Canary in a Coalmine

A Canary in a Coalmine April 2008

I’m a 25-year construction worker and for the past three years working maintenance. Two months ago I broke down at work and cried.

I never saw myself as the poster boy for work place stress. I had never before been with such a group of people as these. The job site became a turgid place of percolating pain. For a month before, every diminishing comment, every name called, every stupid political statement in my listening area went inside of me and caused rage. I had lost all coping mechanisms and my nerves were raw. I cracked up.

For a week or two I was a wreck. My sensitivities were so acute. Everyone was an ignorant brute. Dead ends were every where. Work is not a refuge for people, but another place of pain. I felt anxiety at a level never experienced before, with depression close behind. I can see why people run to the doctor and get mind benders. I couldn’t function. This couldn’t be happening to me.

Thankfully, I found understanding and camaraderie. I discovered this happens more than I knew. We have cute names for it like “flame out”, “wigged out”, etc. I heard many personal stories from others, many including pharmaceuticals as a relief (and a failure), and it made me feel not so alone. Simply, I had had enough and limited out. It happens in workplaces all over the country everyday.

In the midst of my extreme pain, I knew I was going to come out of this as better person and the first thing to do was to clean up my language. How I talk to people and how I am talked to by my co-workers will be monitored. I will not insult anyone intentionally, nor will I allow an insult to come my way, even the slightest joke. I will be quick to apologize and set the record straight if a joke had unintentional barbs and I will expect others to do the same. It’s an age-old dictum called respect. I will give it and I will demand it from others.

Talking going on in a room, even if you are not in the conversation, has an effect on others. Something I didn’t give a whole lot of thought to beforehand, but I can imagine how the only woman might feel with sexist talk swirling around her on a daily basis. It hurts. This is an example of a sensitivity that has grown in me since my incident.

I am now looking through a stress lens at life. Everyone bitches about work. Nobody leaves work at work, everyone brings it home. Their loved ones get the stick, not the Boss who instigates it. Domestic violence, alcoholism and drug abuse, anti-social PTSD-like behaviors are not inherent in this society but are caused by workplace (or lack of workplace) stress. Many look for relief by obsessive compulsive actions like marathon running, or even further alienating ourselves from the problem by taking a vacation in a strange place with strange people. Running away from it seems to be the only solution.

Applying these hard lessons learned to the art of organizing the work force; I see work place stress as the single most problematic issue to be thought of before a campaign can go forward. There has to be a comfort level before anyone will take a risk, especially about his or her employment. How does a campaign go forward and reduce the stress level? Many times the organizer is the most stressed one of all. I bring this forward for further discussion because I feel the Union has to offer stress relief before any real success will be seen.

How am I doing now? Fine, and many ways better than ever. It can be described as if an entity left me; a huge negative energy came out of my body. All the crap I had eaten in 30 years of workplace silence has drained me and gave me the opportunity to fill up again with a new attitude of, dare I say, love. I didn’t get the drugs society deems so necessary to cope. As is the case for all my personal problems, I try to intellectualize them and go to the library for research. One book waiting for me there was “Meditation for Dummies”. As I leafed through it, passages of extraordinary precise description of my situation shown forth. Not lousy advice like “toughen up”, but an understanding of how the mind can mislead you, how brain static is crippling and how to spend time nurturing yourself. I began immediately and meditation has, in many ways, saved me. I recommend it to everyone as a means of survival in this sick capitalistic society. It’s free and it’s easy.

The workplace is going to kill us all if we continue to fight back on the Boss’s terms. If working people continue to insult each other and diminish each other on a daily basis. If we allow ourselves to talk in a demeaning manner with crude abusive language. The Boss has to sit back and laugh, as we will never be unified. These are the lessons I learned way too late in life; I only wish to share them with my fellow workers trying to create a better world.