Railroaders' Nostalgia > Cole's Tales No. 1: Complaining!

I have thought about several different tales to share on TO.  I have ran lots of them through my mind (it doesn’t take too much to get through it!) and then can’t remember if I had mentioned that tale in a reply to someone else’s posting or not.  Forgive me if I do repeat some items.  I’ve also decided it may help if I number them like MDO and TAW have done.

There was a “post” a while back about "gruff" type engineers, this kinda goes along with that one....................

…………….....On August 20, 1963 I was ordered for a work train with Santa Fe Middle Division engineer Ben L. Jo… at Emporia.  I had probably seen him around but hadn’t worked with him before.  When I entered the old round house office there he was chewing out the round house clerk.  I looked on the black board and saw what engine we were going to get and after registering us on the log sheet went on out the back door.  Got a block of ice from the ice house and put it into the ice grinder and cranked the large handle on the side and produced shaved ice for the locomotive (yes, Virginia we used to have to make our own shaved ice).  Took the shaved ice to the locomotive and filled up the water cooler compartment.  Took the 5 gallon glass water bottle and got it filled up.  When I returned Ben was on the locomotive and was chewing out the head brakeman.  I released the hand brake and informed him I was ready to go.  On the way out to our train he chewed out the operator on the radio.  I didn't know what to think.  Just shrunk back into my seat and kept my mouth closed.

Even though we were ordered as a "work train" what we did was take 20 or 30 empty cattle cars to Diamond Springs on the Strong City District and the cowboys loaded cattle, then we returned to Emporia.  All day long Ben was jumping on someone.  All I could think of was "if my poor daddy had a job like Ben's he would be tickled pink" and all Ben did was gripe.  However he didn't get on me once, I don't know why.  Of course he didn't say two words to me either.  Later I presumed what possibly happened that day was he must have just missed catching a hot shot train to Wellington and was stuck on this 8 hour, 100 mile job, which would have upset most anyone.  I really believe he was very upset.

I didn't work with Ben again for several years (being severed for over 4 years, etc) but in the '70 - '72 era he and I entered the old Antler's Hotel at Wellington to get a room.  Ben was up to his old tricks, giving the clerk a dressing down.  I was watching him closely and saw for the first time a twinkle in his eyes.  I then realized he was just full of bull s**t and now it was all an act on his part.  I think down deep inside he had become a teddy bear.  But he sure had fooled me.

In my early years of railroading I did take exception to all the complaining railroaders did on almost everything.  A few years later I unknowingly developed the same habit because it is very contagious.  The other guys were catching the hot shots, I was getting ran around, they had better power than I had, etc.  One day I overheard myself complaining and suddenly realized I was doing just what I had taken exception to years earlier.  Me and myself needed a serious conversation.  I told myself from that moment on I was going to accept whatever occurred WITH NO COMPLAINING.  Did I change my behavior over night?  No, but my complaining did become less and less a part of my personality.  One of the most beneficial aspects of making that commitment not to complain was I would catch myself when I would first start to do it and be able to end it right there.

By the way, that was the most beneficial conversation I ever had with myself, or anyone else for that matter.

One more item.  As I have gotten older, or should I just say “old”, it has become more apparent that the time frame for a new employee to develop the complaining habit has been shrinking more and more.  I really don’t understand why that is.  Most railroad jobs are so far above the general population ones that they all should be elated even with the drawbacks of railroading (odd hours, weekends, etc).  But I don’t see that.  Is the complaining virus becoming stronger? What are your thoughts?

Mark Cole
Temple, TX

PS:     Unfortunately I still find myself complaining too much, especially about this $@^&#$ computer!          
 

Your "talking" to the computer is the only non-violent reasonable way to adress the dadgum things!  I find that an 8-lb sledge is always a good tool for adjusting Windows!

Bruce
Columbia MO

Mark:  good stuff.

