A lil short

Shock!!! I've apparently been paid my 8mths outstanding money! But it may be a lil hollow. As the evidence I saw of the pay was on "B" account. So they might not have paid me at all. And even if they did, all our estimates put the grand total at around US$8000. But "B" just got US$5000. They didn't want to pay us the extra housing allowance we were due. Because they claimed that we still stayed at the same apartments and had not moved to more expensive accommodation therefore had no need for the extra allowance... Fuckers.
Well I'll check my account later to see if there has been money paid. In the futility of this place you have to capitalize on small victories. Cos if you don't very little optimism will ever remain in your heart. And as the old English saying goes,its better than a kick in the bollocks.

But still can't help feeling a little bitter when I learn of other guys with less experience and less qualifications getting as much as US$900 more than I am every month. Never seen double standards exist more blatantly than here.

Like old times

Did a shift swap with "B" for tonight's night shift. "B" had a wedding to attend so would be rude to say no really. But man did he ever know how to pick a day to swap. Moment I got in I noted my name was heading the board for a A330 engine change!!! Ummmm, so that means I am in charge... Now I've done many many engine changes on many aircraft in the past. But then again since all the good'ol boys left and I was relegated to taking out trash and sweeping floors, I really haven't done anything close to that level for almost a year. Not to mention previously I was never incharge, just, in management speak, empowered. So its a lil different knowing now the responsibility rests squarely on your shoulders.

TBH, it was nice. A lil scary but nice. I mean it wasn't something I had never done b4. So from a technical stand point it was reasonably familiar territory. Had 1 snag where I asked a guy to pull some circuit breakers and explicitly told him to do it in the order written in the manual. And I even asked him again once he had done it if he did it in the order stated. He answered yes. But of cause he didn't. And thanks to that 2 other poor fellows were drenched in jet fuel as most of the fuel tank emptied itself when we disconnected the fuel line. Had that idiot just done as I instructed him very little drama would have occurred. Now I am not the sort of person to breathe down the necks while some one does a job. If I ask you to do something and you say yes. I am going to believe you. Because if I don't, I wouldn't even have bothered to ask you in the first place. I might as well do it myself if I'm gonna keep second guessing you. There were times during the engine change I had to reel myself in. I still had the military mentality in me. If I am still going, then I don't expect you to stop either. Had to remember this was civi street and not everyone can work intensely for 12hours without a 5 minute break or a drink.This was my only real problem. Organising who went on breaks and when.

At the end of the engine change, I was scratched, bruised, aching, sweaty, hungry, tired, covered in dirt, but loving it. Doing that engine change reminded me again that I don't hate my job. Quite the opposite. I love it, every knuckle scraping, back breaking, hydraulic drenched moment of it. I simply hate the company I work for. It was an even bigger honour for 1 of the mechanics to approach me after the job was done to tell me he had actually enjoyed that nights work. As he never felt pressured that someone was constantly breathing down his neck to get the job done. That he has never had a more enjoyable engine change, ever! Made my day as this is what I was aiming for if I ever made it to a certifying engineer. Running a happy, easy going work force, which produced top notch results.

On a side issue, since we still have not been paid our 8 mths back pay, "B", "J" and myself had started a picket line. Stating we would not certify any aircraft till we were paid properly. So all the work on the engine change had to be signed by the supervisor who spent the whole evening in his office. I just popped in at the end of the shift and lumped the paper work on his desk, then handed over to the next shift and off home. LOL.

In your heart

Just had a meeting which typifies the way the company I work for acts and behaves. A few days ago "B" approached HR regarding the matter that we have been short paid by around US$150 every month since we joined at the start of 2007. And "B" had brought a copy of his contract which showed that this was indeed the case. But due to the fact his contract looked like it had been photocopied and it had no initial below it by the HR manager. It was tactfully put down as a fake. But "B" said "J" and myself had the same things regarding pay written into our contract. So HR manager asked that the 2 of us brought our contracts in as well.

