Everybody has an event or more in their life they’d like to change. Something they would have done or said different in a particular situation in the hope that it would have achieved a better outcome for them. I know I do. All of my instances of being bullied, for instance. It goes without saying that I would have loved to have changed those events. Mostly, I kick the bully’s ass and everyone leaves me alone after that. Fortunately, writing “He Was Weird,” has done that for me. I no longer finding myself wanting to go back in time and imagine a different outcome because I have written one down and put it in print. Okay, my new outcome is much more bloody and violent but it has the same effect. Saying that, over the past few years, there has been another situation I find myself dwelling over and I can’t figure out why. The strange thing is that particular situation actually worked out for me in the end.
It goes back to the very late 1980s when I worked in a factory in East London. I started there as a cleaner and my first few attempts at progression were thwarted. A couple of times, it was because someone higher up wanted to get their friend into the job and on one occasion, both of my supervisors rubbished my work to the personnel manager by saying I lacked motivation as a cleaner, just to get a popular ex employee back in.
The last time it happened, it was an application to another department but I was rejected and the company hired some outsiders over me. One of my workmates, a Marxist militant, told me the company was victimizing me and that I should go see the union. When I mentioned this to my wife, she implored me not to go to the union because if I did, the company would brand me a trouble maker and start finding fault with me. Therefore, I didn’t go to the union.
To make a long story short, two and a half months after that, I was given advancement in my own department. Many people said it was about time and that I deserved it. So it was a happy ending. However, a few years ago, I have been imagining what would have happened if I had gone to the union. Those thoughts were reinforced by a memory when during the first week in my new job, the shop steward happened to go past and as he did commented, “You’re a filler now, aren’t you?” Maybe I would have had a case if I had gone to the union.
With my Asperger’s mind, I have tried to include all variable into the changed situation in my mind. I honestly believe that if I had gone to the union, they would have backed me to the hilt. Furthermore, I don’t think the company would have thought this worth a confrontation with the union, so a deal would have been worked out guaranteeing me advancement and that I would have done so much sooner. On the downside, while I might not have been branded a trouble maker, there would have been some resentment from management because they would have been forced into moving me into a new job, though I don’t think they would have tried to sabotage me. However, I would have been known as the one who only got the job because the union said so. That I needed the union’s help to advance in the company because I couldn’t do it on my own. Plus, it wouldn’t have just been management thinking the last part. Anytime it suited anyone on the shop floor, they could have pointed out that the reason I was no longer pushing a broom was on account of the union. Yes, people sometimes have short memories. That is why at least I can say that I advanced through my own merit.
Now that I have written all of this down, hopefully, like when I wrote, “He Was Weird,” it will disappear from my mind. Then again, I can always write a book about it, though I don’t think there would be much action in it. What I wonder though is that I don’t think I am the only person in the world who has thought this way.
To buy He Was Weird, go to: http://www.amazon.co.uk/He-Was-Weird-Michael-Lefevre/dp/1909740942/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1459160108&sr=1-1&keywords=he+was+weird