Unfinished business; Business breakdowns are costly

Unfinished business. Unfinished Business A series of programs tape recorded designed to acquaint you with unresolved social welfare problems by the Ohio State University undergrad center and cooperation with the National Association of educational broadcasters. Today's unfinished business breakdowns are costly. This is a true story one of those stories that could happen. But as far as I know never has. The idea of this program is to show you how folks push one another around in this high tension world. How all this pushing get some people down and how we have to set up ways to help ourselves when life gets too complex and on.

And on with the story. We'll begin with sound effects like any proper radio show. If the boss doesn't cool down pretty soon I'm going to go plain nuts. Here I sit again sweaty palms. My stomach hurting me too. What's he sore about today. I know nothing everything is going to be damned though the boss has already called for it and if he doesn't get here in a hurry on the double I don't want to speak to him. Good morning Mr. Evans morning. He's expecting you. Look yes or what. And what if he's on the phone or something. He isn't Mr. Adams. I can tell because this live here is it. Yeah I see your side he asked me told me to just send you right in when you arrived here. If

you need a few more seconds to catch your breath. That's all right. It's only that I always pay to walk right in on him at these times. If well if you just tell him I'm here first. Why not use the squawk box. All right sir I'll talk to him first. Here goes. Mr. Adams is here Mr. Fry. It's time I called you to tell him to come right on it. Can't you remember anything. Send him in. Yes sir Mr. Fry. Well there you heard what the man said. Yeah. Well thanks. Evans come on in here. What happened at this consolidated contract I'm not sure I know but never mind. Just listen don't talk. This contract is SNAFU 100 percent snafu. We're in real trouble and listen you've been here a long time how long has it been 14 years there you would never know it. How do you mean. I mean this consolidated thing of so fouled up it's hard to believe that anyone with your experience could make so many

mistakes. There's no room for mistakes on a thing like there's just no room no room at all no not zero mystery. Little Mike you listen to me. Your mistakes have cost me plenty on this contract the company can't afford it not this year or any year for that matter. Like in the army no mistakes no excuses not from an old hand like you no matter how high in the organization you are no mistakes no excuses just like the army. As a matter of. Back to higher up you are the less excuse for pulling a boner. Remember that. Yes there is that all you have to say just yes or no that isn't what I thought you didn't want me. Oh never mind. I'm terribly sorry about what's happened but I don't really know what to say you don't know what to say Well I'll tell you what to say there's nothing you can say that there's no way in the world this terrible mistake tis the worst thing that's happened to me in the 20. Like I said earlier people can be awful mean there's an elephant

with a sore nose. That's what the boss Mr. Fry was called by all his business associates that day. Some called him that out loud some just thought it. But all of them were very much afraid of him so much so that when Mr. Evans got home that night. But wait we're getting ahead of our story. Let's talk about the boss the elephant with a sore nose. It's hard to think of anything really nice to say about him right now. Let's see. Well let's say that he isn't feeling very well. He's been working too hard in this contract that caused him all the trouble meant a lot to him. It doesn't excuse him but it does help us understand him anyway and that's the important thing to understand why people act the way they do. A lot of headaches in big business and this fact is so important that many business organizations have hired specially trained men and women to try and smooth things out. Soften the rough edges. We want you to listen to Frank Brock Meyer of the CIO who is staff representative with a community chest and

council of social agencies of Columbus and Franklin County Ohio. I would like to tell you today a little bit about the union consul program of the CIO. First of all how it came into being. It came developed in Detroit in the Detroit area during the years of the Second World War and was a result of management and labor jointly having to face the problem of absenteeism tardiness high accident rate inability to get along with fellow workers. The fellow who was constantly griping in the plant and letting it affect his work. Up to the time of the war it had been a fairly simple thing to well not solve but at least get it out of the plan and she did it by discharging the person for consistent absenteeism or tardiness during the war years with the tight labor market. It was then and existence both labor and

management had to find some other answer because people were needed and needed badly even though they had some faults as a plant employ. So the union constantly program was organized and tried in the Detroit area in the war years and gradually spread over the country. It's a program where people from the plant workers from the plant are trained in a course training on the community resources what what's available in the community for a person with a problem regardless of whether that problem happens to be recreation for the children or the sick mother or the wife who has been in an automobile accident and they follow our work around the plant finds himself unable to meet that problem with his own limited knowledge of the community's resources. Here in Columbus we've organized a program on an eight week training course basis each week

taking up a field of service for instance Family Services one week. What are the communities resources for meeting family problems and the following week health problems. Next week hospitals and clinics and so forth through the course of a very direct result of the program locally we can quote In 1951 before the program really got underway locally here there were forty nine referrals from labor union sources to the Information Center one of our social agencies here in the community. And we've kept statistics on them since that one and in 1054 that number had risen to four hundred eighty seven referrals which indicated that people in the plant were using the resources of the community in meeting some of the problems that arose out of the plant now.

