I wrote this in June 2020 sometime. Dates I write things are important to me, because I lose track of time all the time.
When I was furloughed from UAL in Oct. 2001 I was depressed and collected unemployment about 8 months. I then got my shit together, put my resume into a paper form and applied for a job with Fed Ex Express as it was called then. I got an interview and went into the Oakland Hub in the afternoon and saw a woman by the name of Tammy, not remembering last name. A little about her I learned ws she was from Indiana and had a really nice mustang convertible she drove to Oakland, CA
So, she was a supervisor and hired me an I gave her my resume and she said she would post it on line at the FedEx online site. I took her at her word and was hired and told to come in at 2 am the following morning. Yikes!
When one comes to the FedEx Express Hub at Oakland Airport you come to their entrance. Everything is controlled there by FedEx Security. Going in and going out one has to submit to magnetic imaging inspection. you have to take your shoes off both ways and put them on the belt with everything from your pockets etc. One day on the way in, I buzzed and realize my favorite pocket knife was still in my pocket. They took it said in the am they would return it when I was leaving. I guess someone wanted it more than I. I should have given them a bill for the cost of the knife. I tried to suggest that was theft, but they said if you were at the terminal, they would have taken you into a room without windows. Now get your stuff and don't be late for your shift!, Next!
I was hired as a material handler and would driving a tug and pulling dollies, ld 3's and ld7's full and empty to and from airplanes. It turned out I was working for her and although she said she liked my resume and interview I felt she didn't really like me and perhaps thought was after her job. I am a self starter and I was working hard to keep that job and move on into the mechanic end of it in lA where they did their heavy checks. That is what I was doing at UAL SFOMC. I was working on narrow body plans but that is another chapter.
I was moving ahead and we were unloading and loading MD 11's, 727's and Airbus A300's. sometimes I would be assigned to go up into the plane and receive the cans, which is what we called the containers the freight and packages were in. We would receive the cans from the loader and make sure they were facing the right direction and push them towards the rear of the plane and once there, set the floor locks, very important and go get the next can. Once all the cans are in, we would step onto the loader and they would drive it back a foot or two and we would actuate the door closing switch and the big cargo door would close and we would latch it and give it a slap, a procedure to show it was downed latched.
Then we had a choice, ride the platform down and take the stairs. Stairs were safer ad the loader had all kinds of casters on it to position the can in the right orientation to off load onto or off the plane.
If we had loaded a plane, then we would have to take the dollies to the Dollie corral and leave them there for the next flight and some guys took a break or hung out somewhere. I was disturbed by the condition, the lack of organization of the can corral and would spend time making it right, eating out the bad doilies to next to the fence and the good dollies to the outside of the area easy to get out when needed. at some point when I came back to the area Tammy was in, she asked me where I had been and I said the Dollie corral and I straightened them out. I believe she said did someone tell you to do that and no one above me but my organized brains said, this needs to be done and I took it upon myself to do it. I thin that disturbed her because I had been working on the ramp as material handler for about 6 months when I was told to report to the sort. Tammy told me she thought I was dangerous and I was going to get hurt. I just alright then, and thought, this screwed up. I think that she was worried that her supervisor would see me doing that and ask if I would need to be elevated in my position. I think she was afraid that I wanted her job and she was not going to have me take over. I didn't want her job, I wanted this job in LA working on planes.
She had me transferred inside to the sort and that raised a little bit of a hub Bub. People were all like, he's a material handler, what is he doing in here? I adapted to that job pretty well, made some good friends on the job. When I came to work we would do stretching exercises and someone would lead them and one time I was picked and that was fun. I had got the pattern of the exercises down and many of my co-workers we're teasing me about it. Just about everybody in this work group were black and that was fine with me. I get along with most everybody and we all worked well together.
My supervisor, Cal was a jerk though. He tried pushing me harder than anyone one in his group and was already working hard and harder than many of my co-workers. So one day when he started pushing me and I could tell there others who he was being lenient with, go push them, stop picking on mer. He thought that was disrespectful and after the sort and after shuttle sort he called me to his office and told me I had disrespectful to him and I said how was that. And he said he thought he should write me for insubordination but was going to give me a break because I resisted his efforts to make me worker harder than was safe, harder faster. I told him I thought he was picking on me for being the only white guy and I was working fast enough. He knew he didn't want to fire me I was a very good worker, didn't call in sick or get hurt on the job.
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