She was the boss from hell, or so it seemed at the time. I was a very recent hire at the factory, so recent, in fact, that it was my very first day on the job. I had the added bonus of not having the slightest clue as to what I was supposed to be doing. I had gotten the grand tour, which consisted of the front office, the main production part of the plant, the warehouse, and for some inexplicable reason, the men's room.
No, she did not lead me inside the men's room during the tour, but she did drag me up to the sign posted directly over the men's room door, (the one clearly marked, "men") and told me that was what that room was for. I thanked her very kindly as it was a good thing she had told me before I walked in that room looking to buy a man.
After recovering from my "tour" I was guided back to the office where I filled out seventy-two separate forms, apparently signing my life away in triplicate, and then I was sent back out to the main production floor, which was by that time, already well in full swing. It was unbelievably noisy, and at that time, hearing protection was not a popular item in that particular factory. As a result of this combination of noise and no noise filter, I could not hear my ultra-patient (not) boss as she explained the ins and outs of building a tiny, aggravating contraption called a "plunger".
Now, don't get me wrong, the plunger was a necessary ingredient for the building of automobile starters, which is what we were supposed to be building. I say, "supposed to be" for the simple fact, that it appeared that I was not the only one without a clue. I surmised that fact by watching some of the testers doing their jobs, and noticed that they were setting aside an awful lot of finished parts and disassembling them. That's never a good sign.
Anyway, she parked me in front of a large table, informed me that this was the second easiest job in the shop, and I was going to learn it or else. She placed in front of me a large, wooden board with about seven million little holes in it, and instructed me on how to place little metal rods in them. First she taught me which end of the rod was up, and then told me I had to plant them in their little holes very quickly if I expected to keep up with the others. I looked around at the others. Hands were flying, parts were flying. Rods were filling the holes at an alarming rate. They were machines. Automatons, with blank stares. My new boss told me my quota would be 300 of these parts an hour. That didn't sound so bad.
Famous last words. It was... very bad. I sat down, filled the board with rods. Most of them upside-down. My boss frowned and shook her weary head. I had been her employee for about an hour so far and already she wore the shell-shocked stare of the long-suffering. But the best was yet to come. After the board was filled with rods, springs had to go on them, which should have been easy but was not, because all of the springs in question were mated together like coat hangers in a closet. You can't just pull two springs apart either. They have to be unscrewed from each other. Try doing that with a handful of springs and you will see my difficulty. Plus, only certain springs could be used. There were two sizes, and they were frequently mixed together. Oh, and did I mention that my boss was a lefty? Everything she taught me I had to learn over again... in reverse.
So, the springs were all in place. Now I needed to get a handful of these little black caps that slipped over the top of the bottom spring. Easy. Please make sure they are right-side up. Thank you. Through some trial and error I got them all arranged. Keep in mind that my closest companions in this debacle were already on their fourth boards by that time. After the caps came large, flat washers which had to be placed on top. The good side had to go up, of course, because if rust should show, the world would know that we were building junk. Can't have that, now can we? So the washers were carefully placed. My co-workers were on their sixth boards by that time. I was getting really nervous.
Then came little fiber washers known technically as....fibers. These had to be placed on top of the large metal washers which surprisingly enough, were not named metals. Under penalty of death you could not skip any of the steps and they had to be done in order. Next came the impossible dream, little tiny clips called "clips" that were to be fitted around the tops of the metal rods. The clips were impossible to hold on to, shaped like horseshoes without the horse, and were too small to fit around the tops of the rods. This was not meant to be a deterrent. The clips were to be forced, pushed, prodded, begged, cajoled, screamed at, cursed at, pounded with a hammer, and finally, squeezed tightly around the metal rods because once they were in place after three hours of struggling, they were suddenly too loose to remain where you put them.