Why should a labor union or management and labor concern themselves with what happens to the worker out of the plant while I think it's very simple and essence that certainly no worker can check his problems his personal problems as out of plant problems at the time clock or at the plant gate. If some of these problems are on his mind he certainly brings them into the plant with them. If he even gets to the plant that he may have to stay home because the kids have got mumps that day and the wife isn't able to take care of them because of the health condition there or some other condition. And if that happens to consistently the worker is endangering his job and endangering his livelihood. And more and more we find acceptance both on the part of labor and management that this business about a plant problems is certainly a very answer girl part of the plant problem and no organization can concern itself only with wages hours and working conditions

and fail to consider these other problems these other things that happen off the job that certainly have a very direct effect on the individual employee not only as an employee but more important as a person and as a member of a family unit. We seek this answer. Labor generally has has sought answers to the problem. Each in its specific way according to what the particular labor organization was concerned with if it was a craft organization or an industrial organization they certainly face a different problem and getting better acceptance of community resources and a feeling of responsibility. As working people both for providing the resources and certainly for using the resources and too often we find that the worker is willing to accept the fact that the fire department and the police department are agencies that are there to help him when he is in need. But at the same time will not accept the help of a community chest agency or a health agency or a

clinic in the community because they deem it to be charity. Failing to realize that they are the people who support who pay the freight you might call out on the operation whether it be a voluntary contribution or our taxes. Certainly a part of the worker's responsibility to provide it. And I think that as we can broaden education among our labor union groups we can and the figures certainly indicate we do get acceptance of these agencies as answers to some of the problems that become too large for us to cope with individually. So that that is where we stand at the present time and arriving at the solutions we have 18000 Union counselors over the country and 300 here in the community and each of them are not only doing the job of referral and I would like to make it clear that a union consular is not a consular in the ordinary sense but a union consular

is a referral agent. He's the person who is equipped to recognise in a general way a problem and at the same time be able to provide the resource in the community that they are to meet that problem if such resource exists. And certainly it's a part of the Union councillors role and is accepted as a part of their responsibility to speak at meetings and in the plant towards a better acceptance of responsibility for providing the service and for using the service neither one of which stands on its own but we feel as a part of this same programme we will never. I don't think get to the place of accepting individual responsibility until we understand that responsibility. And the union counselors certainly were trying to equip them with training for eight weeks and then we don't believe that there we have monthly meetings of union consulars at which

we dwell on specific problems. A recent meeting of that kind was a cologne the psychiatric clinic at which we had a pretty exciting discussion around the field of mental health not mental illness but mental health and my mind at least there's a pretty strong distinction between the two. Dr. Johnson at the clinic as has worked with us for a while and we've got an excellent spirit of cooperation there and since then we've set up a committee for instance of the Union counselors to work with the agencies and. Finding means for better acceptance of the agency's service and better use of the agency service on the part of plant people it seems that people with higher educational background can accept psychiatric clinic very easily but the plant worker just can't feel that that psychiatric help is something that affects him or that he should seek. So those those

are some of the answers that we've sought as there is much more to the program it's just a general program of what to do in fulfilling your responsibility. And I must stress the word responsibility. I feel that CIO does except by and large this responsibility and individual members more and more are accepting this responsibility which cannot in my mind be put any other place which must be done by this business of gradual education among our members through such programs as a union cost line and that's only a part of our broader community services program which involves all of this business of. The administration of agencies the finding of solutions to community problems and certainly I don't I don't think any of us would say that this this community has met all of its problems its social problems adequately about and recognizing those social problems and solving them I believe we've found a general acceptance that working people's viewpoints are important

as well as the other elements of the community and arriving at the solutions. That was Mr. Frank M. Brock Meyer of the CIO describing one way industry is trying to maintain a good state of mind among its employees. Many industries and businesses have counselors who are ready to help all the employees. Well I wonder what happened to poor Mr. Evans. Well as they say in radio Let's listen and find out. Jodi let. Me. Shut up that thing. Get it off me. That's better. So worst record I ever heard I'm sorry Jenny I didn't feel sorry is that all just you're sorry. Listen to me young lady. There is more to life than dancing and the sooner you realize this the better. In the first place you ought to be studying your college studies are what counts most now but but look at your grades where you're just barely passing this year. Last year you got excellent grades. What's the matter with you.

