I guess that the years that I worked for Delta Airlines has left me with a lifetime of stories.
Each individual who worked the ramp in any way, baggage handler, bringing U.S. Mail to and from the mail room, etc., worked their shift for six months. And then everyone would bid for the best shift/days off their seniority would afford them, and that was their schedule for the next six months.
And, for example, there were something like 1600 ramp workers for Delta in Atlanta in 1992. Working at a job with that many people, you're just bound to end up working with a lot of interesting characters.
But when we first moved to the Dallas area in 1986, and I started working for Delta (again), I was, as all new hires were at the time, a temporary, part-time employee.
Basically this meant that I could only bid on shifts of less than 8 hours. I might end up actually working 60 hours per week because of how busy we were, but officially, I was temporary, part-time.
This allowed Delta to pay us a low wage with absolutely no benefits.
But I went into the job with my eyes wide open, and knew that. I'm not complaining at all. That's the situation I signed up for, and I dealt with it.
But us TPTs, as we were referred to, ended up not only doing regular ramp work, but every kind of 'scut' work the supervisors could imagine. I'm just thankful that most of the supervisors I worked under were decent, and that the ones who were morons/horse's behinds were for the most part unimaginative.
For example, the thing I remember as being the most menial, ridiculous task I was ordered to do, was to, on a 30 degree (F) day of misting rain and sleet, go out and fill 50lb sand bags, and then to retie the tops of all the ones that were loosened. Needless to say, within minutes my hands were hurting me miserably, because it proved impossible to undo and re-tie wet cotton strings with my leather work gloves on. I just did as many as I could until my next flight I was supposed to unload came in. But I was miserable enough to still have that at the top of my "worthless menial task" list.
Working at DFW airport (Hartsfield in Atlanta, too) was a learning experience for me. See, Delta was the only airline whose employees were not in a labor union. The pilots always have been, but the ramp rats like me, as well as the flight attendants, were not.
The result was, that whatever I was told to do, however dumb it seemed, I had to at least attempt.
Also, Delta's old timers were a crotchety bunch of guys, and if a supervisor told them to do something like that, they would refuse, and say, "That's what the TPTs are for."
If it was a nasty job, us TPTs were the cannon fodder sent to the front.
But, like I said, I went into the job with my eyes open. I didn't mind most things, because nothing was worse than sitting around one of the ramp worker's break rooms in the days of indoor smoking. Half a dozen smokers could make the large break room miserable for the other 70 or so guys in there, if you can remember the bad old days.
And a lot of the old timers resented us, though I was never able to truly work out just why that was so. Most of those guys appreciated having young, strong men around to do the really heavy stuff, but some, well, you just couldn't please them in any way. With all of Delta's troubles of late, I wonder how these older guys are fairing with their retirement. Seems like most companies who declare bankruptcy these days almost immediately seek to drop the burden of the retirement incomes of those who have retired. Oh well.
The bottom line, for us temporary part-timers, was that we wanted a good work record so that we could become permanent full-time employees. In my case, I was a TPT for about 20 months.
I did lots of grunt work during that 20 months, but then again, I was young and strong. This was way before my first back surgery.
My almost-44 year old bones shutter to think about doing the physical work I did with ease twenty years ago. I felt ten feet tall and bullet proof back then.
And though age and some physical problems have humbled me the past few years, I'm not ready for the grave just yet.
I'm grateful for what health I do have. I have a sorry back, but both knees and shoulders are intact. And I succeeded in learning the difficult things taught in engineering school, while in my thirties, so I know an old dog can learn new tricks. I guess my brain still functions.
I didn't really have a point to all of this, and therefore no clever ending.
I just think a lot about all those men and women I worked with during my tenure with Delta. It's kinda like thinking about high school and wondering how/where everyone is now.
Sometimes I guess I need to think about the things I've been through to remind me that I can also make it through what things I'm now going through.
This too shall pass.
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