2007-2008 Cornell and Corning Glass

In the spring of 2007, my eldest daughter asked that I find a way to stay home for her senior year of high school. I had spoken to my old foreman at the Cornell pipe shop, Mark R., who told me I hadn’t burnt any bridges and that he would be glad to hire me again. He proved true to his word and I started back doing service work at Cornell. It was like I never left. I walked in; they handed me the keys to a service van, some work tickets, and I was on my way. There is something really satisfying about people who trust you to do your job, but who don’t look down on you if you ask for help occasionally. Many of my brothers and sisters who worked there are really good mechanics, but they needed help sometimes as well. The other shops, like Controls, HVAC, Carpenter and Electric, are full of people who will go out of their way to support each other. While I was installing air hoses in the carpenter shop, I admired some furniture a carpenter was making. The next thing I knew, I had hired him to make me a platform bed and bookcase dressers for my house. They were beautiful and fit perfectly. It was also during this time that I began to feel secure enough in my job to join the Labor council as a delegate for my union. The Chemung Schuyler Labor Assembly was comprised of over 40 unions (public and private) representing thousands of workers. They work to protect the rights of workers through political action and public relations. As always, you get out of something what you put in to it. I became very involved. I marched in endless picket lines, attended meetings, conferences, and hosted political forums. I am afraid my daughters did not appreciate my commitment to the cause, even though I tried very hard to miss as little of my limited time with them as I could. On the plus side, they were exposed to experiences and people they might never have otherwise. Due to the fact I finally felt like I had a steady job, I planned a vacation that I have been dreaming of for years. I wanted to go to Ireland before I turned 50. My daughter and I spent a week each in London and Ireland. It was my first time to Europe, but everything went fairly smoothly. I even rented a car in Ireland and drove on the “other” side of the road. While my ex-husband was a rock, always there for the girls, I exposed them to adventure and new experiences. They really had the best of both worlds. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I stayed at Cornell until September 2008. I had never worked that long in one place since I was an apprentice. I immediately was re-assigned to another contractor who had a job at Corning Glass. It was a shutdown to install a new manufacturing line. From the very first day I had a problem with my foreman. He refused to talk to me; directed all his instructions to my partner. I was totally frustrated because this guy had only been out of his apprenticeship for a few years and was confused most of the time. At first I thought I was being paranoid, but other fitters noticed it as well. There was also a rule that you couldn’t go up on a ladder without a harness. Despite asking for one many times, I was never issued one, so couldn’t access the work. It was like they were setting me up to fail. After the first week I knew I was one the way out until I worked with a “shop rocket” who was working on Saturday for the overtime pay. He and I were assigned a hot project that had to get done that day. He gave me his harness and between us we installed two lines to a machine that was an integral part of the system. At one point he told the insulators to be careful because the line was still hot from where I had soldered it. Talk about time pressure, but it tested with no leaks and the general foreman was very happy with us. My partner told him that I was a great fitter and that the foreman needed to get off my back. Thatcertainly made the remaining few weeks of the job much more pleasant.