I Feel Like I Just Got Second Prize in the 'Francis-Grady's-Not-Such-A-Bad-Bastard' Award

Hell's Bells.

I've just come from my union local's Annual General Meeting where I was elected president for the coming year.

As things turned out, my competition was unable to stand for election because he is a member but not a member in good standing. [He is indeed a member, which means that he has worked for the employer over the past twelve months but being a member in good standing means that he has actually perfomed productive labour in the past four months.] If a member with standing runs for office unopposed the Board can appoint them. If a member in good standing runs, however, they automatically lose.

While technicalities such as these seem trivial, he was assuming that he would automatically be appointed by the outgoing board because no-one in their right mind would dare to challenge him.

Conveniently, I have been so sleep deprived over the past month that I am no longer operating in my right mind.

This led to much angry recrimination after the meeting that the by-laws are outdated and obviously irrelevant because he didn't win. As I've known him in a professional capacity for the past eighteen months, I must say that his hissy simultaneously made me feel bad for him but also glad that I ran against such a poor loser that he would go and whine to our union rep after the meeting.

I only ran after a great deal of thought but was still prepared to lose if the vox populi went against me.

Hell, beyond is impromptu rant to the union rep, he also had the nerve to snub me before and after the meeting.

Actually, I suppose this was a fairly painless introduction to hardball union politics because it could have been way, way worse.

My only concern is that he is going to be a real pain in the ass over the next couple of months. Only time will tell, but hopefully he will get distracted by his job and family and quit busting my balls for being an dirty rotten, evil, Machiavellian son-of-a-bitch.