Spitting Mad
Posted on May 25th, 2010 in Uncategorized | 18 Comments »
What would you do if you were spat on in your workplace?
Probably wipe it off and take a swing at the spitter, right?
Not New York busdrivers, who were spat on (an unfortunate) 51 times in 2009, according to the NYT.
What did they do?
They took, on average, 64 days off. Paid.
“Being spat upon — having a passenger spit in your face, spit in your mouth, spit in your eye — is a physically and psychologically traumatic experience,” said John Samuelsen, the union’s president. “If transit workers are assaulted, they are going to take off whatever amount of time they are going to take off to recuperate.”
Don’t unions realize that this kind of absurdity that discredits them to the non-union public?
The next shoe to drop? Bus drivers who’ve either lied about being spat upon or paid someone to do it in order to get the boondoggle…
18 Responses
5/25/2010 11:12 am
I love that this post fulminating against unions comes right after the post in which our host assures us that America has never been defined by social class. Good stuff.
5/25/2010 11:52 am
Richard lives in bubble. But he can’t see it.
Must be nice.
5/25/2010 3:41 pm
The first Anon misses the nuance of what I wrote—”defined by”—and what I didn’t write, and the second commenter just doesn’t know what s/he’s talking about. My opinions on unions are shaped from having belonged to several of them.
5/25/2010 4:19 pm
Richard, I agree that my snark didn’t capture the nuance of your point, but I figured, hey. it’s snark, close enough.
Having said that, it’s still a funny juxtaposition. Bus drivers who get spit on aren’t exactly obvious targets of outrage, so to turn this into an anti-union narrative…well, it looks like you begrudge these working-class folks for having good benefits.
Anyway, I don’t mean to dismiss your experience of union membership and I agree that unions do plenty of messed up things, but you should recognize that being a union member and having a union contract mean something different to service workers than they do to professionals.
5/25/2010 4:24 pm
Good benefits? Good benefits?
Anon, you are more than welcome to come spit at me and then pay me for 13 weeks in which I do no work. And then, at the end of that time, you can do it again. I will happily be spat upon four times a year until retirement.
And just so you know, on two occasions I’ve been a member of a service union, though I’ve had plenty of service jobs in which I wasn’t a union member.
5/25/2010 10:09 pm
What kind of service union? “Service” as in waiting tables? This is fascinating.
5/26/2010 1:16 pm
You aren’t going to answer my question? Why bring up your union memberships if you aren’t going to answer questions about it?
“I was in a union!”
“Oh yeah? Which one?”
“None of your business.”
Bunch of hot air, methinks.
5/26/2010 1:17 pm
lame
5/26/2010 2:24 pm
As the original Anon in this thread, I disavow the subsequent anonymous demands for more information about Richard’s personal history. Asking for more such information is totally legit, but feeling entitled to it — and whining when it isn’t forthcoming — is not.
5/26/2010 6:01 pm
Oh please. What a bunch of garbage, anon. Once again Richard’s man of the people routine doesn’t stand up. Richard is a lot of hot air. I don’t respect people.who make claims and don’t support them.
And Richard - I’d be happy to spit on you to see if your blase attitude about random violent / degrading acts on your person has no effect on your psyche and job performance.
B A L O N E Y, Mr Bradley.
5/26/2010 6:17 pm
And personally I would rather a transit worker to take off some time and come back calm and able to drive rested after being SPIT UPON (which obviously has never happened to you, Mr Bradley…..it is never just a random spitting usually stuff happens before and after that act…hello?) than to drive me anywhere upset and not able to focus on the road. Get it?
5/26/2010 6:20 pm
And I know I didn’t write this well. But you should get what i am saying…
5/27/2010 1:21 pm
Anon #1, thank you for trying.
Anon #2, I think it’s safe to say that your sense of irony is not strong. While you chastise me for “making claims and not supporting them,” you hide behind anonymity. You offer to spit upon me, but in a figurative sense, you already do—and quite frequently. Your comments pretty much fit the bill of “random violent/degrading acts”. I’ll live.
And, of course, you feel free to chastise me about my lack of testimonials, but then don’t hesitate to posit unflattering conclusions about my life despite your profound ignorance of it.
The reason I didn’t answer your union question is because you are not rational, and somehow I get the feeling that whatever answer I gave would never satisfy you. Also, your demands for more personal information are a little creepy. When you write comments like “this is fascinating” about my past work life, you’re entering a realm into which I don’t want to follow.
Back to the main point: As unpleasant and upsetting as it would be to be spat upon at work, I don’t see how anyone could justify taking 13 weeks of paid leave as a result. It’s farcical, and contributes to the perception of unions as acting contrary to the broader public interest and union members as lazy and entitled. Which, of course, is unfair. But there you are.
5/27/2010 7:08 pm
Deleted again. Whatever.
5/27/2010 7:30 pm
Yes, Anon. And you will always be deleted when your comments cross a line into the ad hominem. That’s not what this blog is about, and whether it’s you or someone else writing them, I’ll delete them. Comments that contribute to the discussion are welcome. If you can’t control yourself from spewing bile, I’d really prefer it if you took your comments elsewhere.
5/28/2010 12:59 pm
An unfortunate pattern, Richard. But if you present a topic in an immoderate tone, you’re likely to elicit immoderate responses. The way “Spitting Mad” was written conveys an anti-union and anti-bus driver bias. It might have been better to acknowledge at the start that only a small percentage of bus drivers abuse this time off benefit and omit the crack in which you anticipate reports of fraud.
It’s usually better to be skeptical about statistics quoted by reporters. The 51 cases of spitting are only those cases that were reported. For the reported cases, the best measure of central tendency may not be the mean. In short, when you consider the total number of bus drivers, the under-reporting of incidents, and the possibility that a very small number of people may be skewing the mean time off, there’s little justification for unflattering comments about bus drivers or their union.
Finally, no one can say how long it takes to recover from being spat on. It’s power to hurt is both symbolic and concrete. Rest assured that recovering from an emotional injury can take 13 weeks or more. And at the risk of stating the bloody obvious, some emotional wounds never heal. Stating that it’s farcical to need 13 weeks to recover makes you the arbiter of emotional injury experienced by others. How does one go about determining the seriousness of an incident and the length of time that should be alloted for recovery? I’d rather give bus drivers the benefit of the doubt even if that means allowing some to abuse the system.
[Exeunt Fool]
5/29/2010 10:29 am
That would be [Exit Fool], Feste
5/29/2010 11:58 am
Astonishing blunder. My locks have parted and each particular hair now stands an end like quills upon the fretful porpentine.