This probably won’t get answered but why is it that some railroad workers who hate their jobs so so much not quit? What’s stopping you? I’ve seen people talk about how crappy the job is but they will continue to work it. I have a huge respect for railroaders wanting to move our country forward, so I’m thinking that might be a deciding factor? I don’t know.
That applies to any line of work. I worked for the Feds in a job I just loved and would do it again in my next life if I could. 
We had 23 positions to fill and usually only managed to have 14 or so filled. The rest of us worked copious amounts of overtime to fill the void and made a lot of money for our trouble.
There are a lot of reasons people don’t like their jobs, lousy hours, stressful, crappy pay, bad commute, away from home…
I never understand why people don’t fix things in their lives that they don’t like, that doesn’t just apply to their employment.
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Remember the job you have at present pays more than the job you don’t have. To quit, you have to take a leap of faith that going into the unknown you are moving into a better situation than the one you presently have. The future is unknown, and in many cases, unknowable.
Not railroad related, however it is appropriate. My son had a fabricator position with a custom trailer manufacturer, a job he had for several years. He made the jump to work for a acquaintance in race car fabrication - which lasted 4 months, then the shop lost its main customer. He then bounced among a number unsatisfactory jobs for about two years before landing a steady job for the past 5 years or so.
Be careful what you wish for.
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Balt, your Son’s story is very similar to what I am currently experiencing. I worked for a company for 14 years, they unfortunately sold the plant I worked out, I was with the new company for 8 years during which they closed that plant, and later made significant changes that inspired me to leave.
A Friend of about 30 years worked for a Meat distributor for more than 30 years, had often encouraged me to move over to their company, it was finally time, or so it seemed in January, then barely 30 days after I started, we got a “Warn Notice” from the parent company, that they would be closing the entire corporation in 60 days
I found a driving position with another local meat distributor, but at a slightly lower wage, but many less hours than they indicated I would expect, never mind what I was used to
So now, I find myself exploring other opportunities, one at a fuel distributor, while I have my Haz Mat and Tank endorsements, I have never hauled Tank, but am comfortable that I can adapt to it, a former coworker referred me, and the pay is much better, and the hours in his experience, not just the recruiter’s promise are available
So if this or another opportunity works out, it will be my Fourth job, this year, something that I am not used to, as before, I had worked two and a half ( second company sold to another) jobs in 36 Years
Sometimes Life happens
Sorry for the thread drift
Doug
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Another thing to consider is benefits, especially after you retire. I worked in a warehouse of a large school system. It wasn’t great paying, but had a decent retirement with benefits. No job is easy or super fun, that’s why they give you money to do it. Other people just like complaining. They aren’t happy unless they’re not happy.
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Absolutely. I don’t know how many places I visited as a copier repair technician over a thirty year period where I’d have a look around and think to myself “You know, this looks like a nice place to work. Great facilities, nice people, handy location…” only to see the places disappear and the employees out of a job through no fault of their own.
While I’d certainly advise against staying on a job that makes you absolutely miserable I would say I learned that the grass isn’t necessarily greener on the other side of the fence and if you’ve got a good job you stick with it. I stuck with the copier job thirty years and they were good ones.
I didn’t get rich but I was always working.
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One thing about being employed by a railroad, especially a Class 1 - there so many business areas that the company participates in just in doing their everyday, for profit, business activity that an employee is not imprisoned in any one form of job activity if they don’t want to be. Those different activity areas can be both as craft employees or as non-contract ‘supervisory’ officials or technicians.
I spent 51+ years with my career spanning from hiring out as a Extra Train Order Operator on the B&O in Washington, IN and worked in the capacity across three separate B&O Divisions, Qualified as a Train Dispatcher, worked in non-contract official capacity for 20 years with a wide variety of job responsibilities before returning to Train Dispatching for the final 26 years on more than half a dozen CSX Dispatching Divisions.
In non-contract positions, one is on the merry-go-round attempting to catch the brass ring to proceed on to the next promotion to increased pay and job responsibilities. The promotion process is outside of your direct control - who ‘likes’ you or who thinks ‘you have what it takes’, without a specific description of what it takes.
In Craft positions, your seniority is you ticket to your job path, as you gain seniority in a craft you can ‘bid’ to jobs the fit your life - from pay rates to hours and days worked. Periodically, some crafts open starter bidding to individuals from other crafts who want to switch job paths.
During my period as a Dispatcher, we had employees that had moved on from HQ clerical jobs, Yardmasters, Trackmen, Signalmen, Engineers, Conductors as well as new hires from outside the company.
