Those who are reading this may or may not know that I was raised as a Christian. My mom took me - and later forced me - to go to church and pray before dinner and things like that. When I transferred from college in Montana to a college at home in Oregon, I dropped the identifier of "Christian" and began to refer to myself as "spiritual" - specifically, spiritual but not religious.
The school I attended in Montana was affiliated with the Catholic church. Some of the people I knew here were a bit confused by my decision. Catholics and Christians don't always get along very well because of the differences in their belief systems. They have the same base beliefs - that God created the world and then sent his son to save humans from their sins in the ultimate sacrifice. After that things start to get blurry and the two split away from each other. Coming from a Baptist church, my experience is that Catholicism is more ritualized and focuses on doctrines whereas we focused on forging a relationship with God and developing a strong Christian family and reaching out to those around us. Not that that made us better, of course. In some ways, we were worse.
Montana was bad for me. I never should have gone. I experienced things that no person should ever have to experience. But I also experienced some spiritual attacks that originated in the Catholic church. Now, I want to be clear that I am not saying Catholics are jerks, or wrong, or bad. I know some awesome, loving, faithful Catholic people who deserve all of the good things in the world and a place in heaven with God someday. The goal of this is to simply share some experiences and observations that I made while experiencing the tensions between two religious groups that share the same history.
I went on a retreat through my college that was supposed to be open to all women of all walks of life. Being Catholic was not required. I wouldn't have gone if I had known what I would be dealing with. I already felt left out because there were so many things I wasn't allowed to participate in because I wasn't Catholic, communion being one of them, and perhaps the one that pissed me off the most. But on this retreat we had a guest speaker. I'm sure she was a great person and all, but some of the things she said were absolutely unacceptable. Ultimately, though in less direct terms, she said that if you weren't Catholic then you weren't Christian. I checked out of the retreat at that point and hid in the basement where everyone was sleeping. I got a lot of homework done that weekend. The sad part is, that wasn't the first part of the retreat that made me feel unwelcome.
That was the only direct insult to my faith during the time. The other insults came indirectly from policies within the Catholic church that controlled who could do what. I already mentioned not being allowed to take communion, so I'll use that as my example.
Transubstantiation is the idea that the wine and bread actually physically becomes the blood and body of Jesus during communion (which resulted in Christians being seen as cannibals during part of history). The Catholic church still believes this and holds onto this idea. It is one of their doctrines. I'm not an expert on Catholicism and their beliefs, but I did have this one explained to me. A significant number of protestant denominations do not hold on to this belief, instead believing that the bread and wine are merely a representation. Essentially, this is why Catholic churches do not allow other people to take communion. It may not be the intent, but the basic message is that other Christian's believe the wrong thing if they do not believe in transubstantiation. There are, of course, the classes that Catholic members have to take before they are allowed to participate in communion, but other churches have similar classes. As long as someone understands the purpose of communion and believes, they should be allowed to take it.
This, at least, is how I was made to feel. I could, of course, go up and be blessed by a priest, but why would I want to do that? If I was at a mass it was because I wanted to commune with and worship God, not be blessed by someone who was just as human as I was. On top of that, it singled me out as different, when really I wasn't. I had to show everyone that I wasn't like them by crossing my arms across my chest. That was exactly why I never got up for communion, and part of why I left mass early multiple times or refused to go at all. I participated in maybe three or four when I was in Montana, at least one of which I had to leave early so I wouldn't burst into tears.
This is a big part of why I no longer identify myself with a religious term, such as Christian or Baptist. I am spiritual, and for me that is enough. I made the decision once before, when I was in high school, but that was typical teenage questioning. Even so, there was one important person who treated me like I was a disease for that short period of time. That hurt more than anything and is yet another reason why I am no longer religious. The final reason why comes in the form of the isolated cases in which I was looked down on after coming out as bisexual several years ago.
There was at least one person who, upon seeing my Facebook page, where I openly display my values and my identity, did not think that I should be allowed to work with the kids at church. At the time I had volunteered to help teach Children's Church during service, so that the kids didn't have to sit through boring sermons and distract everyone. I would have been teaching them about God's love, miracles, different Bible stories, and more. Nothing to do with bisexuality at all. The sad part was that the people who had a problem with it didn't even have the balls to say it to my face, to put it bluntly. They hid behind my mom, who in turn came to me. While she is not completely accepting of what I identify as, she loves me and she was angry that anyone would say things like that about her daughter. I was just angry that they didn't say it to my face.
