I’m the son of a FairPoint manager working out of Portland. He started as a technician almost three decades ago, when the company was known as Bell Atlantic. He stuck with them through two separate transitions: Bell Atlantic to Verizon; Verizon to FairPoint.

He now contributes near the top of the company’s Maine operations 28 years later.

His co-workers are picketing. These are the same people that he’d see in the halls at work only a few months ago, sharing talk of sports over a brewing cup of coffee. There was no hostility, no animosity, just a friendly pause in the workday.

These men and women now shove signs in his car windows on his way into his office, giving him the finger as he drives through their picket line to go work for the company he’s contributed to for a quarter-century. There’s no coffee, no talk of sports, just hostility, animosity.

They treat him like he’s ignorant, yet he’s been exactly where they’ve been. He worked the same work, logged the same hours, traveled the same roads, did everything they’ve done and then some. And because of that, he was put in charge.

And now they treat him like he doesn’t know. Like he hasn’t been there. Like he’s part of the problem. He doesn’t care. He works day and night, trading in his company car for a utility truck, his dinner table seat for some takeout and a laptop.

I went to visit him last week. He couldn’t leave the computer.

To any FairPoint employee currently striking and harassing my father, please stop making fools of yourselves. My father should not be ridiculed for working harder than you.

Learn from him.

Andrew Soucy

Biddeford