Despised

Today was another one of those days. It's one of those days where you just feel like calling up the office and telling them they can shove it and hopping on a Greyhound bus back home. It's one of those days where you have to wonder if railroads ever plan anything out. More on why later, but the main thing is the fact that we, as contractors, are sometimes the most despised work group on the railroad.

Now that's not to say we always are, in fact where we have been working, St. Joseph, Missouri, everyone has been very helpful, nice and accommodating to us, even helping us get some work done on days they weren't scheduled to take us; but then there are the other locations where we aren't greeted so warmly.

The biggest accusation we get is of us being "scabs." That is because we are not only contractors, but also non-union, whereas all the rest of the railroad maintenance-of-way is unionized. So we are scabs, stealing their work, weakening their union (never mind the fact when the railroad did their own spraying no one wanted to ever bid that work because it is terrible!). So right off the bat we're often hated.

We don't spray very fast, we probably average 10-12 mph, because that's all the faster we can go to do a good job. The track inspectors we get as pilots typically inspect track at 30-40 mph, all we do is slow them down. There's another reason we are despised, they don't want weeds but can't grasp the fact we can't go as fast as they do. The train dispatchers also hate us because of this and I think sometimes forget we have a railroad radio in our trucks so we can actually hear all the snarky remarks generated about us.

The most annoying are the people that think the stuff we spray will kill them if they even get a whiff of it. I've never seen people as childish and whiney as railroaders. And of course if they complain, we get in trouble, even if we didn't do anything. 

Despite the friendly people we have been working with I got a bad impression about the guy we were with today. First off, I thought the plan was to spray within 30 miles of our hotel. Of course not, this is a railroad, so we got sent 75 miles away to start on a section of track I was planning on doing later, when we were closer to it. So we drove the hour up there where we were supposed to meet our pilot and of course, he wasn't there yet, he was out inspecting track before we slowed him down.

Two hours later he finally showed up just as it started raining. That's when he started in on me about why I didn't check the weather before I drove up there. This is where I nearly lost it, but just bit my lip and didn't say anything. What I would have liked to have said is, "First of all, I didn't know we were going to be up here. Second, whatever weather I would have looked at would have been four hours ago. Third, if you had showed up when you were supposed to we could have got two hours of spraying in. Fourth, go fuck yourself!"

I turned on the weather radio which was predicting scattered showers for the area, so I wanted to wait it out and see if the rain let up. Of course, he didn't want to do that, he had other things to do. Then he started in with why we didn't check the weather radar before we drove up here. Then there were some other snarky comments made at which point I knew I had to get out of there before I said something that would get me fired. So I rolled up the window and sped off, 75 miles of driving ahead of me.

Of course when I got back I looked at the weather and the rain had all moved out of the area we were in, it was beautiful spray weather, and here we were, sitting. It is frustrating. And all of this made me wonder why I care. I didn't do anything today but got over five hours of overtime. If I worked my ass off to do a good job and get things done I wouldn't get any sort of raise or more time of or a bonus, I'd just get an e-mail saying thanks for getting that run done. So why do I even care?

I guess it's all just from that Midwestern work ethic. Even in a job I hate, a job with no incentives, I still want to do a good job just for the sake of doing a good job, and that's why the whole thing just eats at me. 

But, tomorrow's another day of spraying, and the next day, and the next day, and the next day, and the next day..............