Old Age

This morning I had to preside over a disciplinary affair.  Not a big problem: just a member of public complaint regarding the driving behaviour of one of ‘my’ Technicians.  He’s quite young, quite bright and in his very early twenties.

Anyway, after the preliminary interview was over he tacked over to his favourite topic and expressed his continuing disappointment issues surrounding Nightshift hadn’t been addressed. In short, he felt unsafe working in some areas of Sydney at night.  I must point out there are always two people out in a team for nightshift: a Technician and his Trades Assistant.  This particular Technician was particularly unhappy about security and the ever-present possibility of violence near pubs at kicking out time.  This is despite being told on more than one occasion that if any nightshift staff felt the slightest bit uneasy at a site then they were to pack up and move to the next location.  Period.   

Even though he practices some sort of martial art he still wanted to bleat a little more.  When I mentioned he was not alone on site he said (let me see if I can recall the gist) “It doesn’t help me if my TA is 55 years old”.  The way he said it implied people of that age have no business being out after dark and are worse than useless for anything physical.  The Supervisor (a confident man in his 50’s who punctuates his sentences with the ‘F’ word a lot) and I just looked at each other.

I think I’ll be moving him to another Section, shortly.   

It took me a little while to ‘get’ this joke sent by a colleague.