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Twenty-first Job of Bob - Truck Assembly Redux - Part I - Armored car blues; the Japanese Rubric
This entry was posted on 3/3/2010 2:11 AM and is filed under Jobs of Bob.
By the summer of 1995 we were getting used to our life in rural New Glarus. I had quit the farm-hardware-retail-auto store. I had also abandoned the many years of landscape work I had invested in. And, much to my mom's disappointment, I had rejected working for the almighty state of Wisconsin emptying trash cans in the middle of the night as a good job. Remember my mom's generation made the transition from farmers to university janitors and thought they had been dropped in heaven.
None-the-less, I needed a damn job while I went to Emergency Medical Technician class. Down the road in the opposite direction as Madison, sits Monroe down in Green County. There is a truck accessory assembly plant down that way that builds a compendium of odd vehicles. They work up ambulances, armored cars, snow plows, train track service vehicles, utility vans, tool trucks, and just about any kind of vehicle the working world might need. All they needed was the truck chassis and they could build any kind of monstrosity vehicle around it.
A contract came in for armored cars and I responded to the job posting for help. After all, I had my own mechanical tools from the auto mechanic part of the farm-hardware-retail-auto store. I had also already worked in a truck assembly plant in Janesville back in 1980 (Tenth Job of Bob). But here is the caveat. Then I was 24 years old. But in New Glarus I was 40. Time is cruel and causes one to forget how hard past tasks might have been.
The Green County company gave me a thoughtful panel interview. That was back in the days when Human Resource departments actually behaved themselves and cut a man a break. Now days, the Human Resource culture at large seems to relentlessly cull old employees and block eligible employees from interviews in lieu of drinking buddies and relatives. But I digress.
It was good hours and around nine Bucks an hour. Like the City of Dallas, I was in by 6:00 a.m. and out by 2:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. And, they provided an ample number of work uniforms and a laundry service to wash them; a combination that old truck assembly job in Janesville never offered.
It was a new contract so the crew of about 20 guys had to work up an old annex building to facilitate the project. The crew boss-man was a decent fellow. He did however, buy into the neo-supervisional crap of bringing birthday cakes in for employees, et cetera. And, if a dilemma arose, he would always say, "We will solve this fellows, remember we are using the Japanese Management Rubric Model." What ever dude, most of the guys could not spell "Japanese" let alone know what a rubric was.
That was a pleasant summer in 1995. Boss-man discovered I was an adequate forklift driver and he delegated me with the task of moving in all the material in, and building the metal shelves to hold it all. I had actually thought I might have stumbled into a nice gig. No one messed with my wheeled tool box. All the guys were respectful of other people's belongings.
The job worked good with my Emergency Medical work and school because I did most of that starting at 6:00 p.m. in the evening. Everything seemed to be in good speed to move on in life.
But, then came the Fall of the year and the actual beginning of the armored car contract production. The vehicles would be built, each one at a time. One reason for this was, say it with me, "the Japanese Management Rubric Model." Another reason to do one vehicle at a time was some armored car security issue I never quite could understand.
Then, after a few vehicles were built, and tons of armored plating, wiring, and bullet-proof glass were handled, I would begin to see the results of being 16 years older since the last time I worked in a production factory. There would be all that heavy material, dirty welding tasks, ill-prepared co-workers (kind way to say illiterate), countless assembly crew mistakes, and the repairs those mistakes require. At night, my body ached and cramped.
It was probably a great gig in the 1960s if you were trying to milk an hourly job and stay out of the Viet Nam War. But the 1990s and its new technologies were a long way from the 1960s. I was beginning to yearn for the new computer/cyber/wireless work world that the 1995 society boasted, and I of course, had locked myself back in the 1960s in this strenuous, truck assembly culture.
Note: This Blog "Jobs of Bob" Category does not list the jobs chronologically - I write about the experiences as they pop up in my memory and I often revisit an older job. Go to the Cooldadiomedia Web site and the Jobs of Bob Page for an ordered chronology.
Wisconsin Military Service Person Special Mention of the Week
(each week Cooldadiomedia mentions a Wisconsin service person killed in Iraq or Afghanistan)
Army Specialist Charles A. Kaufman, 20, was killed when a car bomb detonated near his Humvee in Baghdad, Iraq, on Sunday, June 26, 2005. Charles was in Company C, 1st Battalion, 128th Infantry Regiment, Wisconsin Army National Guard. His unit was from Arcadia, Wisconsin. Kaufman was from Fairchild, Wisconsin. Fairchild is about 30 miles southeast of Eau Claire and has a population of 511. Charles Kaufman was a Humvee driver with his unit. His Charlie Company was stationed in Samarra, about 60 miles north of Baghdad. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel mentioned Charles was known for his fondness of motorized vehicles of all sorts, and that he was also a rather good pool player. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel went on to mention Kaufman's cousin, Kelly was also in Charlie Company, and the two went through Osseo-Fairchild High School together and graduated in 2003. They had joined the same National Guard unit. Specialist Charles Kaufman was the 41st Wisconsin service member to be killed in Iraq since the spring of 2003.
As of this blog entry's posting date:
95,568 Iraqi civilians have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
9,400 Iraqi Security Forces have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
4,383 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
1000 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
317 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
655 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
31,693 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
5,064 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
101 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
17 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
140 journalists (several nationalities) have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
21 journalists (various nationalities) have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
Wisconsin military service person special mention of the week, military casualty, and journalist casualty information sources: Committee to Protect Journalists; cnn.com; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; washingtonpost.com; thehighground.org; Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs; iraqbodycount.org; and, icasualties.org.
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