1999 Toshiba & Separation

At the end of 1999 I asked for a layoff from the pipe shop at Cornell. My youngest daughter was over 3 years old and still wearing diapers. I felt that I was being a terrible mother because I was working so much I didn’t have time to toilet train her. My mother-in-law watched her during the day. She also watched another little girl as well who was much younger. I really felt she wasn’t doing it right. In reality, kids toilet train when they are ready! After a few months with both of us being frustrated as I tried to push her into big girl panties, she decided it was time. She went from diapers all day and night to never wearing them at all. I went back to work feeling much better about my role as a working mother. What I didn’t feel good about was my role as wife. While there are always two sides to every divorce, my side was that I felt like I was caring for three children. I paid most of the bills for the house including insurance, taxes, mortgage, groceries, clothes, and feed bills. He paid the utilities. I did all the cooking, cleaning, laundry, and shopping. He cut the grass with the riding lawn mower I bought. Our fights about little things began to escalate. He seemed to think I should be able to do everything his mother did around the house with no help from the “man” of the family. I was working 60 hours a week and was exhausted. In May, I asked him to move out for a trial separation. When he refused, I was forced to file for a legal separation. It was a really tense time. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to pay the utilities that he used to cover. But I found that without him in the house my expenses actually went down. I had more free time as we had worked out a shared child custody arrangement. My employer agreed to let me come in an hour late twice weekly, so that I could bring the kids to school and child care in the morning. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In the spring, before the separation, I had been working at the Toshiba plant installing a new line. It was a great job, clean and relatively easy. I was partnered up with my old friend Cora Lee who was the first female in our local. We were installing stainless steel lines to some sort of robotic machine. They were connected using a technique called Pro-Press. Basically it was a socket joint with an O-ring inside. You put your pipe into your fitting and then place the machine around it to crimp it. You had to be careful to have everything lined up properly or you would have leaks. The machine was awkward, but not tremendously heavy. We were working along, singing, telling jokes and laughing the whole day. About 2 weeks after we started we had a union meeting. The Business Agent called us over and said, “You two are in trouble! The General Foreman called today”. I was sure we were having too much fun or not being productive enough and were about to be fired. Instead he informed us that the GF wanted to know why we were out producing the guys by three times as much. Apparently when you have a good partner and get into a good work rhythm, pipe gets installed without you even realizing it! But alas, like all good jobs it came to an end.