Acetone, How I Love Thee

We use almost an entire 55 gallon drum of reagent grade acetone every 12 hour shift I work. There's a bunker outside the main facility away from everything else. If the bunker ever caught fire somehow I'm certain it would explode and level anything around it. Each night I have to make about a half dozen trips to the bunker to load up 5 gallon plastic bottles with acetone from the 55 gallon drums. I wear a chemical suit and put on a respirator with different air filters from the ones we use on machine T/As. These filters are for fumes rather than dust particles. As I get to the bunker's main doorway I unlock a burly old padlock holding a rusty chain through the door and the frame. Once I step inside the room it reminds me of a level in Doom. There's barrels jam packed everywhere and it's tough to move around.

I take a rollaway cart and a bunch of these goofy looking plastic bottles to fill up. There is a hand crank pump I carefully bolt into place on the top of an acetone barrel and I have to keep everything grounded. They're worried about something sparking and causing a fire/explosion. After the pump is in place I mindlessly crank away until each bottle is filled up and capped. A few times during the process I've taken a full on whiff of the fumes from the 55 gallon drum and it almost knocked me over. I couldn't breathe for a couple of seconds and it made my body react by trying to gasp for air. It was a really weird feeling. Normally I kinda like the smell of acetone fumes but when it's that overpowering I can see why it's potentially dangerous. The other thing I've noticed about acetone that is sort of neat is how cold it feels on my hands when I spill it over my gloves. I don't know why I'm so fascinated with it.

7.26.1994

Employees at Bill and Dave's company have a bad reputation here at the Optical Lab. At this company they've hired a bunch of us former Bill and Dave employees and very few have made the grade. I've felt like since I've been here that I'm being judged and watched much more than someone who has been hired in from anyplace else. I can understand some of the apprehension. People who work at Bill and Dave's company are allowed so much freedom that they routinely take advantage of it there. If they weren't lazy and complacent already, by the time they've been working for a few years at Bill and Dave's they will certainly learn how to be lazy and complacent. Having a job there isn't reality. It's like being inside a bell jar and working inside a total vacuum. It's weird and difficult to explain but most people over there can't handle a real job. They've been institutionalized to an extent. Here, the Optical Lab is very real. They fire people for non-performance unlike Bill and Dave's. The Optical Lab is also stupid in it's own way though. It's not well organized. I want to succeed here but it's an extra uphill battle. So many former Bill and Dave employees have been hired here and then get promptly thrown out for all sorts of infractions and reasons. I've felt alot of pressure since day one, as if I am going to become a failure no matter what I do.

The late night hours are making me miserable. There's another Bill and Dave employee here and he's still employed over there in the PC board department so he's working both jobs. I feel like he's always reporting back to my former area how I'm doing here. I don't trust him at all and I try to avoid him as much as possible. I have a bad feeling about him.

I work with a really cool guy from the Philippines named Red. Red is always making me laugh and he's really put alot of extra effort into making me feel welcome. We talk alot out on the shop floor when we have downtime between T/As and there's nothing else to do. Subjects of chatter have ranged from favorite beers to what it's really like in the Philippines. We've yapped about World War Two history in the Pacific campaign and General MacArthur in particular. The General really was seen as a true hero there. I have some silver coins with the image of MacArthur on them. I brought them into work for the guy to check out and he was totally happy to see them. He's told me about his uncle back in the Philippines who likes to play in marching bands. Every year his uncle tries to come up with some crazy uniform for his band members to wear. I suggested we hit some of the military surplus stores around here to come up with some simple stuff like U.S. Air Force shirts that his uncle's band could get cheaply. He thought it was a great idea and we've made some plans to make it happen soon.

