Pot. Kettle. Black, LOL.

On the East Coast we're experimenting with too much snow. Eight inches are predicted today. Wish you'd drop by in one of your BIG trucks to help me out.

Operator, where the heck you been ?
With your absence and Gary on sick leave the thread is wavering a little bit .

I've been working in the gas field and working too much.

I am down to 140 now but people guess me at 120 "at the most". I've kinda reached a weird point where I just look too skinny. I'm only 5' 2" but I carry my weight well. I'm now catching a lot of "You're so tiny" instead of "You're really short". I'm also getting a little creeped out by some of the field guys who seem to come through the shop for no real reason and chatting me up about problems that they know aren't part of my job to fix. I was talking to one of the guys a couple of days ago that I trust and he came right out a said it's that they like talking to me because they prefer to talk to a "sexy" woman than the others or the guys. That's just weird for me.

Congratulations on the weight loss. Re: the comments, relax and enjoy it !

I can't relax. My company employs over 170 men and I have jealous boss(female). I was working nights with 2 guys. One is my age, very much loves his wife and sees me as a sister. The other sees me as a kind of mother-figure/friend. I feel safe with both of them.

Thing is, the young one has a problem with yelling while he works. A week ago Thursday, he was doing a brake job on a semi and got really frustrated and was yelling for over 6 hours about 10 feet away from me. The proximity and some of the things he was yelling wound up giving me that feeling that something bad was about to happen. Then, he screamed(at the brakes) "I'll kill you, Bi*ch!" and I "heard" my father getting ready to beat the living crap outta my mom back when I was a child. I went into battle mode.

So, the next day I went to my boss to let her know that I can't take the screaming and that if it happened to that level again, I would have to be able to walk out without getting in trouble myself but that I didn't want to go to HR. She blew me off and said she couldn't handle it right then but we would talk on Monday after her 3 day weekend and she promised not to go to HR. We all just worked in very tense silence for the next two nights.

Monday before work she called and said I had to come in early and see HR. She said she HAD to go to them. BS!! I've been management and even my 24 year old daughter has done it long enough to know you try to take care of it on the ground first. I go in and their all up about Sexual Harassment. I told them it was nothing of the sort and was clear Hostile Environment and that his screaming affected the guys too. It just hit me harder because of my childhood and the fact that I'm "so tiny" means he'd come at me if he truly lost it. The company man said that since it wasn't Harassment that I should be fine to work that night. Huh? So I guess the jack@ss thinks it's OK if I get hit so long as I don't get "hit on". WTF???

Tuesday I was finally able to talk to the youngun about it and explained what his yelling did to me. He was profusely sorry and had been since Friday but neither of us were able to broach the subject til then for fear of HR repercussions. He's been in trouble over his screaming before. We've been back to normal since then.

Well, the "investigation" was final yesterday. I was given "the night off". Ya, it's called a suspension(I'm not stupid) and I have to start working day shift next week. I got my shift changed from 4pm to 5pm start time a few weeks ago so I didn't have to put up with as many of the field guys looking at me "that way". Now, I'm gonna be in there all freaking day long with little to do since I can't work on trucks that are in the field, will have to attend Safety Meetings with the entire crew and they are all gonna be thinking I am the one who went to HR. My life is gonna be pure H*LL!

Gawd, women can really be just pure evil when their husband's come into work and look at another woman "that way" and all the guys around them quit falling all over themselves to see them and start checking out another woman. Before I was usually seen as "just one of the guys". Now, I'm being seen as "the hawt oiler chick" and I hate it. I like being seen as smart. Plus, being in an oilfield town, I don't exactly feel safe being outnumbered by about 1000 to 1. That's why I won't move there and drive an hour each way to work.

Sorry so long. I'm just totally freaked out by this whole deal and it's wearing on my nerves. Adding to it, it quit drinking alcohol 4 months ago and now have to deal with this crap without having a "relaxer" after work.

BTW, I've missed y'all. :hug:

Operator, glad you can come talk to us. I don't think I have any advice except to say I understand. I have been in some similar work situations and it just isn't fair. I hope it gets better for you . PS I have had men bosses and I have had women bosses and I will take men bosses any day , oh, yeah some of the men sometimes think the wrong thing about you because you are a single woman, but they generally are not as tough and unfair as a woman boss. Good luck, I know it is tough but the Operator I know can handle it.

