the_matt79

Well today at work ended much better than it began. The second move we made of locomotives on the tracks, dumbass me miss-ligned the turntable and thought I was lined into a track when I was not and I ccouldn't get the guy pushing the units to stop until two motors had slipped off the tracks. Well after cussing myself out for a bit and making sure all wa right with the world I went into the office to tell them what had happened only to find that they already knew and so I got put in the conference room to write my statement down and to wait for the piss test person to come to town. This was all around 8am and the guy wasn't going to get to town until 10am, so I had to try and schedule my pee breaks so that I would be able to give a sample when he showed up.

You see it's company policy that if something happens when moving power you have to give a breath test ad a urine sample. I failed my OPT for locomotive movement, which was a no-brainer, and I will proobably be put on probabtion, but that's fine. So then I got to sit there for an hour and a half while I waited for the guy to show up. That is a damn boring way to sit let me tell you. The shop superintendent made me feel a lot better about the whole situation. He came by the conference room on his way out to see what had happened and asked how I was, to which I responded "I am disappoited in myself" He told me that yeah it's frustrating, but you'll be okay. After a while he came back in and walked over patted me on the back and again told me I would be okay, and then as I thanked him he smiled and said don't worry you'll be just fine. That was exactly what I needed right then, and I started to feel much better.

I was worried that the pee tester was going to show up late a)for my poor bladder's sake, and b) because I didn't want to miss being outside to blow the horn on a locomotive when my dad called. You see one of dad's best friends passed away after a battle with cancer and he had worked with us at the railroad so we wanted to give him send off as they left the church, and knowing what that meant to dad and what it would mean to the family I didn't want to miss it.

Piss tester showed up, I blew zeroes on the breathalyzer which he was happy about because "that saves a lot of hassle for me, well it saves more for you, but a lot for me" I had to hold back laughing after hearing that because yeah the hassle for me would be a choice between going to treatment or losing my job, the hassle for him is paperwork. Then I went and pee'd in the plastic cup and finished up with all the paperwork and whatnot, then back to work.

I asked the foreman if I should just get back to it and he said yeah if I was comfortable, and of course I was, it was a stupid mistake, but no one got hurt and apparently they had the loco back on the tracks in minutes, and when they checked it out there was no damage to it at all, nor was there any damage where it went on the ground. So like I said to the foreman, "I guess if you're going to do it, that's the way to do it" I felt better and got back after it. In the middle of moves we got the call and I got to blow the horn for Bob which is what would have really ruined the day for me if I had not been able to do that.

I don't know if he was watching over me today, but someone was, because really the accident I had was basically the perfect accident because nothing detrimental happened. Yeah I will have to do some safety stuff and have to do a probation period, but noone hurt, no damage, I'll take that anyday.