Religion opens up too many doors for discrimination, judgments of people, and hate. There are too many complexities and too many reasons for people to fight and argue and hate each other. Spirituality is simple. You believe what you believe because you value it and because you believe that it's the truth. No rules, no doctrines, no necessary rituals. It is what you need it to be. And though God and I have some issues to straighten out, I feel closer to him now that I do not view myself as part of a church.
Sunday, February 16, 2014
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Separation of Church and State
Today I want to take some time to talk about the separation of Church and State in terms of the federal government and why we have it. I bring this up because of the issue of same-sex marriages, perhaps one of the biggest social debates of our time. I recognize that everyone has their own opinion on the subject and their own reason for opposing or supporting it, but I believe that there are some important points that both parties have been overlooking during this drawn-out battle.
In school we are taught the story of the pilgrims and how they left England to escape religious persecution. We know these people to be puritans or protestants. Of course, its far more complicated than all of that. The point is that these people left their homeland because they were being persecuted and wanted freedom from that persecution. It wasn't just the state persecuting them, either. It was the Church. When Martin Luther nailed his ninety-nine theses to the door of the Church, there was a split. The people who moved away from the traditional church became known as Protestants, because they protested against the wrongs of the Church (not to be confused with the Puritans, a slightly more extreme religious sect that was more like a cult).
So, the Protestants found a way to compromise with their governments. They would go somewhere else and settle. They founded the Colonies on the eastern shores of what is now the United States under the principle of religious freedom. And by freedom I mean freedom to practice the different versions of Christianity. Other religious groups - such as the Quakers - were highly frowned upon.
So, what does all of this have to do with separation of Church and State, you wonder. Well, in England and other European countries at the time the Church was closely linked to and heavily influenced the government. The mixture of the Church with the government was what allowed the two to have considerably more power than either ought to have had. The government was able to punish people for religious malpractice (or what they decided religious malpractice was) and the Church was able to persecute people with the government's backing.
When the Colonies were founded, this was an important issue that they considered. Once they were independent of England and began to set up a government of their own it was something that they thought important enough to put on paper. This we have separation of Church and State.
This is important to keep in mind when we discuss the issue of same-sex marriage. One of the leading arguments is religiously based. People argue that the Bible says that same-sex relationships are wrong and sinful. That's fine. Maybe they're right and it is a sin. But it doesn't matter if they are wrong or right. What matters is that same-sex marriage is a political issue, not a religious one. Just because a same-sex couple gets married doesn't mean that the church has to recognize it as "right" or "ok". It just means that the state is recognizing a legal union between two consenting human beings. You can be married without the church. All it takes is a judge and some signatures and a witness.
My point is that Church and State are to be separate. When they are mixed bad things happen and people abuse power. Look at the Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades, or the selling of "tickets" to have sins forgiven (a clever guise for making money, yes, but wrong).
It is against the law to prohibit something based on religious grounds. And for those people who think that it's wrong or unnatural...well, I'm fairly certain we do a lot of things that are considered wrong or unnatural, but over the years they have become acceptable part of society anyways. And that opinion doesn't have any legal standing, anyways. It's not like allowing same-sex marriages means that you have to marry someone who's the same sex as you. I say keep your values to yourself and don't force them onto other people.
I realize that people can look at this and assume that I am saying all of this because I identify as bisexual. While that doesn't certainly weigh in on my opinion, I want to make it clear that I think each person should be allowed to live by their own morals and values without other people trying to force their opinions and values onto them. By denying people the right to marry whoever they want that is exactly what is going on. If same-sex marriage is allowed, what do heterosexual couples lose? They can still have heterosexual relationships and marriages. Nothing will change for them. The other option - the one that currently holds in many states - is denying someone the right to choose. And, being Christian myself (though I'm loathe to put a label to my spirituality these says, with as many times as I have been targeted by a Christian institution), I'm fairly confident in saying that God gave everyone the right to choose. We have free will to make the right or wrong decisions. Who are we to deny each other that free will if it isn't hurting people?