The last day of our work week Red organizes a breakfast gig at a restaurant not far from here. It's an old 60s joint that last remodeled the interior around 1973. It's dimly lit inside and all the booths are black leather with bright yellow frosted glass partitions between each booth. Shade plants are hanging from the ceiling all over the place. It almost has a tropical jungle feel to it. I hate the 1970s shit, but the food is pretty good so I try my best to ignore the tacky surroundings while I'm eating. There's plenty of buffet style grub ready and waiting for us when we show up around 7am each week. The waitresses know we're coming and they generally have a bunch of stuff cooked up for us. It's pretty cool. They've set it up as sort of an all you can eat deal and I appriciate that a hell of a lot. After a week of 12 hour shifts my family-sized stomach is ready for some serious grubbin'. I usually hit the scrambled eggs and the pancakes hard. Just can't get enough. Unfortunately this end of week get together is about the only thing I look forward to at this job anymore.

Statistical Analysis Class

I was excited and happy because we got word that the plant would shut down for one week while they were performing some critical machine maintenance. No production work could be done during the teardown of the area. Since none of us would be directly involved in helping out with whatever it was they were going to do it sounded like we would have a week off. I couldn't wait for it to happen. My anticipation and hope for a week off from this hell hole was dashed a few days later. They informed us during an update meeting that we would be required to attend a week long statistical analysis class for eight hours a day at a local upscale hotel. God damn was I angry at the news. They did it again, they were forcing me to do mandatory company stuff on dayshift hours when I should be sleeping. I knew this was going to be tough. I'd have a difficult if not impossible time paying attention because I'd probably fall asleep every few minutes. Or at least try to.

Jennifer has actually been fairly sympathetic about it all and she's tried to make things a little more enjoyable for me while I'm stuck at the class. She knows I'm really angry about it. Her favorite author is Oscar Wilde and I told her I really liked the black and white film adaptation of "The Picture of Dorian Gray" so she got me a paperback copy of the book. I've never read it and she suggested I take it with me to the class for any downtime. I should have anticipated they would cram as much as they could during the week we were in that class but I didn't. The really frustrating thing about it is there's only three employees on the shop floor that work in the lab and have to take statistical measurements and record them for reports every day. The rest of us are just machine operators that don't do anything besides flip switches and press buttons. I questioned why we were all being forced to take a seemingly useless class that only three people need. Management's response was that we "may" at some point transition into a job where this information would be necessary. Bullshit. The company probably just got a discount rate for sending as many bodies to the class as possible. It's a complete waste of my time and I know it. When and if I moved to a lab job it would be months down the road and I would have forgotten all of this stuff anyway. If I don't use the knowledge on a daily basis I lose it. So what's the point?

The first couple of days in the plush conference room at the hotel I was extremely agitated and very tired. I was a hater. I did my best to pay attention and do the excercises from the book we were following and actually did quite well. But then I got bored with how long it was taking everyone in the rest of the class to complete a module or section. There's always stragglers everyone else has to wait for. I decided I would finish up a couple of lessons ahead of the rest of the class and then bury my nose in the copy of Dorian Gray. I didn't think much of it at the time, but this was a bad choice. Since I was already done with the next couple of classroom assignments and just loafing around reading a few other employees noticed I wasn't following along and concluded I simply wasn't paying attention. One or two of them pointed it out to a supervisor without my knowledge. I got hassled about it outside during an afternoon smoke break and it made me even more angry. When I explained what I was up to, that I was working ahead of the instructor and completing the excercises early I got more of that "you're not a team player" attitude. Fuck me. What the hell was I supposed to do? Sit there and pretend I was working the calculator like a good little factory peasant while a few bone headed guys who sweep the shop floor got brought up to speed on charting statistics? Gimme a break man.

By the third day of class I gave up on the whole thing and figured that they could fire me if they wanted to. I was sick of this class and sick of the Optical Lab's lack of planning. I hated my job. In my mind I was daring them to throw me out. Send me home today so I can get some sleep already, you bastards. Nobody from management bothered to confront me about it for the rest of the week. I did get a few dirty looks each day in class. I kept right on reading in Dorian Gray and gave them all the finger. The book was enjoyable and the hotel food they served us each afternoon was quite good. I made it a point to pester the hotel staff into kicking down seconds or thirds. I was damn hungry. Most of the servers were cool with it but a couple of them were a little put out by my antics to get fed more grub. Too bad.

