c_hawkbob wrote:My Biden/Harris sign lasted until the second night after the election.
I've never so much as put a bumper sticker on my car or truck. For the most part, I like to keep my political views private, and if you'll allow me to indulge myself for just a few minutes and forgive me if I've told this story before, I'll tell you why.
In 1978, fresh out of college, I landed a supervisory position at a food processing plant when I was 23 years old. I had quite a big mouth back then and was very expressive of my political views. In 1979, Iranian radicals stormed and seized the American embassy in Tehran, touching off the Iranian Hostage crisis. It was a big topic everywhere, and in conversations with both hourly and management types, I made comments to the extent that we should fire up the B-52's and carpet bomb Tehran. I thought nothing of my remarks as it seemed to be the prevailing opinion.
A few years later, I received a promotion to shift supervisor over a crew of around 75. I was essentially the plant manager for an 8 hour shift. A hard working Iranian immigrant employee of ours approached me with a request. He wanted to take a leave of absence, travel to Iran to get his wife and bring her back to the USA and still retain his seniority. I had quite a bit of autonomy back then, relative to what it was like when I retired. In any event, this guy's problem was difficult. We had no diplomatic relations with Iran, so in order to get his wife a visa to the USA, he had to fly to Iran, get a visa to West Germany, then go to the US embassy there and get a visa to get her back to the States. Plus there was a war going on between Iran and Iraq with things going badly for Iran. I thought it entirely possible that they'd see a healthy young man and throw him into the army.
I approved the LOA on the condition that he call me personally at home once every week or so (I had just purchased my first answering machine) and keep me up to date on his progress as I did not want to arbitrarily keep extending his leave in case I ever got challenged by my superiors, which he did. It took several months and 5 or 6 phone calls, but he was eventually able to get his bride back to the states and return to his normal job, so all was good.
One evening a few years later, I walked into a cocktail lounge and here was this Iranian employee of ours waving frantically at me to come over to his table as he wanted to introduce me to his wife. After a few drinks, he told me how scared he was to approach me about the LOA as he had heard the comments I had made about Iran back in '79 and feared that I'd throw him out of my office. His admission of fear made an impression on me, and I felt very ashamed of myself.
From that day on, I have been very reluctant to reveal my views on any political issue unless I am with very close friends in small groups. The closest I ever got to revealing my political opinion was in 2016. When I was asked, I would tell people that I did not vote for DJT, but that's all I would say. I strongly believe that a good supervisor or manager should do everything they can to make themselves as approachable as possible, and keeping our political and religious views to ourselves is a big part of that. Despite being retired for several years, that attribute seems to have burned in.
Again, my apologies for being long winded and redundant if you're heard me tell that story before.
Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2020 8:05 pm
Clinton was a scumbag but he's well off the hook compared to the mutant ninja black belt scumbag but suddenly the republicans in the senate have amnesia. No its different with this president and his slavish bobblehead party than any other.Falwell Jr with his speedos on watching his wife with the pool boy is one of the best possible metaphors for the Trump parties blind devotion to the porn star president.