Disturbing

There is disturbing news. I have been up since 03:30, I went to bed at 6:30 P.M., and have been perusing blogs. Several members of my family are having similar thoughts. Work is overpowering their family time. I remember those days and the havoc work can wreak on a family. You think that all you have to do is work and provide and everything else will fall into place. It is not so. The company I worked for for thirty years paid the supervisors according to attendance records of the people they were in charge of. If an employee had an average of three days out a year for five years, that employee could be terminated. My family depended on that job. One fellow I worked with was hired at fifteen years old onto a cable crew in Maine. When he retired he had fifty years of perfect attendance. That was the mind set where I worked. The company was especially cognizant off Mother's Day and Martin Luther King Day. You could get Martin Luther King day off if you asked but you would not be paid and it would count against you. One year the lady I loved dearly took sick on Sunday. The next day was Martin Luther King Day. I called in to take the day off. I was told NO and if you take the day off, you won't need to come in anymore. The children would be home all day, as there was no school the next day. and my love was unable to rise from the bed. I went to work fuming and telling myself that I must find another job but the allure of a generous paycheck and super benefits won out in the end. Frost was right,"Miles to go before I sleep.". There were days that I really didn't think that all of the working was fair and then I thought of my Father. He was a policeman from eight to five and then walked to a job in a mill from six to eleven and then walked home. You do what you have to do and live among the ashes of happiness. That happiness becomes a beacon of joy when you see your family having food to eat, clothes to wear, and a warm place to sleep. It is not easy being a man, it is just incredibly rewarding.