You know, if I had a need in my daily work for this class and the information presented in it I would have been one hundred percent into it the whole way through. I just get so mad when I'm forced to attend classes or meetings that have no direct impact or relevance. Sure seems to happen alot in these tech companies. They love to send you to training classes or long winded meetings that have almost nothing to do with the job.

7.15.1994

Jennifer really likes Anchor Steam beer so I've been trying to keep some on hand here at the house for her when she comes over. Problem is, I keep drinking most if not all of it before her next visit. The weird thing is I always feel sick after drinking them. My stomach hurts and my throat aches. I've noticed this with a few beers but the ones that make me feel the worst are Sierra Nevada and Anchor Steam. I guess there's something in those brands that fucks with me. I should probably just stick to Newcastle and be done with it.

The Optical Lab scheduled me to work early in the morning on one of my days off recently for the forklift training class. I was pretty pissed off that they had me come back in early on dayshift hours to do this crap when I should be sleeping. Adding insult to injury one of my days off was shot. Why couldn't they bring me to dayshift on one of my regularly scheduled shifts and have the class then? There's no real excuse for this. It's all very shoddy in my opinion and it smells like a lack of planning. Well, I went through the training half asleep and angry and passed all the tests. Now I'm all set to drive whatever lift they can throw my way. The trickiest one is that Aliens looking forklift with the hooked booms. We use that one for hauling around rolls of plastic that weigh like 3,000 pounds. I am comfortable enough with it now to drive it and not sweat bullets the whole time I'm at the controls. I have to admit I was really intimidated by it at first but now it's not so bad.

Since we work 12 hour shifts our 40 hour work week piles up fast. We work four days in a row one week and then the next we only work three days in a row. It alternates like that every other week. Most of the folks here try to go back to a normal dayshift schedule on their days off. They go to bed at regular night time hours. I just can't do it. Makes me feel sick and all screwed up when I try to do that. It takes me a couple of days to get adjusted back to dayshift hours and by the time I'm doing ok with it again I have to go back to work on graveyard. It's lousy. So I made the decision to stay on the graveyard hours on my days off. I feel physically better but Jennifer isn't too happy about it and I don't have much of a social life anymore. At six in the morning I'm sleepy as all hell and usually drunk. Everyone else is just waking up and getting ready for work. At five in the afternoon when everyone is leaving their jobs to go hit the bar or head home and start cooking dinner I'm just waking up and getting ready to go to work. Needless to say I haven't seen many of my friends in a while.

When they were interviewing me for the job one of the things they warned me about was working the late hours and what that might mean for me. I didn't take it very seriously at the time because I wanted the permanent job so badly. Looking back on it now I should have considered this more carefully. I'm unhappy working these hours and it's fucking up my life outside of work. I feel isolated. There's nothing to do and nowhere to go when I'm awake. I can't call up any of my friends because they are asleep. This sucks. I'm not sure how much longer I can do this junk.

The Rumors Are Flying

Every job I've worked at always turns out to be a cesspool of employee gossip and company rumor. I should not be surprised that it happens so much but for some reason I'm still amazed at it. The latest rumor here at the Optical Lab is that the U.S. Government is considering coming back as a customer for the color shifting pigment. If they do come back and use it on the dollar bill, the employees speculate that we will become like the U.S. Mint and we will step up security significantly. While all of this makes sense, the rumored increase in security and procedures I'm hearing about does not. The story I keep hearing is that we will have the Army Reserve here guarding the facility and watching all of the employees for any mischief. Some of the women have been chattering about how Army Reservists will have to be stationed in the bathrooms to make sure they aren't stealing pigment or contacting the Soviets or some junk while they're sitting on the toilet. It's retarded, and many of the employees are not only buying into this garbage but they are pissed off about it like it's already happened. Idiots. I say worry about it when it happens. And it's unlikely that it will happen.