In school we are taught the story of the pilgrims and how they left England to escape religious persecution. We know these people to be puritans or protestants. Of course, its far more complicated than all of that. The point is that these people left their homeland because they were being persecuted and wanted freedom from that persecution. It wasn't just the state persecuting them, either. It was the Church. When Martin Luther nailed his ninety-nine theses to the door of the Church, there was a split. The people who moved away from the traditional church became known as Protestants, because they protested against the wrongs of the Church (not to be confused with the Puritans, a slightly more extreme religious sect that was more like a cult).
So, the Protestants found a way to compromise with their governments. They would go somewhere else and settle. They founded the Colonies on the eastern shores of what is now the United States under the principle of religious freedom. And by freedom I mean freedom to practice the different versions of Christianity. Other religious groups - such as the Quakers - were highly frowned upon.
So, what does all of this have to do with separation of Church and State, you wonder. Well, in England and other European countries at the time the Church was closely linked to and heavily influenced the government. The mixture of the Church with the government was what allowed the two to have considerably more power than either ought to have had. The government was able to punish people for religious malpractice (or what they decided religious malpractice was) and the Church was able to persecute people with the government's backing.
When the Colonies were founded, this was an important issue that they considered. Once they were independent of England and began to set up a government of their own it was something that they thought important enough to put on paper. This we have separation of Church and State.
This is important to keep in mind when we discuss the issue of same-sex marriage. One of the leading arguments is religiously based. People argue that the Bible says that same-sex relationships are wrong and sinful. That's fine. Maybe they're right and it is a sin. But it doesn't matter if they are wrong or right. What matters is that same-sex marriage is a political issue, not a religious one. Just because a same-sex couple gets married doesn't mean that the church has to recognize it as "right" or "ok". It just means that the state is recognizing a legal union between two consenting human beings. You can be married without the church. All it takes is a judge and some signatures and a witness.
My point is that Church and State are to be separate. When they are mixed bad things happen and people abuse power. Look at the Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades, or the selling of "tickets" to have sins forgiven (a clever guise for making money, yes, but wrong).
It is against the law to prohibit something based on religious grounds. And for those people who think that it's wrong or unnatural...well, I'm fairly certain we do a lot of things that are considered wrong or unnatural, but over the years they have become acceptable part of society anyways. And that opinion doesn't have any legal standing, anyways. It's not like allowing same-sex marriages means that you have to marry someone who's the same sex as you. I say keep your values to yourself and don't force them onto other people.
I realize that people can look at this and assume that I am saying all of this because I identify as bisexual. While that doesn't certainly weigh in on my opinion, I want to make it clear that I think each person should be allowed to live by their own morals and values without other people trying to force their opinions and values onto them. By denying people the right to marry whoever they want that is exactly what is going on. If same-sex marriage is allowed, what do heterosexual couples lose? They can still have heterosexual relationships and marriages. Nothing will change for them. The other option - the one that currently holds in many states - is denying someone the right to choose. And, being Christian myself (though I'm loathe to put a label to my spirituality these says, with as many times as I have been targeted by a Christian institution), I'm fairly confident in saying that God gave everyone the right to choose. We have free will to make the right or wrong decisions. Who are we to deny each other that free will if it isn't hurting people?
Monday, February 3, 2014
Package Handler 101 - The Trailer and How to Load It
Package handlers at FedEx Ground are most often responsible for loading or unloading the trailers that travel across the country to deliver customers' packages to the sorting facilities. Today I want to talk a bit about the trailer and how you load it as well as some of the dangers that come with loading (or unloading!) a trailer.
Here in Portland we deal with two types of trailers. A normal trailer is shorter than the normal semi truck that you see and has a belly in between the wheels. Usually a truck pulls two of these shorter trailers. The long box is more like what a semi truck usually pulls and doesn't have a belly like the normal trailers do. Long boxes are also significantly more difficult to load and is better suited for taller package handlers (in other words, not me).
In the image I put together above, I have marked the positive and negative aspects of this wall of 'boxes'. Obviously in real life things wouldn't be quite this symmetrical, but FedEx seems to think that this is how real life works, since their training images tend to look a bit like this (though more professionally done).
