Ramblings With Ron

Little Phone Call Of Workforce Don'ts Edition

---

Don't let this peaceful pic fool you, I was just trying to provide a bit of soothe before the rude.

---

Two Ron Ramblings in one week! Wow! I can't help it though, for the latest phone call with Dad contained a jewel of a workplace don't and I had to share it with you all! It also raised my righteous indignation blood pressure, so tonight's post was also a lesson in zen therapy for yours truly.

As per our usual custom, we both greeted each other with a hearty: "C'mon!!!!!!"

Dad quickly launched into "I fired the P's, hittin the road, they're outta here!"

As I am fluent in Ronism, I immediately knew who had been fired, but perhaps a little backstory is relevant at this juncture.

Dad had a trio of cutters that were related. They were also related to the siderod (logging boss). As nepotism it seems is totally a thing in logging camps, Dad's life was a tad miserable for a while, because these folks needed fired months ago. Let me tell you why:

If one left somewhere, they all had to leave.

---

I don't know about ya'll, but it just doesn't seem kosher to walk off a high pressure, seasonal, incredibly well paying job for the day, without your supervisor's permission, just so you can go with your cousin to pick up your cousin's, brother's, sister or some other relation. Maybe I'm just weird. Apparently if one P didn't go to work, they all didn't go to work.

Come one, come all!

---

Most logging camps have a cookhouse. This is the place that dispenses food for the WORKERS. The P's took the feeding trough thing a bit further and brought all sorts of family members to camp and marched them all through the cookhouse for free vittles. I remember getting incensed when I first heard about this selfish, boorish behavior. Can you imagine being a rigging rat, out in the rain all day setting chokers, and then you come back to camp, wanting a hot meal, only to have scraps left because some freegrazer snatched it from your sawdust covered grasp! The OUTRAGE! These same people were also using all the washers, bathrooms, and showers at the same time the people who actually worked needed to use them. This ill-mannered infraction alone made me want to go all librarian on them!!!

This is the kind of freegrazer I enjoy!

The final straw:

---

Yesterday the P's hadn't bothered to show up on time to work, and when they all drove in 4 hours later, my dad calmly strode up to them and said,

"Don't even bother getting out, drive back to camp, get your trailers, and get out. You're fired."

"You can't do that!" they spouted in return.

"I just did," my dad replied calmly, "Now get out of here."

If there is one thing that I have learned in this life, it is the fact that freegrazers react violently when their situation is changed. It is not neccesarily physical violence, although in this case one did threaten to punch my father (bad idea). Instead, the P's ran to camp and lamented to the camp owner what big, bad Ron had done!"

"Well," the owner stated, "He's the bullbuck I hired to do the job, and he's in charge of who he hires and fires."

In utter shock that someone would agree with my dad, the P's moved their sob story of injustice on to the siderod, their cousin.

"Now, Ron," he told my dad authoritatively, "why'd you let them go, they're good people."

Lots of people are good people, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are good employees. My father fretted a lot about letting these particular people go, and both he and the camp's owner even gave them some of the their own personal money when they first arrived to camp to "help them out."

Well, just like almost any other good intention in history, that well meaning was about as well received and cherished as used adult diaper in the local landfill. The reason I state this is my father wandered out to the P's timber strips to see what was left to be done after he fired them, I still recall the amused disbelief in his voice.

"It looked like a bunch of elk beds, combined with a landfill, combined with a toilet."

I instantly had visions of potato chip bags, human poo piles scattered about like landmines, and mini crop-circles of complete and utter sloth interspersed throughout a cedar and spruce patch of wood. Dad assured me that my vision was accurate as he relayed the scene of indolent behavior. They weren't even working, yet they were drawing a huge amount of money from the company, and causing multiple people grief with their selfish, entitled behavior.

These belong in a trash bin, not on the forest floor.

Look, no one is perfect at work or at home, least of all me, but nothing makes me crazier than creatures who emotionally blackmail and manipulate people for personal gain. It is especially reprehensible when the people that are being manipulated genuinely care about you and your situation and have tried to help you out.

It is my hope that these people, through their life experiences, figure out a better way to be. It is possible to succeed in this life, both financially and non without being a complete douche, and if the ill treatment of others is the secret to success, then pass me the ear plugs of avoidance!!!

---

And as always, unless otherwise cited, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's disgusted but rather more chill at the moment iPhone.

---

Want to read more @Generikat posts?

---

Click Here!