More trouble

The day began easily enough. The alarm clock ring and I forgot my lunch. So we'll start this episode like an old Kung Fu on TV, with a flashback. The year was 1975. I was a young Marine recruit in ITS training at Camp Pendleton, CA. One thing they make you do is line up in your squad. If you're taller than the person in front of you, you tap him on the shoulder and get in front of him. That way the taller ones are in the front and the shorter ones are in the rear. What happens in Infantry training is you get a pack, a rifle two canteens, a flak jacket, a helmet, a bayonet, a first-aid kit a day's rations, a change of clothes, extra socks and boots, a gas mask, cartridge belt with suspenders, two magazine pouches with six magazines, a tent, a sleeping bag. You've got plenty to carry, the sun is hot, and you've got to keep up with the long legged people in front of you, the tall ones. You've got to run to keep up but they won't let you run so you walk as fast as you can and get painful shinsplints in addition to the heat . After a couple of episodes of heat exhaustion, as civilian I vowed that from here on out, regardless of whatever else happens, I have earned the right to walk and move at the pace I set for myself.
Now it's about 8:00 in the morning. I am sweeping the shop at Dickerson Tool where I work. Steve is using a portable drill press which you need a hand truck to carry from place to place. There is a chain which holds it in place. Dave is using the hand truck while Steve is drilling. I am sweeping the twistings from the drilling. Steve asks me if I have seen the chain. I replied I ahven't and I don't think I swept it up, I think I would have seen it and excluded it. Steve puts the drill press back on the hand truck without the chain and puts it away. I finish sweeping in the tool room and go to the press room, which is in another building. I left my trash can and my brooms next to a press, and after a series of battery tests, used the sweeping machine to get the dirt out of the main walkways, debris from where trucks had been parked the night before.
Dave came into the press room and stopped me, asking me about the chain. i told him I hadn't seen it. He told me he had dug it out of my trash can, how can I not have seen it, implied that I was lying about it. Let me interject at this point we're talking about a 16" piece of light chain, worth less than a dollar. I told him I hadn't seen it, and he became angry using foul language and was verbally abusive. This took place in the middle of the press room in full view of anyone working in the area and there was no attempt at confidentiality. As a final intimidation tactic, Dave told me if I was looking to get fired, I was doing a might good job of it. He said some more things designed to humiliate me and left.
Perhaps five minutes later, Jack Dickerson, the Owner of Dickerson tool came to me and again in full view of everyone proceeded to deride me and imply that I was lying about the chain when the simple fact is I didn't see it, or I would not have swept it up and thrown it out. I told him Dave had been verbally abusive. Again with the intimidation he asked me if I wanted to continue to work here. I said if it was at the expense of verbal abuse, then no, it wasn't worth it. He said some things I was doing that he didn't like. Said I don't move fast enough to suit him, said in a factory you hustle. (this seems odd, when you're covered with sweat and no one else is) Said I look at my watch too much, etc. He again told me he expects more from those who work here, and left, making no apology for the verbal abuse. He said I had to decide if I wanted to work here, but I have already made my decision. One more episode such as this from Dave and I'm quitting, and Jack will pay unemployment. I have documented harassment and abuse consistently over a period of time on this blog site. I have a justified reason for voluntarily terminating employment.
At this point I am at one of the low points in my life. I am being treated for depression most of which stems directly from the way I am treated at this job. I work at the YMCA part time and Dickerson tool. The YMCA pays more and they rarely if ever complain about my work. At Dickerson's they constantly want more and more and when there is no more left to give, then what? Abuse, harassment, threats of termination, intimidation, bullying? It's like I no longer live, just exist, much like Jimi Hendrix's song 'I don't live today' There seems to be little point in the continuation of this life, but I am reminded of an obscure bible passage. Don't know where in the bible it is, perhaps you, the gentle reader can tell me, but where it describes the last days and men will try to kill themselves but death will not come. I interpret that to mean they will reincarnate as soon as they die and I have no need to have messed up karma on top of everything else. There is a pattern developing here. Just as in my last job at Chillicothe High School. A pattern of abuse, humiliation, bullying, and intimidation. You endure as long as you can but you finally crack and then it is treated as a disciplinary matter. In short, you've been systematically eaten up and spit out.