Those BIG trucks are scary as all get out in the snow. Shoot, if you spit on the downgrade of haul road it will send them sliding. You defo don't wanna see one coming at you in 8 inches of snow. :eek:

But, I have a couple of one ton duallies I could send over. Ya got any natural gas fields you're looking to extract?

Thanks, Bargoo. Ya, there's not really much advise to give. What can I say? I'm dealing with a woman who is totally insecure. When my X would check women out I didn't really care. Guys do it. So do we. So long as ya know where they are sleeping at night(or day if you married a shift worker), it ain't no big thang. When he was cheating, I always held it against him, not the women unless they came at me and my girls. He's the one who knew he was married, after all.

Of course, then you have this kind of woman. While I'm getting my shift changed so guys can't check me out as much, she has her screen saver set up to run a 20 minute slide show of herself so they can check her out even when she's not there. :rolleyes:

It's not just the attention she's worried about either. I'm an experienced manager and have been in Safety all of my adult life and she sucks in both of those areas. If OSHA ever shows up, that shop will be on shut down in a heart beat and the labor and cost control practices there are so sub-par it's not even imaginable. The have me throwing out $50 air filters for no good reason on a daily basis yet they are worrying over 20 cent light bulbs that if we don't have will shut a truck down for DOT violation. It makes me nucking futs.

Oh well, I'm looking for another job anyways. This just gives me more reason to get off my butt and just do it. Hopefully, I can work things out with the new guy I'm seeing and we can both find new jobs elsewhere. He hates that place too. No, I'm not hooking up into him that much, but it is nice having a warm body to snuggle up to. ;)

And now for phase 2. The guy I was seeing doesn't want to see me anymore because he doesn't want any "problems" at work. FML

That leaves me speechless.

Hey Everyone!! Just wanted to pop in for a minute--- I know it's been a long time... But for those of you who don't know, Gary(EZ) is going in for surgery tomorrow.. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers.

Operagtor-- sorry you are having such troubles at work. Just remember you are worth a whole lot more than that "Diva" with the screen saver will ever be!! Good luck with your job search!

It was about 9 months ago that I stopped by to say Hi and in February we would be welcoming another member to the family. Well she is here Madelyn Rose arrived last Tuesday weighing 8lbs 10 oz. I am hoping to be around more this time.

Mrsaugie, so good to hear from you and welcome Madelyn Rose ! Please come back and bring us up to date on the rest of the family.

I am so sorry to hear about EZ. I hope he recovers soon and is back to being a pain in everyone's butt before long. I know he can do it. :getwell:

Hi Karen. Guess I didn't know you were MIA since I've been MIA too. Keep coming then and I'll try to keep coming too and maybe this thread will finally get killed before too much longer, especially if we can get The Mouth of California South to quit playing sick. :hug:

Mrs. Augie-Congrats on the little one. What a pretty name. I LOVE ROSES. I think my best friends love for them transferred to me when she died. I would have given one of my children that for a name if I had known now what I didn't know then. Of course, they would have hated it too by the time they were teens. :congrat:

Well, I'm going into the shop tomorrow with my girls to get my toolboxes and quitting. I simply can't work in unsafe conditions. I know some people say any job is better than no job, but, I can make more money as a live waitress than as a dead oiler and the lead mechanic is just too stupid for words. How in the h*ll can someone call himself a mechanic when he can't even properly set up a jack and jack stands? SOB dang near got me injured Friday.

I may be looked at askance for being over 40 when applying for work, but I know I will never get another job if I am missing body parts and I would be miserable for the rest of my life if I had to live on disability or welfare because I did something stupid and got hurt. Plus, I would never forgive myself because I know that I know better and I couldn't look my girls in the eye because they know I know better. Heck, they know better and have never worked in a shop.

My next step is out of my control. In fact, I've learned recently that life is out of my control. All I can do is what I know is right. Hopefully, I can find a way to help protect the health and safety of the guys I'm leaving behind, but if they don't take their safety seriously, there is nothing I can do about it. I just wish folks would understand that it has been proven over and over again that safety and production go hand in hand and that when workers are secure in their environment, they produce at a higher rate and higher quality.

Oh well, guess I'm just a dumb little ol' girl, but, I'm a live dumb little ol' girl and I'm going to do what I can to keep it that way so that I too can continue to be a pain in everyone's butt. :devil:

Operator, sorry about the job but am confident that you know what you are doing. I hope you can find something where you can use your skills and experience and be well paid. It is shocking how careless some work environments can be when no one seems to care. Good luck on the job hunt.