Here's my educational profile, I've compiled over the years and how it has come to affect my approach to political and work issues.
When I turned 16, I was approached by my father, who told me that I had two choices, I could let him purchase my first car (a sweet '72 Chevy Nova) and abide by a string of attached rules or I could buy my own.
After learning what these rules were; No access on school nights for ANY reason, a weekend curfew of 10:00, and no option to trade or sell the car in the future, I quickly assessed the situation. I could get something really nice, without doing anything to earn it, but would lose a significant amount of personal freedom and choice. I decided that freedom and the ability to decide what was best for me was more important than a literal free ride, so I got a part-time job and bought an '80 Caprice for $600. It was great. I paid for the car and its associated costs out of my own pocket....I EARNED it. I also had the freedom to use the car for after-school activities and if some friends were having an alcohol-free, drug-free party on Saturday night, I could go.
About four months prior to my 17th birthday, I impregnated my girlfriend. Again I was approached by my father, who said, "There are ways of dealing with this that won't destroy your life. If she will agree to an abortion, I will pay for the cost. If you don't want to marry (recommended), I will pay your child support but you have to give up your car and you will go nowhere but school...you have to quit your job." Again, I reviewed these "options". I could take absolutely no responsibility for my actions and continue with my life as though my "mistake" (as quoted by dad) never happened. I would again lose a great deal of freedom, but somehow this didn't seem like the most important issue at hand. I chose to stand up, do what was right and fullfill the responsibilities for the results of my own actions. I dropped out of school, got my GED and went to work.
Upon entering the workforce, doing jobs most people would never do, I quickly learned the fundamentals of business economics. My personal problems did not matter and the most controllable and controlled cost in any area of enterprise, is that of labor. I learned that facing a problem with an employer alone was futile and you'd better have some backing when you knocked on the door of the proverbial "Man".
I quickly learned that a man/woman with skills had a bigger stack of bargaining chips on his side of table, than without. I looked to enter the US Army for education, experience and (by golly) a bigger stack of chips.
To my disappointment, the US Army wouldn't accept me because of my only having a GED. Again, my personal problems didn't matter. To my elation, the standards dropped when we started gearing up for the Gulf War in 1990 and although I couldn't go active duty, the Army Reserves was very happy to take me into the fold.
I went in and spent the next three years in the Reserves. In 1993, we were bombing extensively in Baghdad and the threat of war loomed again. The US Army finally said yes.
I went in as a 54B (Nuclear-Bi0logiical-Chemical Operations Specialist). The threat of immediate war was soon not looming and no one seemed the least bit interested in my specialty of training. I spent my days at the motor pool, decontaminating oil spots from the floors and taking fluid/soil samples.
After three years of this, I chose to go back into the private sector, after all, I was armed with skills, baby! I quickly learned that the stories of employers beating down your door were complete myths.
I soon went to work in a steel mill in the great "Right to Work For Less" state of Arkansas. I really don't want to talk about that. I learned that the USPS was predominantly a unionized workforce and that as a veteran, they had to let me test for a job. I jumped on it and continued the sludgework in AR until 1998, when I got my call. I was just tickled. (In 1999 Enron bought the mill)
Upon entering a federal job (Yippee!!!) and better yet, a union job, I quickly learned that my co-workers took a great deal for granted.
I soon learned that very few people in the USPS, from my experience, any understanding of what a union is or at least what I thought it was. They had no spiritual connection with the great pioneers in labor, I'd learned about in school. (I had a very good Civics/Social Studies/American History teacher.) These people had forgotten or, dare I say, never known of those who stood on a line, placing their livelihoods and their very lives on the line for what they deserved and not what the "Man" told them they did not deserve.
I stepped up and volunteered as a steward and later served as a Vice President. I still feel that I failed to instill some realization of what we could be and something greater than taking what is "given". Finding spirit is hard.
I soon began to "pay the price" for speaking my mind in the workplace and called on my father for advice.
He said, "Son, I tried to advise you to take the car. If you had, you probably wouldn't have made your "mistake". I tried to advise you on how you should handle your "mistake" and you chose the hard way and wound up in divorce after ten years and paying child support anyway. You wasted ten years of your life, how much more? Where could you have been today? I will advise you now, back off on the union issue and go with the flow. There isn't any room for heroes left in organized labor, they are all gone.
I told my Dad that I made my decisions and I have lived with my consequences. I miss that d*mn Caprice. I said, my "mistake", as he put it, is a twelve-year-old young man, who is smarter than his dad and makes me proud to be alive every day. I did my best and do my best every day to do what I can to help my union brothers and sisters, as well as my self. I then said, "Oh yeah, my son thinks I'm a hero."