Please do we have to go over all of this again. Oh I don't know what's wrong. I have a hard time studying this year. Well I worry a lot about how you worry. Well that's hard to believe. What in the world do you worry about worry I do worry about you about me. Yes daddy about you and and about mother to be your mother but but why. I don't know exactly. But well lately things have changed. Everything used to be so happy here and now. Now listen to me Judy. This just isn't so. But it is no it isn't and I don't ever want you to talk like this again. You know not to think such thoughts. Your mother and I are perfectly happy. Of course we are. Oh Helen. Rather. You both act as if I caught you stealing. What in the world is going on. We'll talk about it later. Judy and I were were just having a discussion about her school work. That's right mother hobby back where you going out over detainees like guess. Where.

There's a real kettle of fish brewing. We'll get back to this unhappy family pretty soon but first let's talk a little about Judy our daughter in the play. There's little doubt about one thing Judy won't do much studying tonight how the chain reaction operates. Everyone exploding all along the line. Well students in the schools have their worries too and their studies suffer. Their teachers suffer then and make the students suffer even more and so on and so on. Like a little solar system all of its own is in that little planets of pain and turmoil whirling wildly in their orbits but related yet to a central fact. Our callousness or perhaps only carelessness lack of sympathy no understanding of the fact that this person is a human being with all the right to dignity we struggle to maintain. They are a soul lies but not resting in trouble of some kind like ourselves. And

who is not. Well youth has its fair share of trouble too. Luckily one of Judy's teachers noticed that she wasn't doing as well as usual in her work and that she was worried and depressed. The teacher referred Judy to the student health service where she met Dr. Ted Allen Bach associate professor of clinical medicine and psychiatric consultant to the Ohio State University Health Service. You seem awfully unhappy Judy. I'm glad you've come in and tell me about it I want to know. I'm so miserable. If anyone had even told me I doubted my God. I just thought nothing like this would ever happen to me. And when the dean of women suggested that I don't do you think my thoughts are good. Do you know but right now I don't know. I'm afraid it means I'm going to pieces and I'm losing my mind.

Judy many people come here students like yourselves. They're not going to pieces. They're not losing their minds. In fact by They're coming for help. They show that their minds are working perfectly. It's their emotions that are troubling them in their minds bring them here for help. They're to be commended for their courage and inside. Now tell me what brought you to the dean of women's attention Mr. Colson. My English teacher first suggested it. I've had quite a few on excused absences from classes and my work has gone down. He asked me about the absences and then I had to draw on there are times when I just have to go for a long walk and I just can't bear to be in class. And well I haven't been able to concentrate on that. They had risen to the dorm has been talking to me about the way I'm acting there. I guess I've been pretty moody and irritable with the girls. I hadn't realized it but but it's true and so I don't want to be like that.

I do need friends so very much and I only succeed in driving them away. It just seems that everything is going wrong and I have a terrible headache slightly it is a tight feeling in the back of my neck like like all the muscles are pulling. I just know there's something. Dr. Drew do you think I could have a brain tumor up young lady. You're letting your horses run away with you. These things you've told me have a pretty clear pattern. Doctor why. My stomach's upset most of the time. And my heart races like men and I've had so much trouble with my skin breaking out and I just I just know there's something terribly wrong. Yes Judy there is something wrong but not terribly and probably not with your body. You asked me about the possibility of a brain tumor. Let me reassure you first of all that you probably do not have a brain tumor. We'll certainly investigate that. But your symptoms are

not typical of anything but severe emotional stress. They suggest that you have problems to which presently there seem to be no answers. So you've tried to ignore the problem tried to deny its existence as a means of solving it. Your symptoms suggest further that something in your life is a headache and a pain in the neck and that you're itching to get out of the situation. Our bodies have a way of giving expression to our innermost feelings. We think of such expressions as just mere idiom and is being meaningless. But they've been incorporated into our language over many years by observing people. We sense the relationship between physical symptoms and life situations. But Doctor there's nothing in my life that to cause trouble. I have no worries. I have a good home and wonderful parents who do anything for me. I really am a very lucky girl

