of declining the offer with the stipulation that I would not have any direct reports. I did so with the expectation of increasing my pension. That lasted for a couple of years and it was probably the best experience of my work life - I reported directly to the national director who was an exception person....a mentor. He finally talked me into taking an operations role with responsibility for the Houston, Austin, San Antonio area. It was good mainly because I had worked with all of the people for years and knew them well. A little bit more traveling but all in all good.

Let me regress a little....in my early 20's I was not a dependable employee. I was attending college at night (paid for by the company tuition refund program) and my primary focus was school and chasing women. I was not dependable and were it not for one manager would have been fired. But I finished school, found my sweetheart (married now 44 years), and became serious about work. The reason I bring this up is because I always remembered it in dealing with my direct reports later in my career.

Union wise - we had 2-3 strikes over those 25 years. I think the longest was about 4-6 months. I was financially prepared and I kind of looked at them as some time off....confident that we would settle and have improvements when returning to work. Walked lots of picket lines and actually met Jesse Jackson once when he participated in one of our strikes.

Mgmt wise - as the years progressed I got more responsibility, first area mgr, then regional mgr, and then right before retirement several regions which covered most of the western US.

I could go on and on but will shut up except to say that their are good employees both union and mgmt that get caught up in the corporate effort to succeed. It is a dog eat dog world on both sides of the equation. Most problems are a direct result of individual employees both mgmt and union. Union wise - I think people should do their job, take initiative, and do it to the best of their ability. Mgmt wise - respect your direct reports, give them the tools they need to be successful, and then get the hell out of the way. Micro-managing never works.

Anyway - Congrats on your retirement - maybe we can tell some more "war stories" as time goes by.

Remember this - life is like a roll of toilet paper - the closer you get to the end the faster it goes.

Peace and Love ☮