Two boats, thee uh helicopter, and oh hey thee uh toilet papers gone : A Redux

I will preface this re-post with some basics for you folks, tonight at approximately 9:15 p.m. myself and those fellow fightclubbers I've grown so fond of, learned via various news outlets that our employer, sold our company, our jobs, our futures, our years of service to the tune of 17.7 BILLION. This comes after years of being told this wouldn't happen and a few recent months of reasonable speculation and some public fishing by thee uh guy in charge. In the years since joining this particular fightclub the threat and rumor of the company being sold has come to be a yearly exercise in fear based management. Tonight (Lastnight, if you happen to have slept), the yearly fire drill turned into an actual fire.
What does it mean? It means each and every employee has been lied to by omission. Some guy at whichever news outlet broke the story first, knew before us, our bosses, or their bosses, even had a clue.
It means this organizing drive is about to kick into high gear. The only employees with any security are those who are UNIONIZED! Here's lookin at you Brooklyn! Really though, what thee uh fuck does it mean for the rest of us?

It means get loud, get public get down with the facts and know your rights while you still have the rare opportunity to save your job! Right now there are workers in Brooklyn sleeping while the rest of us prepare for the worst. It doesn't have to end on the unemployment line, though it may, if we don't stand together, help each other with the life jackets and get in the boat! Let there be no mistake about it, the boat is big enough for all of us if we are simply willing to do the work! Together, as a Unit, by simply saying YES to a unionized work place we provide ourselves with a chance that based on what I've read will not likely remain once this sale is complete. A chance at securing our jobs much like our Brooklyn Brothers and Sisters have already done.

When things get crazy or when one of her kids has one of those "Duh!" moments my mother will look at us, laugh and say, "Two boats and a helicopter!". This is my take on this epic parable, by whatever name you call your higher power, whether or not you believe in one, or twenty, or none, please take from this what is important and relevant and true for you and also forgive me my swearing but for real I was a trucker once...

A man is on a roof after a bad storm because his city had flooded, he's praying for God (or as I call him Jeebus), to save him, and a boat comes by. The people in the boat say "Hey, Guy, jump down get in, lets go!" The man say's, "No, it's cool you don't have much room in there, I'll be ok, save some women and children and such, Jeebus will save me!" The folks in the boat argue a bit but eventually say ok and move on. The water is still rising and the man is still prayin on the roof when the next boat comes by. They have a few seats and the waters so high he can walk right in off the roof. Once again the people in the boat invite him in and once more the man says "No, Jeebus will save me!", and the boat floats on. Now it's getting dark and the man is clinging close to the chimney as the waters continue to rise, he hears a loud noise coming closer and then out of the sky, directly above him comes a bright light, its a bird, its a plane, JEEBUS HIMSELF? Nope, a helicopter, from which a rope ladder drops and a man on a microphone yells, "Hey, Hey you there, on the chimney, in the red suit, with the white trim, grab the ladder,you'll drown down there! GET TO THE CHOPPA, IT'S THE ONLY WAY OOOOOUUUUT!" The man clings tighter to the chimney shaking his head no and deliriously yelling something about some guy by the name Jeebus coming to pick him up with some other guy named Rudolph. Finally the copter has to go, and they do. Leaving the poor waterlogged man who thinks he's Santa, to drown on the chimney.
The man gets to heaven after some screaming and flailing and demands to see God. God says to herself, and all the Angels, ~Well, this, I have got to hear, send this dude in. She nudges the Angel to her right and says watch this, and turns herself into Samuel L. Jackson, cuz come on, what's not funny about that! The man looks at her and says, "God, Jeebus, I knew you were black! Seriously though? What the funk? Why have you forsaken me? Why did you let me drown out there?!!!?" With this, God stands, laughing, she holds his face in her hands and says, as only Samuel L. Jackson could, "MOTHAFUCKA, I sent you TWO  BOATS and a mothafuckin HELICOPTER, If you think I was gettin in that water myself, you were sadly mistaken. I don't SWIM, HA!" She laughs and the angels laugh and she hugs the man and they all laugh and eat cake and that's that.

 If at any point the man had thought outside the box of his expectation, he might not have drowned. Life  changes every day. We make decisions based on expectations, based on fear or lies or both, lies other people tell us, lies we tell ourselves. That man told himself God would save him, to the point he actually believed the sky would open and God would carry him to dry ground. Instead he got a prankster in the sky. It wasn't what he expected. The boats, the helicopter he didn't accept those and he didn't expect to see the pearly gates or Mr. Jackson that day, but it happened. If he'd had the chance for a do over, I bet the man would have hopped right in the first boat, said thanks, and been livin high off the insurance money to a ripe old age. But life is short, we don't always get second chances and sometimes you have to fight your fears through to safety even if the boat is fueled on hope alone, boats float in rising waters, fear doesn't, a teen aged lifeguard can tell you that.

When your employer sells your company, your family, your security, your future, the boat IS a Union and that Union is the CWA.

"The Labor Movement was the principle force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress." ~ Martin Luther King Jr.