new teacher profiles
The teaching side of life
Dec 6, 2007 2:46 PM
Former Coca Cola plant worker Dan Federico on his new career: "I'm so happy as a teacher. It definitely was the right move for me."
Up at 1 a.m. to make his two pre-start overtime hours, driving over the Triboro Bridge from his house in Queens to the Coca Cola plant in the Bronx. Punching in, jumping onto his forklift and, depending on the size and type of trucks at the dock, loading six or seven trucks a night with the overtime.
“If it was just soda and no other products, let’s see — that’s around 1,500 cases, with 24 cans in a case, so that’s 36,000 cans of Coke a night,” says Dan Federico, who, after 24 years as a warehouse worker and night shop steward of Teamsters Local 812, has traded in his handheld inventory computer for a piece of chalk and a bunch of great kids at PS 22 in Queens.
Two of those years were with the Pepsi Corporation, the rest with Coke, “all of it good, honest work, a good job. The benefits were good, the union was strong, the guys were great — I’d get the coffee every night. But you always felt the company basically looked down on you, you didn’t ever feel appreciated and respected,” said Federico, in his second year as a UFT chapter leader and his first as a UFT pension consultant.
“After years on the job eventually you got the handheld computer with a stylus and got to walk around and count pallets, make sure there were a certain number of cases on a pallet, and where there were ‘splits,’ when they broke a pallet down, count how many cases were on that.
“You took lunch about 8 a.m. for half an hour, left work at 12:30 in the afternoon unless you were offered some double time after your initial pre-start overtime. I went to sleep at all different times, I never got enough sleep, it was hard to go to sleep early with everyone else around. One day a week I’d crash for the whole day.”
And through those long years, throughout whatever shift he had, or when horsing around with the guys, having fun with his family, or lying awake wired trying to catch some sleep, there was one thought always in the back of his mind:
“I knew there was more to me than loading trucks.”
Federico felt he “had more to offer to the world than this,” and thought a lot about being a teacher. He’d never been to college.
So he began night school, switching from day courses to night courses and back again depending on whatever shift he pulled for a bunch of months.
It took him 12 years to get his undergraduate degree.
Working on his master’s in education in an advanced certification program at Queens College, his next move was resigning from his job, collecting his pension, and working as a substitute teacher in various schools in Queens.
“By 2002 I was pretty much just subbing at PS 22,” he said. “I subbed so much they hired me and I’ve been here ever since, teaching two years of 1st grade and now I’m teaching 3rd grade. Actually, I find that loading in a warehouse is a lot easier than being a teacher, even though everyone tells you, ‘Oh, you have the summers off.’ I never brought my job home with me from the warehouse; now I’m always thinking about the kids.
“I’m so happy as a teacher. It definitely was the right move for me.”
And Federico likes his work as a chapter leader. After all, he’s an old union hand.
“I also really like being a pension consultant. It’s different than being a chapter leader, where not everyone gets up from the table feeling happy. When you’re a pension consultant — hey, everyone walks out happy.”
