The coup de grace with the truck assembly job in Green County came one day while I was in a position to watch the crew work area. I was assembling some air-tubing connectors while sitting at a table and watching the theater of the assembly activity.
A big ol' farm boy from Lafayette County walked up to the armor plate welder who happened to be from Madison. Now there was a contrast in profiles, physical and psychologically. Be that as it may, Big Ol' Boy was just out of high school; Madison dude was 40ish and lean, and well...Madison Dude. Anyway, Big Ol' Boy walked in with a 100 mile role of electrical wire bundling rolled over his shoulder. He looked like a paunchy John Wayne with his cowboy roll of rope. Big Ol' Boy walked up to Madison Dude who was welding armor plate onto the armored car like a moe'foe.
"Hey, Madison Dude," Big Ol' Boy said. "You didn't weld that plating up yet dit'cha?
Madison Dude lifted his welding helmet and looked at Big Ol' Boy and said, "What the fuck does it look like I am doing; why do you ask?"
Big Ol' Boy smiled a crooked smile and said, "We ain't put this here wire in there yet."
So, Madison Dude would take a torch and cut out the armor plating he just spent all morning putting in. Insanity like this went on week after week.
Boss Man would just shake his head and say, "Fix'er up then boys."
It would have been a great job thirty years earlier during the Viet Nam War. There was a, "milk The Man" timbre back in those days. But, that was decades ago. I had been through all this before in work life. I wanted to move on to a new work mantra; a new outlook. Had this been the old Soviet Union, it would have meant something. The old saying in the Soviet Union was, "We pretend to work; the government pretends to pay us."
I just could not stand the banal lunacy of that work culture. I had worked too many years to now live it all over again. A week after thinking it over, I turned in my uniforms at the main office, picked up my tool box, and never set foot in the place again.
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.
9,411 Iraqi Security Forces have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
4,383 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
1001 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.
31,706 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
5,131 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.