If the Government does come back at some point as a customer I really don't see them increasing security to such a draconian level. Sure, some necessary precautions will have to be taken but having dopey Army guys escort us to and from the crapper is just damn dumb. I seriously doubt anything like that would be allowed in the first place. What is interesting to me is how many fellow employees have already resigned themselves to thinking that the rumors are true. They have no proof that any of this is for real. I could have alot of fun here making up shit and spreading it around the factory. I mean, these people are gullible to a degree I haven't seen before. Maybe they've all been working on the graveyard shift for too many years and their brains have gone kinda soft.

6.8.1994

I was watching a rat eat some of the metal target material the other night on the job. It was a good sized gray rat and it was running around underneath the coating machine. It seemed to like the taste of spilled metal target material scraps. I'm sure it died later that night. The target metal varies in size from a small ball bearing to a large marble and we spill them from time to time reloading the vacuum chambers during the T/As. The coating machine has a series of electron beam guns in each chamber and there are target crucibles that we load with metals and chemicals. The beam guns are aimed at the targets and they absolutely fry everything in the crucibles. Sometimes when I have a moment I walk down the middle of the machine on a catwalk at ground level and peer through the observation window at the targets. The stuff inside each crucible is glowing like hot magma, and in a way it's sort of beautiful.

I hate cleaning the chamber trays. We have to completely scrub them clean after so many runs in the machine. Again I get issued a paint scraper and a wire brush to get the job done. I also get a box of aluminum foil handed to me. Cleaning the pickup truck sized tray is more elbow grease and time than anything else. It's a mangy tiring job. The leading edge of the top of the tray has to be re-foiled with the aluminum for some reason. I have no idea why really. It's annoying to do though because the only thing holding it in place is some heavy chicken wire mesh someone bent in a crude fashion to keep it where they want it. It sucks. Oh and I still have to wear a full body chemical suit and respirator the whole time. It's very uncomfortable.

Out back there is a heavy duty sand blaster booth that is alot of fun to work in. Miguel trained me up on how to use it and sometimes I get to blast the shit out of the metal shields that line each of the vacuum chambers in the main coating machine. You enter a metal box that looks like the inside of a shipping container and put on a blast shield over your head that has a heavy cloth protector for your shoulders and chest. It makes you look like a bell-diver from the pre-world war two era. There's a big hopper in the back corner of the room that is filled with hundreds of pounds of coarse rusty red grains. The sandblaster gun has so much pressure behind it that when you first fire it up it kicks hard like a firehose on full blast. While I'm spraying each metal shield the grains hit the surface so hard that the metal begins to glow slightly. It's burly. This is one part of the job I'd like to spend more time on. Sadly we only get to do this every once in a while.

The maintenance imbeciles finally figured out why the drain system wasn't working hardly at all anymore on the Stripper Booth. Someone else on another shift was complaining about it too so they finally looked into it. The drain pipes are a large diameter PVC and they head way up into the roof from the booth area. From the shop floor they looked normal, but after a long period of time suckin' up harsh chemicals the inside of the pipe was weakened and it collapsed in on itself and flattened out completely. So hardly anything was getting through. No wonder it was taking forever to drain the chemical wash out. I wish those guys had listened to me the first time I mentioned it weeks ago. Damn losers. The good news is they are going to switch out the drain pipe system with something more rugged. Hopefully it won't happen again in the future.

Since they've been having the bad habit of pulling me off my lunch period to help out with the machine T/As I've stopped bringing in my lunch and now I leave the campus to go out to eat. The thing that is crummy about it is the only place on this side of town that's open late is a Taco Bell. I have been grabbing a couple of chicken rice burritos and a large soda almost every night. It rips up my guts shortly after I'm finished with them. This whole situation is so worthless. I wish there was a late night diner around here somewhere. I don't dare bring in my lunches anymore because I know they'll just start hassling me again.