in my life. Been eventful. Just an ordinary girl from an ordinary family and there's nothing that I can nevertheless Judee something is wrong in your life something that you cannot see or will not see because it's too disturbing and threatening to you. Your nausea suggests that there is something in your life that you simply can't stomach. Can't you guess what it is. No doctor I tell you my life is really ideal and and I should be happy right well gee let's talk about some of the people in your life. Are your parents living. Yes together yes happily Yes. Would you want a marriage just like yours. No I mean yes. Oh I don't know what I mean. There are happy some times and I'm sure they love each other very much only. Well we seem to disagree so much of the time lately. They don't really fight but but there's a tension. Daddy has been quite

irritable and a little hard to get along with. Of course I know he has a lot of trouble of the obvious but and I know he's working much too hard and yet though I do sometimes I feel I'd like to get away but. But I know they need me and I do love them both so very much. Only there are times when I just. I have to get out of the house and then I just hate myself because I've always been good. Judy is going to be all right. She's taken the first and most important step in helping herself and in bringing an end to the reaction chain of which she's become a link. Of course she was fortunate in having about her people alert to her needs and able to help her overcome her own resistance. Many people find it difficult to bring themselves to seek the help a psychiatrist can offer. The understanding and objectivity which they need so badly. You see there is something that can be done and the truly intelligent will try.

We all accept the need for physical hygiene and have for so many years that we forget there was once a time that people didn't take kindly to being reminded of their deficiencies cautioned about their obesity chided for their neglect of their teeth. Reproved for their avoidance of exercises. Today they're equally foolish in their sensitivity of their shortcomings in mental hygiene. Well Judy will be all right. But you remember I promised earlier that we'd get back to Mr. and Mrs. EVANS. One of the good things about radio or the radio writer anyway is that you can come and go as it pleases you one can Ravel up or unravel the past as readily whether it's ten thousand years or ten seconds. So listen let's pretend the latter just ten tiny seconds dramatic seconds as our music shows. Well Judy has certainly changed slightly. What kind of a daughter is she anyway to talk that way to her

parents. When I was that age what I would have no Peter please let's not get so angry Judy is you can't be expected to understand things as well as you and I. Now tell me what was the argument between you about you mentioned me I heard you as I came in. Yes I know. Well I got angry when she said things were unpleasant here. Not like they used to be different. But she was unhappy. Do you think that could have been so terrible. Oh the poor child. She's quite right you know what you don't mean. Yes I do mean that. Oh a life isn't as happy as it used to be. You're also 10 months now don't start on me. I've had a terrible day at work. I get trouble there. I get it here. You don't understand it all. I come home in the evening I want to peacefully or I don't want to have to worry about Judy's college work I don't want you to be unhappy or morose. I tell you I must. That is life or simply got I don't know. I'm sorry Peter. I really feel very sorry. And

I wish I could do something to help you. Is there anything no nothing nothing you can do to help. Unless I miss what tell me what I can do. Believe me I want to help you. I love you. Peter let me help. But I can't go on like this. It's making me whole. I know that. But listen just try and understand me my problem. Well really I will just let me. Good. It's the job. The boss is in a terrible mood lately. He's got us all scared to death. When you make a mistake nowadays it's a real tragedy to him. I tell you what. Darling it's wonderful to be able to talk this way. This is the first time I've relaxed for a week. I know just to have sympathy to know you understand. Yes that means everything. I hope that Balls has a wife. I'm sure that he isn't just terrible as he appears.

Well if we all tried and they lived happily we'll more or less for ever after. You have been listening to breakdowns are costly. One of a series of tape recorded programs on the theme of unfinished business. Guest authorities on today's program were Dr. Tubb album Bach and Mr. Frank M. Brock Meyer. The script was written by Hugh Morehead director David Ayers and technician Harold Gorsuch and the producers Fred Hines and William Ewing. Unfinished business as produced by station W. always you in cooperation with the school of social administration of the Ohio State University under a grant from the Educational Television and Radio Center. This program is distributed by the National Association

of educational broadcasters. Let Spencer speaking this is the NEA E.B. network.