I Went to the Gym. My App Did Its Own Paperwork.

Here’s the thing nobody warns you about railroading: the job isn’t the hard part. You know the job. What grinds you down is the paper — the grievance you should file but won’t, because it’s 11pm, you’re nineteen hours into a shift, and the form wants ten fields and an article number you’d have to dig out of an agreement thicker than a tie plate.

That’s the whole reason Steward exists. You talk. It listens. It turns “they didn’t relieve me when my rest was due” into a real, cited grievance — with the article quoted, not guessed.

This week Steward got a serious upgrade, and the funny part is I barely touched it. I went to lift, and let the thing build itself. Came back to four new pieces:

• A real home screen. It used to say “your stuff will show up here,” like a fortune cookie. Now it shows your grievances, your recent ones, and a big honest warning when a filing deadline is sneaking up on you.
• Hear your report out loud. Because reading a screen after a night shift is its own punishment. Tap the button; Steward reads it back.
• Review and approve. See the cited report, check it, approve it. The “send it to the union” part is still behind a locked door — we don’t fire off real filings until it’s bulletproof — but the door is built now.
• A spend cap that can’t be wiped. Boring, but it means the thing can’t quietly run up a bill if something loops. Adults-in-the-room stuff.

I’ll be straight with you: none of this is on your phone yet. It’s built, and it’s been checked — twice, by a small army of robot reviewers that caught two real bugs I’d otherwise have shipped. Now it’s waiting on the last mile.

The dream hasn’t changed: you speak it once, Steward files it right, and the deadline never beats you. We’re closer this week than last — and I was at the gym for most of it.