So roll on today. All 3 of us arrived at the office and just as we were about to enter "J"s wolf like hearing picked up voices behind the closed doors of the office. Of the HR talking to the regional manager about "B" and his "forged" contract. Not a nice way to start. Anyway we knocked and entered. We set about showing our contracts. And if "B"s was debatable, then "J" and mine were about as genuine as they could come. Pristine as the day they were given to us. And each page was initialed by the HR manager and the final page was signed by, HR manager, recruitment manager and the regional manager. But still the HR refused to admit that the contract was true. So we challenged him to show us a copy of a contract we signed that differed from the ones we had in our hands. Frustratedly he flicked thru all of our files and in each one, anything which was contract like reflected the identical figures we had in our hands. So where was his mysteriously smaller pay packet he has been giving us come from? Not being able to find something to support his claims he took 2nd best. He gruffly said well, I don't have a copy of any contract that you guys have signed. Well I fail to see how poor filing on your part means us being penalised? We pressed the issue that this contract we all had and which is also validated by all the parties who signed should be what was to be worked off. But still he refused to pay us that extra US$150 per month we were due. At each turn trying to cite reasons why we should not be paid it but we each countered every 1 of his excuses perfectly leaving him no where left to run. And by that time even the training manager present was being won over by our arguments and was all for paying us. The HR manager stood firm. But now being disarmed by our proof, logic and reasoning he grasped for the last final straw. Holding back the venom, he hissed out, " I will not pay this, because I know these contracts are not the correct ones. They are not genuine. I am not accusing you, But I put it to you, in your hearts, you know... YOU know, what you have done!" WTF!!??!!!????!!! And with that he concluded the meeting.

On a side issue he also tried screwing me out of my leave too. Trying to badger me into signing a load of leave forms he claimed I put in but never signed. Lucky I referred to my shift roster. As 1 of the slips had me applying for leave for days where I was not due to work. And another slip had days duplicated on another leave slip. Basically double booking leave on a day. Applying 2 days leave for a single day. Jeez if you are trying to screw someone please try putting in a lil more effort.

The above incident is the epitome of what it is like working for these people. There are many other cases we been thru. But all on a lesser extent of the above. But still add up 9 or 10 of those lesser incidents and it is just as bad is it not? But still despite knowing all this, our supervisors are shocked when we are demotivated, difficult, indifferent and generally can't be arsed when it comes to work.

Tell me, if you walked in our shoes, would you not be the same?
P.S. We STILL have not been paid our 8months of outstanding pay.

f00s

Working with incompetent colleagues is not a totally bad thing. For me, making the transition from a mechanic to certifyer was always a daunting task in my mind. But for me purely because the certifyers I worked with were always some of the best the industry had. All of them even if they didn't know the answers to a problem knew roughly where it might lay and where to start looking. Basically they always had some sort of an answer. And they always had a confidence about them, the sort that never gave you a hint of doubt about their diagnosis. And their work was about as good as you could ever get.

No surprise when this outfit started going sour, they jumped ship without missing a beat, back into other great paying jobs in the industry. Which leaves newbies like me stuck here to try learn with what little we have. And 1 of the guys I work with who has that air of I'm-so-fuckin-good. Turns out a lil less than great. As every time a problem gets tossed his way he always has this clueless pause. And then ends up taking the kind of steps I would. Not wrong steps, but after working which the aforementioned guys I always expected more of certifyer. And then there are times when he gets stumped at a problem. And in the back of my mind something vaguely remembered from a classroom pops up and I suggest it. He barely even acknowledges me. Then sometime later it turns out my diagnosis turns out to be correct. Cause by then he doesn't recall my suggestion. Then there are times I spot something I would grade as a lil anomalous but he assures me is all fine and normal, then proceedes to release the aircraft. Only to have a call 30mins later with an irate pilot reporting a defective system.

If anything working with such incompetents has boosted my own confidence. I've never really rated myself as anywhere close to good. But working with these people has made me realise there are a lot worse people out there. And thou I still do not grade myself as good yet. Maybe if I keep on, and keep trying my best to learn. One day I would be considered not half bad.

