Jour 1 de 40 ans.
Franc, envahissant, tonitruant…et un peu déroutant, le rire du juge en chef de la Cour Juvénile de Montréal emplit le bureau où votre humble serviteur passait une entrevue de sélection. Le substitut du procureur général, présent à la procédure, esquissa un sourire un peu narquois. Jusque là, pourtant, tout baignait dans l’huile. J’avais l’expérience des jeunes, surtout en milieu défavorisé, mon aumônier scout m’avait donné une lettre attestant de mes bonne vie et mœurs et de mon engagement social; mon député, ministre du gouvernement au pouvoir, m’avait fourni une lettre vantant mes vertus civiques (j’avais voté aux dernières élections). Mon aumônier me connaissait, le député ne m’avait jamais vu mais, à l’époque, pas de lettre du député, surtout d’un député de l’Union Nationale, le parti au pouvoir, pas d’emploi dans la fonction publique.
L’hilarité du bon juge provenait d’une remarque qu’en toute honnêteté et naïveté j’avais faite. Quand il m’avait dit :«Vous êtes engagé, vous remplissez toutes les conditions, quand pouvez-vous commencé? », j’avais dit -Mais je n’ai aucun diplôme universitaire-, le magistrat, une foi son fou rire éteint avait rétorqué : « Costopoulos, pensez-vous qu’aux salaires qu’on paie nous puissions exiger des diplômes? » Donc, 2 semaines plus tard, le 3 mars 1954, je prêtais serment de fidélité à la Couronne et devenais constable spécial de la Cour Juvénile au salaire annuel astronomique de 1800$. Ce statut me permettais de mener des enquêtes, d’intervenir au tribunal, de porter plainte pour obstruction contre les gens qui refusaient de répondre à mes questions dans l’exercice de mes fonctions. Je profitais aussi d’un carnet mensuel de 99 tickets spéciaux pour les tramways et autobus de la ville de Montréal.
En retour de ces privilèges, je devais être à la disposition des juges de 8:00am au départ du dernier juge, vers 15 :00 normalement, du lundi au vendredi; les samedis, nous devions être disponibles de 8 :00 à 13:00. En dehors de ces heures, nous devions faire nos enquêtes et rédiger nos rapports et recommandations pour la disposition des cas. Nous devions aussi assurer le suivi des jeunes en période de probation et l’évolution de ceux référés en institution de rééducation ou famille d’accueil, une soixantaine de dossiers par mois bon an mal an.
Ce jour là, j’ignorais que j’entreprenais une carrière de 40 années au service des jeunes et de leur famille. Je raconterai peut-être un jour.
Yes, you need to write those stories down. Funny, I can't begin to write all the crazy stories in my teaching/administrative jobs. They were raw and painful, many of them unbelievable.
RépondreSupprimerWho else can tell these stories?
"Many of them unbelievable", you are so right. However I feel much more comfortable writing about my professional life than about my family life...before my marriage that is.
RépondreSupprimerOh, we are waiting for those stories. Is the thunderous laugher the same judge you described as always being willing to "set a precedent"?
RépondreSupprimerNo, that was the anglophone judge Nicholson. He was a great guy until as he would say: "I've seen enough of you". That meant a jail sentence of 6 months or more so the guy would be 18 before coming out of the clink. Of course that was for real tough eggs.
RépondreSupprimerThe head judge, the Honorable Ephrem Philion, was very humane, had a great sense of humour but was a straight law man, stick to the path.
Those are wonderful stories. You should write them down, at least for your family, if not for the world.
RépondreSupprimerThank you Rob-bear. I'm giving it some thoughts but my mind is not quite made up yet...altough time does run shorter to do so. This particular post I've been mulling over for several months; maybe it will come easier now.
RépondreSupprimerMemoirs are always fascinating. Only, I think you took a big responsibility on your shoulders, since the lives of many young people from that day onward depended on your choices and actions.
RépondreSupprimerI am pretty sure you did very well. A very meaningful job, cela est sur. Much more meaningful, at least to me, than computer science. That is why, perhaps, I don’t feel like writing down the stories of my computer career (and I seldom – or never - talk of computers in my posts).
Mor, how, without computers, would we have met. Computers, for better or for worse, have linked the entire earth people like never possible before them. If that is not meaningful, then what is?
RépondreSupprimerComputers would not have existed but for the people who imagined, developped and made them ever better, more efficient and affordable. And you are one of them.
I did take on large responsibilities without being fully conscious of them. They slowly sank in though and led me to seek more adequate training and supervision that eventually led me to university however the practical experience acquired before formal training did help a lot toward understanding what was being taught to me.
I know Paul, we would not have met and it would have been a pity. I was just talking about you with my wife today.
RépondreSupprimerI'm not saying I didn’t develop some passion for computers. Besides working on IT since the early 90's was exciting, like riding a spirited tiger at a time of great expansion. But as you see from my writings, my real passions are humanistic. And computer science brought me to a lot of solitary work before a screen which wasn’t good, given my tendency to solitary musings.
I am glad you had formal training as well. I mean, glad for both those young persons and for yourself. But I am sure that, since you are a peaceful person that sleeps at night (even though the more we age the less sleep we need) your conscience is clean and you did very well.
People in my profession never know, in the long run, the results of their work. We have to accept that we did our best and others have to deal with it and are free to go the way we tried showing them or take another road, not unlike our own children do. Except with our own brood we follow them along their way, those kids and families we tried helping we accompanied for a time but then left them to their own device and went on to help others. That is professional life.
RépondreSupprimerI've lived in Canada long enough to know that $1800 a year in 1954 for a young fellow with no university degree, was a pretty good salary.
RépondreSupprimerOn the other hand, with the 60 cases a month that you had to dispose of - which would average about 3 cases per work day, plus that you had to carry the burden of making recommendations that would affect young people's lives and futures - the juvenile court of Montreal got very good value for the money it paid you.
Given that you needed a recommendation for that job from a Union Nationale MP - so that the Union Nationale in effect handed out jobs to loyal voters (patronage?) - it is little wonder that the Union Nationale was able to rule Quebec for so long!!
The "letters" of course were given to friends first but also to others, such as I, more or less to tie the recipients to to some kind of loyalty. It did not always work that way.
RépondreSupprimerOn the face of it 1800$ looks good...but real Union minions got 2400$ for doing nothing. One even came to the office only once a month...to collect his pay cheque.
And as you say the workload, even for a fellow with no university degree was worth more than we got. Today, in comparable jobs, the guys almost go on strike when they reach 25 or 30 cases a month on a 37,5 hour week and earn an average of 50000$, in Québec at least.