All In A Day's Play by TaulTales.com

All In A Day's Play
(Some names have been changed to protect the guilty)

August 30th, 1978 seemed like the end of the world to me. Exactly twenty-three years ago today at the age of twenty-four, I walked into that factory. It was my first real job and was horrified at all the faces watching me when I came in. I had this sudden urge to run back out the door. The only thing that kept me from leaving, were the three toddlers and a newborn I had to suddenly feed and care for on my own. Before that day, I was a stay-at-home wife in a place where I felt safe and nothing was unfamiliar. A place where I had some control. Here, it was strange territory. I had no idea what was going to happen to me. I forced a smile as I walked over to the nearest worker and asked where the supervisor's office was. He pointed to the glass windows up ahead on the left. I said, "Thank you" and headed that way, while all eyes kept a close watch on every step I took. The air was suffocating with strange metal and oil smells while the noise from the machines was deafening and the faces looked unpleasant. As I approached the office with the glass windows, it dawned on me that the supervisor was stationed here to keep an eye on the workers. The closer I got to his office, the more disheartened I became. I knocked on the door that was wide open, walked in and introduced myself. He said his name was Al, shook my hand and put me to work right away. I was hoping he was going to let me ease into this nightmare much slower than this. I wasn't ready to go to work and I wasn't ready to interact with these people. I wanted nothing more than to go back home as quick as my old car could get me there, crawl in bed and cry myself to sleep, never showing my face to the world again! Even though Al had no idea about my personal life or the pain I was feeling, I could tell that he would not stand for slackers or cry-babies on his shift. He was a large man well into his fifties and as hard looking as they could come. He never offered a pleasant smile, but only a rough voice that demanded the respect and attention I'm sure he frequently got.

He called Bob in, the shop foreman, to show me around and introduce me to the employees as he took me on a tour of the plant. Al wanted me to know what each department did in the process of making steel valve rings used in mechanical and electronic equipment. As the tour continued, I was careful to ask the appropriate questions just in case he thought I was not interested in this wonderful, all benevolent, sacred scrap-heap of a factory.

Bob was much more pleasant than Al and at least he smiled often. He was a good-looking guy, about thirty years old, with straight thin brown hair that hung just below his ears and a slender build. It seemed to me that he was not quite through living in the sixties, and the slight devilish look in his eyes hinted of a man full of mischief. His disposition eased me a bit, but I was still scared and embarrassed for being put on display as the new employee. We continued on with this tour that seemed to last for hours.

I finally made it to my work station that was nothing more than a deburr bench with about eight other women putting the center hole of the metal rings, shaped like a donut, down on a spinning sander to sand down the inside diameter (ID) after they had been cut to specifications. All of the women in my area were much older than I. They were pleasant enough and certainly not in any hurry to advance to a better position. Their wide spread back-ends had taken on the appearance of their work bench and their snacks were ever before them to sustain the huge amount of calories they consumed during their twelve-hour shift. I had a feeling they had been here for many years and they would probably die here, too. The banging and grinding was so loud you had to yell just to talk to the person next to you. It was embarrassing to ask Bob a question about my job and having to say it out loud. Each time I did, others snapped their heads my way to hear what I was saying.

I hated it there. I felt like I was dying inside but had to hide the way I felt. These were long, hard twelve-hour shifts, six nights a week. I soon realized that this place would either make me or break me. Minimum wage was about $3.15 an hour which seemed like a lot of money to me when pay-day came. It fed my children well and paid the rent.

As the days slowly went by I eased down and concentrated more on my job than on myself. Bob was very tolerant of the many pieces I scrapped trying to get the hang of it, but I eventually did.

As the weeks passed, I grew more interested in the row of machines to my right. They were manual engine lathes. I decided I wanted my own lathe and finally got up the nerve to ask Bob if I could run one. He began to train me during our lunch hour. I had to learn how to read schematics and use the micrometers, indicators, gages and other tools. I had to learn the names and make-up of each type of metal, and what tool bit was best to cut the steel. I had to learn how to run the machine, put a block of steel into the chuck and precision cut it according to the schematic and measurements. It was much harder than I thought it was going to be, but the pay was a lot better than the deburr bench. Bob and I worked hard and he put forth his best effort to help me succeed. Everyone like Bob. If you had a problem, he bent over backwards to work with you. You had to be a cold heart, indeed, not to get along with this guy.