Trippin

Last night shift, goodie! And bugger all work to boot, yay! AND my usually tight ass supervisor, 4hours into the night, told everyone to wash down the cars then go get some sleep,W00t!!! Don't get much better does it. Nope sure doesn't, things can only get worse. Such is the balance of nature...

Was asked head down the terminal at around 6am. As an engineer was urgently required to dispatch an aircraft. So got in the van and drove down. Part way there, as I rounded a corner I saw the airport security car. Who promptly began to flash me. So I slow down and pull along side him. Guy glared at me with the kind of face that visually spelt out "I am an Arsehole, slap me".

"Show me your pass!", he growled
Compliantly I handed it over.
"How fast were you driving?"
"I dunno"
"Do you know the speed limit for driving around the airport?"
"Yes, 20kmph", which is ridiculous! Even bloody roads infront of primary schools back home are 35kmph.
"This is not your private race track! You are not speeding around on your motorcycle! (cos all whitemen own fast bikes...)There is a speed limit here. How fast do you think you were going?"
"I really dunno."
"You must have some idea. So how fast do u say you were?"
"I-Don't-Know", getting somewhat tired of the repetition now
"Weren't you looking at your speed-o?"
"Errrr, no... I was looking out the windscreen ahead of me", he just wants me to state my speed because he has no speed gun to nail down my speed. So 2nd best is a verbal admission by the accused.
"And your security pass is out of date! 7mths out of date!"
"It is!?!?" with that he held my pass up to my face.
"Oh! I never realised it. I've always managed to get into the airport everyday without fail, never knew it was expired"
"Why did you not get a new one?"
"Cos I never knew it was out of date so I never asked for a new one, more to the point its HR's responsibility to handle pass renewal, not mine, and besides is it not your colleagues at the gates to check my pass every time I enter the airfield?" begrudgingly he conceded my point, but continued in that "I-deserve-a-slap" kind of way.
"Well I'm confiscating your pass"
"Ok"

It was then I noticed he had confiscated my pass with my neck sling that I had received as a souvenir from Zurich. So I asked him if he could just take the pass but return my sling. He looked at me quizzically. So I repeated myself. Putting on his sternest face to mask his cluelessness, like a virgin going at a bra strap, he tried to remove the pass from the sling's card holder. And like aforementioned virgin, he was unable. Getting a lil frustrated at his incessant fumbling and failure to heed any of my instructions to free the card, I tried to show him how to free the card. But as I reached for it. With his opposite hand he snatched it away and held it arm outstretched, as far away as he could from me. Simultaneously puffing his chest out and budging his eyes wide open at me. It was scene mirroring one of those times at school when a bully would steal some kids comic, then as that kid tried to retrieve it he would hold the kid off with one arm while holding the comic away from the kids grasp with the other.

"Look, mate. I just want to get my neck strap back. You can keep the bloody pass, its no good to me is it... its out of date." With that he relaxed and gingerly handed it over. FFS like I was gonna snatch it off him and run 1.5km to the nearest exit gate. Child... He now commanded me to follow his colleague, who had driven over to see what the fuss was about, back to the security office. Again he reminded me of the speed limit and not to dare to go over it for fear of a 2nd lecture. Rather tired by all this bullshit I sheepishly said ok, as he drove off. As I slowly pulled behind his mate, matey zoomed off in a cloud of dust!!! I glared down at my speed-o and I was bang on 20. But still his mate was rapidly dwindling dot in the distance. Frantically I looked round for Arseface to point out what his mate was doing, but of cause Arseface had gone...

When I arrived at the office the security manager followed thru the motions of booking me. Thou due to his poor English he gave me quite the scare. HE said to me,

"Because your pass is out of date. You are illegally on this airfield. So I will have to take away your pass. And you will never be allowed to work on this airport any more!"

WTF!!!!! I was a lil stunned by it! But after a 5 sec pause he added,"Till you are get a new pass"

At that point another security guy escorted in 2 more white faces. Immediately the supervisor's face dropped, knowing the day ahead which he would face with Arseface on duty.