First, you can see that to the right of the image there is a column of boxes, which I have marked as wrong. This would create an unstable wall and put too much pressure on the boxes at the bottom. Obviously this column isn't very tall, so there wouldn't be as much pressure, but it can still be dangerous to unloaders. Second, I have two boxes with directional arrows on them. When loading the arrows are always supposed to be pointing up. As you can see, I checked the box with an arrow pointing up and crossed out the one with the arrow pointing to the right. Finally, you will see three small check mark next to three red Ts that the lines of the boxes form. This is overlapping the boxes and it makes walls stable and distributes the pressure on the boxes at the bottom. This method is also called the bricklayer method.
Today, my hub follows a loading priority system called VOLT. I have absolutely no idea what VOLT stands for or how to use it when loading trailers, so I can't teach you about that. I was trained on the Five Priorities of Loading system, which I still hold to, with my own modifications (because I don't load very often anymore so I can get away with more than regular loaders).
The five priorities of loading are cornerstone, base shelf, alternate shelf, filler, and top fill/crushables. The cornerstone is usually that massive, heavy box that you probably can't life more than a few inches off the ground. It is typically placed against the wall of the trailer, forming the first part of the base shelf, or the bottom row of boxes that starts your wall. Each row of boxes is called a shelf. Often you will have a taller box that reaches above the general height of the shelf you are building (such as the tall box on the right side of the image above). The part that goes above your current shelf forms an alternate shelf, where you can start another shelf above the one you are working on.
You will always have spaces in between boxes that need to be filled. That is where filler boxes come in handy. These are smaller boxes that can be placed in the gaps that are always part of a wall. This both increases cubes (the amount of cubic space you fill inside of the trailer) and the stability of the wall. Sometimes they are also referred to as wedge boxes.
Finally there are the top crushables, or top fill as we like to call it. More often than not, your wall is going to have space leftover at the top, between the last self and the ceiling. This needs to be filled as well, and there are a variety of boxes that can do the job. Flat, lightweight boxes are preferred, but anything small that is light, can be crushed, or is some kind of bag will work to fill in the space. The more space you fill the better your cubes are (and the more money the company saves!).
Another type of package that we get to deal with is the incompatible or IC (we pronounce it ink/inks). These packages do not come down a chute, but on a separate belt where they are manually pulled off and placed on a flat set of rollers next to the chute where they wait to be loaded. IC packages are not to be built into a wall if they are excessively heavy or an awkward shape. Specifically, metal and tires are not to be placed above the floor unless they are stacked on top of one another (for example, a stack of tires). IC packages include metal, tubs or containers of liquid, thin boxes (less than two fingers thick), wooden packages, packages weighing 100+ pounds, tires, and other miscellaneous items (I've often received igloo shaped dog houses and plastic kayaks/canoes).
And that, my friends, is the basics of loading. There are many other things that I could cover here, but that is for another post on another day. Just keep in mind that this is the basics - there are a lot of things that also come into play when you are loading, and some of these basics and standards are thrown out the door in favor of speed and simply getting the job done.
So, who wants to go get a job at FedEx now?
Here in Portland we deal with two types of trailers. A normal trailer is shorter than the normal semi truck that you see and has a belly in between the wheels. Usually a truck pulls two of these shorter trailers. The long box is more like what a semi truck usually pulls and doesn't have a belly like the normal trailers do. Long boxes are also significantly more difficult to load and is better suited for taller package handlers (in other words, not me).
Typical FedEx trailers with bellies - usually pulled in pairs.
Interior of a regular trailer, flaps closed over the belly.
These regular trailers have a set of roller built in above the belly. Boxes come down the chute and are then supposed to roll down towards the back of the trailer. Because of the number of boxes coming down the chute in most trailers, this rarely works out as planned. Facing the direction of the second image above, the package handler loads the right side of the belly, then the second side, and then begins in the nose (the part that connects to the truck) of the trailer and works their way to the opening of the trailer. It is important to note that long boxes do not come equipped with a set of rollers.
A long box attached to a truck. There is no belly.
The interior of an older long box (they really haven't improved much from this).
Long boxes in comparison to normal trailers (the shorter ones) from a Denver location.