When Bob felt I was ready, he talked to Al and told him that he wanted me to run one of the lathes. Our shift started at 3:00 in the afternoon and all the big bosses left at five. Al wanted to see if I could do it before he left that day, although he was very reluctant to even let me near the machines, but Bob assured him that I was well trained and ready to go. Al walked over to the deburr bench where I was sitting, handed me a schematic without saying a word. I studied it, then boldly went to the tool crib where all the blocks of metal and tool bits were kept. I had learned the part numbers and names for each type of metal and got exactly what I needed. I took my block of metal which was a heavy eight inches round or so and about the same in length then walked over to the lathe. I set it up, did all that needed to be done to it before I began my first cut. As an example, a piece of notebook paper (back in the 70's) was 25 thousandths thick. By the time I was done, my pieces were within 3 thousandths of the measurements needed with a mirror finish. Al was so pleased he smiled and left me to run my own lathe that day.

That was when I really began to enjoy coming to work. I had a purpose and a position that was much more challenging and my pay went up to $4.50 an hour. No one seemed to dislike another and there were no harassments between the men and women. When tools were borrowed, they were given back to the one they belonged to before our shift was over. If someone's vehicle broke down, there was always someone willing to pick that person up or take them home until their car or truck was fixed. When my car died and was beyond repair, one co-worker and his wife gave me their second car. It was old and paid for, but it ran well. To keep me from paying any 'gift taxes' I simply bought the car from them for a dollar and he wrote me out a bill of sale. We knew the illnesses and traumas that others went through. If needed, we helped with donations, cards, flowers and visits. We got together on a bowling team once a week and had a ball, and every now and then there would be the good old company picnic.

I preferred the night shift because I was more relaxed with the supervisors gone and Bob gave us a lot of freedom while we worked. We joked around, played pranks on each other and I certainly got into the act whenever and wherever I could. I did get into trouble once when I tried to temporarily hide a guy's paycheck so that just for a while he couldn't find it which scared him to death. The only problem was, neither could I. All in all the night shift got the job done. Again, I had my eye on another machine that looked interesting to me. It was a Suga machine that sat up on a platform. It was much more complex and larger than the manual lathe and I took it as a challenge every time I looked at it. I hadn't been on the engine lathe very long so I waited for a while until I couldn't stand it any longer. I just had to start training on that machine! I asked Bob if he would train me on it, but he said no, because only one person was needed to run it and Rick wasn't going to be leaving it. But little did Bob know that Rick did have plans to leave in a couple months or so. I had already spoken to Rick about the machine several times and he told me in confidence that he was going to be moving his family to another state. So I asked Rick if he would speak to Bob about it so that I could start my training and be ready to take his place before he left. Rick went ahead and discussed it with Bob and we began training on the Suga during lunch hour, just as before. It was similar to the lathe in some respects. At least this one had a plastic covering that could be closed around it so that the tiny pieces of hot metal and coolant spray did not hit me.

When the day came for me to step up to the platform, I was in my glory! Finally, I was running a machine that no one else had and no one else in the shop knew how to work, except for the bosses. I took the Suga seriously and was extremely careful, especially that first evening making sure nothing went wrong and my scrap rate stayed low.

I enjoyed this machine so much, that the hours just seemed to fly by, except on this one particular evening. I didn't notice right away what was going on in the rest of the shop, but eventually I began to realize that something wasn't quite right. The atmosphere seemed different somehow. I couldn't put my finger on what is was, but I could feel it. We had lunch at 8:30 that night and nothing seemed odd then. Now it was almost midnight and just about time to take our last break before we punched out at 3:30. I shut down the machine, grabbed my purse and left for the coffee room to make a cup. When I came back out, I saw Bob and another employee playing basketball by throwing it into a make-shift hoop while most of the other workers were standing in several groups having some kind of conversation. I wondered what was going on. Something just wasn't right. I walked over to Bob and asked him what was up. "Nothing," he said with a smile which made me even more suspicious. I knew I wasn't going to get anything out of him, so I let it go.

