Antipathetical Anniversary

[davidgillon]

Just realised that Sunday was six years to the day from being forced kicking and screaming* out of the doors at Evil Aerospace Inc. Wow, that seems like a lot. And yet in someways it really doesn't. 

I'm not happy my career ended that way, it robbed the good parts of it of something they can never get back.

I'm glad I fought, it was something I needed to do, and I'm a better person for it.

Fighting for my needs also made me better at fighting for the needs of others.

I'm still so disappointed in some of the people who were in my management chain. Some of them were clearly arseholes, and the most problematic of all was open in his disablism (unless we were on record), but some of these people had a history of fighting for other minorities. What happened to them? When did doing what was right take second place to covering the back of an open disablist? To denying evidence that was clear for anyone to see? To holding opinions that were outright illogical ('we don't believe you're disabled, but you'd better have my executive chair because I know your back is so bad you won't get through the meeting without it')?

On the other hand, I'd probably have needed to stop working relatively soon after that, and I'm not certain I'd have been able to do that on my own, so maybe a tiny hint of utterly unintended usefulness in there.

* I actually went quietly on the day, having put the day off for longer than anyone believed possible, then turned the union's lawyers on them ;)

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[jesse_the_k]

Was your union of any use? The business about the comfy chair makes my hair stand on end. If I'd been there I would have gone off at 90 dB.

My career should have ended at its high point, but I pushed pushed pushed 18 more months. It no longer stings so bitterly, but I do still regret what I might have been able to accomplish. Have you been able to redeploy the skills you enjoyed as a worker into your activities as a volunteer/organizer?

[davidgillon]

Mixed blessings with the union, I discovered late on that the on-site rep had an informal agreement with the company not to bring in outside union experts, which was a problem when he knew little about disability rights, and explained why he sabotaged the attempts I made to bring in the union at regional level. Once I was out the door and talking to regional people, they were immediately on the case, but by that time it was impossible to press some of the issues, so they simply helped me push the company into offering a better settlement. Call it a token victory.

Have the job skills helped with activism? Well the presentation stuff doesn't hurt, the quality stuff makes me very good at tearing apart government documents, and the logic stuff helped in deciphering the implications of some leaked data, which I turned into a piece for a national newspaper ;)