Because the long box doesn't have a set of rollers installed inside, they dock at special doors on a hub that have been equipped with a set of heavy pull-out rollers. One of the reasons why long boxes tend to be more difficult to load is because these rollers have to be pulled to the end of the trailer and then pushed back gradually. The also take up much of the inside, leaving little room to pass through along the sides. Boxes often fall and get stuck in between the walls of the trailer and the rollers, making it hard to get in and out. Because the long box is taller than the typical smaller trailer, a load stand must be used at all times, and even then it is harder for shorter people to reach high enough to fill in the last couple of rows in a wall of boxes, as is expected by managers. I was injured in a long box both because I could not handle constantly reaching up as high as I could and I was not strong enough to push the heavy rollers back each time I finished a wall. I pulled the muscles in my back between my shoulders.
When building walls of boxes inside the trailers you have to avoid stacking them in columns. These fall over more easily and put a lot of strain on the bottom box. When unloaders are injured it is most often because of a badly built wall that includes columns has fallen on them. Head injuries are common in the unload areas. I've had nights where I've clocked out after being hit on the head three or four times in a single night because some loader at some other hub didn't care about their walls.
An image of what a properly built wall should and should not have.
First, you can see that to the right of the image there is a column of boxes, which I have marked as wrong. This would create an unstable wall and put too much pressure on the boxes at the bottom. Obviously this column isn't very tall, so there wouldn't be as much pressure, but it can still be dangerous to unloaders. Second, I have two boxes with directional arrows on them. When loading the arrows are always supposed to be pointing up. As you can see, I checked the box with an arrow pointing up and crossed out the one with the arrow pointing to the right. Finally, you will see three small check mark next to three red Ts that the lines of the boxes form. This is overlapping the boxes and it makes walls stable and distributes the pressure on the boxes at the bottom. This method is also called the bricklayer method.
Today, my hub follows a loading priority system called VOLT. I have absolutely no idea what VOLT stands for or how to use it when loading trailers, so I can't teach you about that. I was trained on the Five Priorities of Loading system, which I still hold to, with my own modifications (because I don't load very often anymore so I can get away with more than regular loaders).
The five priorities of loading are cornerstone, base shelf, alternate shelf, filler, and top fill/crushables. The cornerstone is usually that massive, heavy box that you probably can't life more than a few inches off the ground. It is typically placed against the wall of the trailer, forming the first part of the base shelf, or the bottom row of boxes that starts your wall. Each row of boxes is called a shelf. Often you will have a taller box that reaches above the general height of the shelf you are building (such as the tall box on the right side of the image above). The part that goes above your current shelf forms an alternate shelf, where you can start another shelf above the one you are working on.
You will always have spaces in between boxes that need to be filled. That is where filler boxes come in handy. These are smaller boxes that can be placed in the gaps that are always part of a wall. This both increases cubes (the amount of cubic space you fill inside of the trailer) and the stability of the wall. Sometimes they are also referred to as wedge boxes.
Finally there are the top crushables, or top fill as we like to call it. More often than not, your wall is going to have space leftover at the top, between the last self and the ceiling. This needs to be filled as well, and there are a variety of boxes that can do the job. Flat, lightweight boxes are preferred, but anything small that is light, can be crushed, or is some kind of bag will work to fill in the space. The more space you fill the better your cubes are (and the more money the company saves!).
Another type of package that we get to deal with is the incompatible or IC (we pronounce it ink/inks). These packages do not come down a chute, but on a separate belt where they are manually pulled off and placed on a flat set of rollers next to the chute where they wait to be loaded. IC packages are not to be built into a wall if they are excessively heavy or an awkward shape. Specifically, metal and tires are not to be placed above the floor unless they are stacked on top of one another (for example, a stack of tires). IC packages include metal, tubs or containers of liquid, thin boxes (less than two fingers thick), wooden packages, packages weighing 100+ pounds, tires, and other miscellaneous items (I've often received igloo shaped dog houses and plastic kayaks/canoes).
And that, my friends, is the basics of loading. There are many other things that I could cover here, but that is for another post on another day. Just keep in mind that this is the basics - there are a lot of things that also come into play when you are loading, and some of these basics and standards are thrown out the door in favor of speed and simply getting the job done.
So, who wants to go get a job at FedEx now?
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