Just last night was talking to one of my train service employees who came to the CCT after about 2 years on and off the working on the UP and he is a young man not an "old head" has never been on the rail before the UP or the CCT  and we discussed life on the railroad  and the topic came around to crying and complaining just how bad a job some people thought of the work on the railroad  and he told me when he was at UP other train service employees told the railroad was like  a gossip and bitching society and that was one of the things he did not like about it. he is one of the best switchman and is training as an engineer. I told him when I hired out 46 years ago  the old heads then called the crew room the " CRYING ROOM".  On another railroad I worked at we made up a fake form that a some of the yardmasters used and when an employee was complaining to loud or too much about the job they would hand them the form, it was a resignation form from this lousy stinking job, it always shut them up. But I digress " being old you do that" this young man told me this is the best job he could have and he enjoys his work, is good at it and would not want to work anywhere else. He said he knows the value of a good paying job you enjoy. The least enjoyable part of the job is the complaining by other employees and he tells them they never had it so good. After 46 years, 18 moves  and ups and downs for me I also talked to myself about complaining and told myself it was not worth the hassle or time to complain because as my Dad always said complain  to much and no one will listen when you do have a valid issue.
Working in the railroad industry has been a great job that has allowed me to see the county though you can ask my family if all the those moves were great  and railroading has allowed me provide a very comfortable life for my family. 

Maybe when I retire I might post a few stories from my 46 years in the industry.

safe weekend to everyone
 

Great story.  I'm sure we all can look at ourselves and find room for improvement.  It's easy to complain.  Just look at the passenger discussion.  The gripes to praise ration is about 10 to 1.  

I worked in the telephone industry.  When I was at AT&T there was Steve, an older gentleman (at that time just about everyone was older) that I worked with. He was a very good technician.   When they broke up the phone company I moved to the BellSouth, the regional phone company, doing about the same job that I was doing at AT&T.  It didn't take long to find out that most of the people I was now working with thought that Steve was a pain in the behind.  They would ask him to do something and all they heard was him complaining about it.  They didn't like working with him.  He would eventually do what they wanted.... well, actually, he was one or two steps ahead of them.  He would belly ache about doing it but in the process he had already started the test or started setting up before they had even thought they wanted the test.  It was just his way of doing things.  After a few months of my explaining that he was just playing with them, they got to know what was going on and they got to where they "played the game" with him and they found out that they were working with one of the best technicians at AT&T.

Sometimes it's just a matter of how you see things.  

John

We sure had some complainers in all crafts on the SP, but they were a tiny minority. I suggested to a few of them that if they hated their job so much, why not resign and get a job you like? Typical answers were "I can't find another job that pays as much" or "But, I love the teamwork (trainman)". On two occasions I provided the severance and resignation form, which the employee signed, thus  ending all his complaints.

One day I walked into the Oakland diesel shop just as Manny, the local chairman for the Machinists, was walking out. I thought we were friends, but as I greeted him, he would neither look at nor speak to me and was grumbling to himself. So I asked Bob, the shop foreman, "What's wrong with Manny?" Bob said "Oh, he just found out how much more money the engineers are making than any of the shop crafts. He is so mad he has been going around to all his men, trying to get a wildcat strike started but none of them will listen to him". He must have cooled down since he kept working until the day he retired.

cctgm Wrote:
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when an employee was complaining to loud
> or too much about the job they would hand them the
> form, it was a resignation form from this lousy
> stinking job, it always shut them up

There was a 20 - 25 year veteran conductor here in Temple, Texas who was always complaining about the railroad.  He came in from a road trip and was complaining in the bull pen when a fellow employe said "if I hated my job as much as you do I'd quit".  It was just the right comment at the right time as the conductor said "I think I will" and went into the Trainmaster's office and resigned.  I don't know of anyone who was sorry to see him go.

Mark

If there isn't someone sitting around bitching about their job, it's not a railroad.

Mark, I didn't know the guy in the story, but I'm glad he was gone before I showed up. The cry, bitch & moan guy of my era was Ronnie L Br........ Not only that, he whined too. I absolutely hated working with him. He only let me run a few times, and when I did, he was standing right behind me un-doing everything I did, and slamming everything into the mode he would use, then ripping me for it. He was the BLE local chairman, but I hated him just the same. I started to fall into the complaining habit a little too, but all I had to do was remember back to my last day as a rip track Carman in Topeka, on a cold, grey morning just after new years 1979. I had dug out a cave in a snow drift, under an old 40' hide car, and found a piece of cooperage cardboard to lay on. I was laying on my back with snow blowing down my neck, getting ready to do an air brake cleaner on that rusted, stinking car. It was about 10° out, it was windy, and my fingers were already numb. I could hear someone walking toward me in the frozen snow, making that squeaking, crunching sound, and I turned to see the Foreman squating down beside the car. "Garrett, the Road Foreman from Emporia just called, and said if you want that Firing job, be out at Newton in the morning ready to take a physical and go to work, Here's his number, go call him". That was my last day in the Shops. For years after that, any time things went south for whatever reason, all I had to do was think back to last day on that nasty job, (and many others just like it), and any trivial complaining just didn't seem justified.

