Norfolk Southern Sues Over Millions of Rail Ties It Calls Defective

[grayhair]

  Back in he late '60s I was working as an inside salesman at an electronic component distributor in Buffalo.  The puchasing department from the local steel mill would call me occasionally and order a pallet of "D" cells.  (That is one hell of a lot of batteries!)  One day I asked the buyer what in the heck do you do with all of those batteries.  He explained it as follows:  For a time the union electricians would never do any work at all.  They would just sit in the cafeteria for their entire shift.  When questioned by management they all said they couldn't do anything because the batteries in their flashlights were dead.  Management revised the job standard procedures such that each electrician was required to draw 2 new D cells from stores upon punching in.  So every man, every shift, punch in and draw two new batteries.  Unbelieveable.

Back then, one of those electricians who worked day shift at Roblin Steel in Buffalo would go home at 5:00, eat dinner, and then go to his night time job as an electrician on the Erie Lackawanna Railroad.  Each night he rode a train that went from Buffalo to Erie, PA, and back again to Buffalo.  He was quite a bit older than me.  The story was that during those round trips he slept in the caboose.  Slept in the caboose 5 nights a week for 20 years and nobody ever woke him up over all that time.  Just drawing a pay check working a position that the union required. You gotta love it.

Edited November 9, 2017 by grayhair