On Friday, September 25, 2015 at 10:54:47 AM UTC-5, John McCoy wrote:
Swingman wrote in
:


Found out the other day, talking to a new mail carrier, that this is
how the USPS is awarding carrier jobs in the area.

Current employee's actually bid on available routes.

Nothing odd there, that's how union jobs are usually handled.
Airlines, railroads, post office, they all work that way.

John

Man... I am so out of touch with the rest of the world sometimes. I have been self employed for over thirty years now and it never has occurred to me (except in a cigar smoke and whiskey induced pleasant dream) of being able to pick and choose my work or how hard I would like to work that week or month. I cannot in my wildest dreams imagine being very well paid and then getting to decide what I wanted to do and how hard I wanted to work.

I never worked for anyone that gave me a choice, either. I was paid a wage about 40+ years ago, then have worked for myself or on commission only for the rest of the time. I am amazed at the concept of 3 week plus vacations, 10 days paid sick/personal time a year, and all kinds of other things that go on in the workplace now as nearly a case of American Civil Rights.

When I started in the trades in the 70s, I worked for a very progressive guy that let us have 1 week vacation (unheard of for trades people then)that was UNPAID. No sick days. He worked all of us like rented mules, and if we didn't like it that was fine. You could always quit. Or get fired. His hourly pay was low, but we had a ton of overtime weekly, he paid time and a half, and his checks never bounced.

I could never in a million years imagine approaching that mean old hard case from Jasper, Texas to tell him I wanted to bid on the work I was interested in.

Gawd, I feel like a dinosaur.

Robert