I was working one cold night and had just topped the hill at Grass Lake headed to Dunsmuir many years ago. The dispatcher had screwed things up and frogged 3 trains.

As we started down the hill, the Conductor and I were bitching and moaning about it as usual. and I asked him, "Would you do anything else ?" He thought about it for 3 seconds and said "No". I answered, "Me neither.".

Like the post above, if you hear guys bitchen and moaning they have to be rails. Its part of the job and they wouldn't have it any other way.


Nudge

spnudge Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I was working one cold night and had just topped
> the hill at Grass Lake headed to Dunsmuir many
> years ago. The dispatcher had screwed things up
> and frogged 3 trains.
>
> As we started down the hill, the Conductor and I
> were bitching and moaning about it as usual. and I
> asked him, "Would you do anything else ?" He
> thought about it for 3 seconds and said "No". I
> answered, "Me neither.".
>
> Like the post above, if you hear guys bitchen and
> moaning they have to be rails. Its part of the job
> and they wouldn't have it any other way.
>
>
> Nudge

We bitch and moan pretty good at at&t too.

Plenty of bitchers in the trucking industry also. Mike

Posted from Android

trainjunkie Wrote: > If there isn't someone sitting around bitching about their job, it's not a railroad.

BINGO!!! I heard another version of this truism: "A railroader is never truly happy until he has something to bitch about!"

Lance

A UP official once told me, "A railroader (I think he said yardmaster, but applies to all rails) hates two things --  change... and the way things are."

ddg Wrote:
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 The cry, bitch & moan guy of my era was Ronnie L Br........

I didn't know he was ever the BLE local chairman.  He was the BLF&E local chairman when I hired out.  The only time I was on a train with him was when I was making my student trip accross the 4th district and he was the fireman.  I'm surprised you even knew him as I was thinking he had gotten BO'd due to health issues about the time I left Emporia.  Was he off and then returned to service or am I just off in my thinking?

Mark
 

Remember one trip across Northwest Florida on CSXT griping about those sorry Dispatchers in Jacksonville who could not meet two trains on Double Track.
Conductor had been quiet and I finally told him that all I was doing was making each other miserable and would not change a thing.
Best thing to do was might as well be quiet, get in the hole and kick back.  Remember an old head saying if you do what they want, they will put diamonds on your fingers!

Steve Panzik
Chiloquin, Or

in my 34 years experience ... dispatchers and tower oprs seem to whine and cry the most especially when unplanned things arise or change from the normal and they have to work around an unscheduled or even scheduled plans ...

Posted from Android

KskidinTx Wrote:
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> ddg Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
>  The cry, bitch & moan guy of my era was Ronnie L
> Br........
>
> I didn't know he was ever the BLE local
> chairman.  He was the BLF&E local chairman when I
> hired out.  The only time I was on a train with
> him was when I was making my student trip accross
> the 4th district and he was the fireman.  I'm
> surprised you even knew him as I was thinking he
> had gotten BO'd due to health issues about the
> time I left Emporia.  Was he off and then
> returned to service or am I just off in my
> thinking?
>
> Mark
>  
He came up with some kind of serious stomach problems in the early 80's, went to the Santa Fe Hospital in Topeka, and wound with some kind of botched sugery that went all wrong. If I rmember, his intestines grew into the scar tissue or something like that. He almost died, and was off work quite a while, and threatened to sue every S.O.B. on the railroad. But, he came back even more cheerful than before, and worked for a while, but eventually took a dissability before the Emporia run-thru occured in '88. He died finally, about ten years ago.  When he did come back to work, I remember one of they guys whispering to me, "A good Doctor usually buries his mistakes".

ddg Wrote: > ... The cry, bitch & moan guy of my era was Ronnie L Br........
I remember Ronnie L B[itch & moan]! I purposely looked him up one day and bought one of his bottles of home grown honey. After that he thought I was an "alright kid" and I never had any trouble with him. I also got along with his [HATED] brother Howard B[itch & moan] working the branch jobs in Abilene & Salina. 'Guess I was one of the few lucky ones...

Waybiller Wrote: > ..."A railroader ... hates two things --  change... and the way things are."
ROTF (rolling on the floor) with sore ribs caused by involutary convulsions of laughter!!! (...can I borrow this one, pretty please! ;^)

Lance

Waybiller Wrote: > ..."A railroader ... hates two things --  change... and the way things are."

I would like to borrow that too.  I was thinking It could also be applied to some other groups, like maybe spouses............I didn't say that, did I?