Jobs are what YOU make them - they can be a prison if you let them - they can be empowering if you learn from all your experiences. And in changing, sometimes they are a gamble and you can crap out.
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It is the right of every American to complain about their employer, chores, duties and government without fear of reprisal from those with a higher station in life.
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Indeed.
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The government can’t punish you for free speech, but an employer can fire you for cause. While they might not say they fire you for complaining, nevertheless, unless you never make mistakes, they will be able to find cause.
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And you can sue for redress of grievances if you have the time and money but either way you have the inalienable right to your opinions in all aspects of your life. That’s the beauty of the U. S. Constitution.
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Penny, I think that you may not fully understand the Constitution, and the First Amendment in particular.
The GOVERNMENT may not restrict what you can say, but your Employer, Certainly CAN, especially while on duty, this can be particularly true with say professional athletes, their teams can by contract limit what they can speak publicly about, and it is Not a First Amendment Violation
You do NOT have an inalienable Right to say what you want, but the Government can’t restrict what you say
Go to any large retailer, like Home Depot, Target, or others, Try to get their employees to talk about Oct7, Abortion, Doge, Gaza, Antisemitism, or any others of a long list of subjects, especially if their managers are around.
There is No Absolute Right to Free Speech
Doug
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It’s a job. All jobs have parts that are good, and parts that suck. We all have our reasons for complaining and reasons for not quitting.
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Great point. I just think working for the railroad is definitely a bigger commitment and sacrifice which is why I respect railroaders a lot.
We’re not talking about discussing politics with the general public while on paid company time. We’re talking about having the right to complain about your employer and your difficulties in doing your job in private conversations with your fellow employees outside of the view of any potential customers or general business associated elements outside of the company. That’s different.
Let’s take Builder’s Square for example. While we were a K-Mart owned company everything was great. Business was good, employees were happy and the whole system worked. Then K-Mart spun us off to an investment firm who decided we should expand. Fine, sounds great let’s do it. Unfortunately the investment firm assigned the management team of about a dozen drug stores to run the thousands of Builder’s Square stores, a task that it turns out they were completely incompetent to perform.
They refused to upgrade the shipping and receiving process from drop shipping from suppliers and hand counting all merchandise before inputting the data by hand into the store’s inventory control software to a centralized warehousing and shipping system that would have not only sped up the receiving process, but would have regained the sales we were losing because the 2 of us doing the job couldn’t keep up. We usually spent all of our working hours just unloading the 20 or so trucks that came in every day.
Had I not had the belief that I was protected from retribution I could not have told the company CEO to his face what problems we were having and what we needed to better accomplish our tasks. He could see for himself that pallets of non received boxes of shrink wrapped merchandise were clogging up every aisle of the store and were stacked up outside and in our pathetically tiny receiving area. And he promised to work on the problem and he did. Unfortunately the board of directors opted to continue using the outdated system and fired the CEO.
The “boss” is the poor schmuck who has to deal with all the crap and all too often the best get fired because of ego. To all the managers out there who think their word is law remember one thing: those low on the totem pole employees who often quite literally break their back for inadequate wages are the heart and soul of your corporation. And it only takes a few words of frustration from them to bring you down.
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Uh-huh. It never fails to happen when a successful outfit is sold to another organization that doesn’t understand the business they’re buying into. The list of subsequent failures is too long to go into here.
An old boss of mine once told us his acquaintances were always contacting him with tips concerning businesses he should buy into and he always said “Thanks, but no thanks.” Why? “Because I understand the business I’m in, I don’t understand the others. So I stay away.”
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The Financial Wiz Kids think they can do anything - until their house of card collapses and they move on to greener fields of ‘suckers’ to run their scam on again. In the meantime employees, at most all levels, get to go to the unemployment office.
Whenever I hear ‘Private Equity’ is buying a company - my mind says the finances of the company are going to be looted and bankruptcy will be in the near future.
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It is no longer true that people will not quit railroad jobs. A number of people that I worked with have resigned from CSX. Both people with quite some time on the job and recent hires. Others too old to look for a new job can’t wait to retire.
Several roads have complained that they have trouble retaining new hires, especially when they furlough them shortly after they hire them.
Mark Vinski
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Maybe railroads should realize why they aren’t getting new hires, stop being corrupt, and this is off topic, but I heard railroads try to avoid hiring railfans which CAN be a good thing rarely.
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The problem with railfans is that they forget they are WORKING FOR THE RAILROAD.
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