We were always playing pranks on each other and I began to feel that it was going to be one of those nights. But why wasn't I let in on it, I thought, and who was it going to be this time? As I slowly headed back to my machine, a sickening feeling settled deep in my soul. It suddenly dawned on me that I was their next victim and wondered what it was they were going to do to me! I went back to the break room to get some more coffee. Since I was the only one in there and everyone else was out in the shop planning their attack, I knew I was in for it, for sure! I went back to my machine wondering if they had messed with it. I tried to be inconspicuous as I checked every dial, gage and instrument, but everything seemed fine. They didn't dysfunction my set-up so I began trying to figure out what else they might have done. I looked out over the shop from my platform every now and then to see if I could catch some sort of clue as to what they were up to, but the more I did, the more uncomfortable I felt. Not only were there constant glances my way, but sly, ornery smiles came across their evil little faces. I looked at my stool to make sure there wasn't a whoopy-cushion on it. I nonchalantly glanced around my work table and my lunch bucket to see if they placed a bug or snake in there but didn't find anything. I felt my back to see if there was a sign with perverted remarks stuck to me, checked my machine again, looked under my work table, checked the legs on my stool, but nothing was wrong or out of place. I sat down and lit a cigarette and drank my coffee desperately trying to figure out what it was that they did. 'Whatever it was,' I thought, 'they haven't done it yet! They were probably just making plans, but they won't get past me! I'll catch them in the act!'

I leaned back against my work table keeping a close eye on my machine while it was running. Still, nothing happened. I began to feel a bit more relaxed but my senses warned me otherwise. I decided I would monitor their every move for the rest of the night until I could figure out what they were going to do. I took another drag from my cigarette and glanced around. 'I'll beat these guys at their own game before they can get to me!' I thought. 'Yep, that's what I'll do!' The longer I thought about it, the more clever I began to feel. I sat there with my head held high, grinning like the sly little devil I was and knowing that I was more than capable of beating them at their own game when suddenly. . . . . .
B-O-O-O-M!!! My cigarette literally blew up right in my face and at the same instant my hands went flying as I let out a curdling scream. All at once I heard a thunder of laughter coming from every person in that plant! It took me a few seconds to overcome the shock of the cigarette load. Everyone just about hit the floor from laughter when I turned and faced them with my eyes still popped out of my head, my mouth open wide in amazement and the blown-up cigarette still hanging from my bottom lip. For a split second rage swept through me until I quickly remembered all the pranks I pulled on so many others over the past months that were just as mean. I gave a sigh of relief when I realized that it was just my cigarette that blew up and not my face. I began laughing too, mainly out of embarrassment. There was noting else to do but to go along with the gag.

I think back on all those practical jokes and gags we pulled on each other and of course I remember how I felt all those years ago when I walked into that shop for the first time, alone and afraid. It was a day that seemed like the end of the world to me. I couldn't have hated my job or my life more than I did that day. But time does change things and nothing ever stays the same.

I've grown up in many ways from the scared little girl I used to be. My youngest son is now 24 years old. . . . the same age I was when I started that job. Some of my co-worker friends remarried and moved away while others changed jobs as I eventually did, and in the process, we all lost track of each other except Bob and I. We remained close friends for over sixteen years until he passed away. I will always be grateful to him for those countless hours of his own time that he gave to help me succeed.

Even now, I'm sure that if I came through that door today, I would probably find at least one young girl scared and on her own for the first time. I would walk up to her, smile and say, "Work like you love it and love like you mean it, because nothing ever stays the same."

I don't think the supervisors knew that we played around as much as we did because our production rate was high and our low-scrap record showed that it wasn't the day shift, but the night shift that produced more quality parts above and beyond the company's expectations.

But to Bob, me and the others. . . .it was all in a day's play.