There is a lot of reasons why being TM sucks and there is just as many reasons why most guys are not that fond of TM's. It goes beyond the union vs. management thing in many cases; a lot of it has to do with the way the jobs set up and people in them react. The expectations are brutal and guys in management typically either hunker down, keep a low profile, and do the best they can or they drink the Kool Aide and go gung ho after the union folks, get their numbers up, and live for the bonus.
Being a TM can either be an exercise in boredom in its most brutal form or be the most stressful, jaw clenching exercise in personal abuse that you can imagine.
The fun stuff....
The tasks depend on the terminal. Typically you work in a division point terminal which can involve a lot of switching. In those cases you do a lot of short term planning in making up trains, balancing the yard, and batting them out. The yardmasters do the bulk of the work and they are typically damn good at it so you only need to get involved if something gets screwed up with the plan (which is normal). If you have any locals you might spend some time working with them, talking to customers, yelling at TMs downline to send you cars that this customer needs or that one wants, and checking with the roundhouse to see how you are doing on power. Sometimes you work with the dispatchers to solve traffic issues, or sometimes you work with the yard jobs to solve switching problems. Smetimes there is not much to do so you can BS with the guys in the crew rooms, grab some lunch, or run home to catch some time with the family. It just depends on what kind of terminal you are in.
Ok, that's its for the fun stuff.
Your biggest job as a TM is operational testing. This is where the term "weed weasel" applies. Basically it will be your job to go tell other people how to do their job...even if you dont know how to do their job. This takes a lot of practice to get any good at and you have to have the right personality for it or your crews will hate you forever. You go out and set up tests like knocking a signal down with a shunt, turning a pot signal dark, or throwing a fusee in front of a oncoming train. Be sure to hide in the weeds or they will see you. You make sure they stop, then climb on board, check their papers, write up a ticket (just like a cop) and send them on their way. There are litterally hundreds of different things you can test.
The tricky part comes into play when someone does something wrong. If you are cool about it and so are they, no problem. That is not usually the case and a argument typically breaks out that results in a good twenty minutes of rule digging. the real tricky part comes into play when someone did something techincially wrong, but not wrong enough to warrant something on their record. hate to say it, but wrong to one guy is not the same as wrong to another, and that is where TM's get bad names becasue it is hard to find two who agree. And even worse, it is really hard to find superintendents who agree. So the book is supposed to be black and white, but it is all kinds of gray. And dont forget that the superintendent is watching your record, and if all the other TMs fail 10 guys and you fail 2, you are a slacker and it is time to put you on the night shift for a while. nevermind that you let this guy off for that and that guy off for this, its not on paper so it didnt happen.
So that is one of the not-so-fun parts of being a TM. Then there is awlays those few guys who will go out of their way to give you a a hard time. No water on the unit, clogged toilet, machine is out of earplugs, blah blah blah. Sometimes it is legit and sometimes it isnt.
Then there is the countless hours of driving crews around becasue the van company hired five guys right out of CJC and none of them managed to show up for work today. Hmmm....guess you pick up the slack there too.
Other not so fun parts include 80+ hour work weeks. Constant finger-pointing with upline and downline terminals on service issues, and abusive conference calls with upper managers who are proud to have been divorced three times and have moved 18 times in a 20 year career.
But there is plenty of room for advancement if you are willing to sacrifice your family for it. A lot of TMs dont go any further because it gets really serious once you hit the next level, meaning you will have to relocate A LOT. Once you hit the corporate radar they will send you all over the system and back to see to it that you see the entire railraod. And you dont have a chocie in where or when you go, you go or you're done.
There you go man.
I was a TM for 15 months in a busy termnial; at first I thought it was the best thing that could ever happen to me, but by the end I was so miserable that I couldnt believe I was dumb enough to take the job. Lot of that was personal stuff and my personality was just not a good fit for the job. If you are a nice guy and try to do right, you can do it, but not without getting burned a lot. It will happen. It was really odd how well all the guys started treating me once I told them I was outta there, a lot of them were good guys but the job kept driving a wedge between us that only went away once they knew I was out of the game. Its just the way it the job is set up, and it just doesnt change.
Lots of the railroads are trying to change that, but I dont see it working. I hired out with the honey in my ear that my attitude was going to make the difference and that the old ways would die off....its baloney. Some of the managers that I hired out with bought hook, line, and sinker into the old way of doing things.....yell, scream, intimidate, play the tough guy act, and it works for them. They'll get promoted, go further, tow the line, and brag in 20 years how they have moved 18 times and been divorced three times.
You're doing it the right way, before I left I told my superintendent that if I could do it again I would go into TE&Y, learn the job real good, and then only get into management if I got bored.
He didnt like that much, I figure he was thinking the same thing.
Good luck!