The Job So Far

Things at the Optical Coating Lab have turned out to be much less than desireable. My supervisor is married to the lead production manager here and he lets his shift screw off all day every day. When we come in at six in the afternoon to start work we're always slammed thanks to them. We are constantly picking up the slack. Since my boss more than likely doesn't want to start any friction with her husband she never stands up for us. So we work three times as hard as we should have to every night to put production back on schedule. It's damned annoying. Every afternoon we have to be here shortly before six to get a briefing from the other shift. I always see most of their crew just sitting around on the lawn smoking cigarettes and jaw jacking. Sure it's near the end of their shift, but I suspect they've been sitting there like that for most of the day.

I only get a half hour lunch for my entire twelve hour shift. It's fucked up. They give us a couple of fifteen minute breaks as well but most people here lump them into their lunch period so they can have a solid hour to go get something to eat. Lately these bastards have been pulling me off my lunch break to help out on some T/As because someone called in sick, or someone is out on vacation. Seems like we're always down a person or two. I've given them some lip about interrupting my lunch and all I get back from them is that "You're not a team player" attitude. Dirtbags.

There's this strange vibe about the people on my shift. None of them seem truly normal to me. I'm beginning to think of them as axe murderers and escaped psycopaths. The grinder guy is something else. He came up to me out on the shop floor the other night and handed me an odd shaped styrofoam box. I looked at him as if to say what the fuck but I opened it anyway. I peered inside the lid to see a painted dinner plate. Like one of the ones you see advertised on TV with a landscape on it, or the Star Trek crew. All those plates are cheeseball and instead of actually using them for serving food you're supposed to hang them on the wall or something and just stare at them. I tried to feign interest in the plate but man, it was so white trash. The grinder guy told me he collects them. I handed it back to him and said thanks. Then I quickly walked away to the other side of the building. There's alot of nasty rumors floating around the plant about the grinder guy. Some say he lives out in the woods and has oil paintings on his walls of himself wearing elaborate gowns and dresses. One of the other employees swears on his mother's grave that's what he saw there once. I dunno. Coming out of nowhere to show me a dainty plate is a little odd though. He always wears a full body chemical suit even though most of the time he doesn't have to wear one. And he always walks around carrying an old mangy Band-Aid tin box. I don't know what's in it and I think I'll keep it that way...

I've still been running the Stripper Booth most of the time. The drain system for the chemical wash basin isn't working worth a shit anymore so it's really slowing me down. It's taking considerably longer to get the color shifting pigment collected and dry. I keep bugging maintenance about it but they just blow me off. Like I'm seeing stuff or being stupid about it and lying to them. Yeah, like it's my fault the shit doesn't drain out a pipe anymore. Idiots. Sometimes while I'm trying to drain off the chemicals I end up spilling some of the green to gold mix on the tips of my steel toe work shoes and it's stylin'. With each step I take the top of my shoes color shift. It's fun to watch.

They're starting to train me up on some of the staging of supplies out on the factory floor so they've been getting me squared away driving the specialized lifts they have here. I'm supposed to go through some official deal with OSHA soon and I'm going to get some kind of a license to drive these monsters. One of them looks like the bi-pedal lifts in the film Aliens but instead of legs on the bottom it has a rolling platform. You have to stand up in it to operate it. It takes some getting used to compared to a regular old forklift that you sit down in to drive. I'm used to having a steering wheel in front of me and this wacky stand up job has a flightstick and a crank for steering it. It's different. I'm doing OK with the regular forklifts so far. I only had one mishap when no one was around the other night. I was dumping the trash bins out back of the building and when I thought I had cleared the dumpster I put the forks down and hit the reverse. The bin I was carrying got caught on the dumpster and made a horrible racket. The front of the lift started to come up off the ground. I stopped what I was doing and hit the controls in the reverse order and got straightened out. They're overly safety conscious here so I'm glad no one saw what I had done. They freak out at the drop of a hat and probably would have written me up.

Woman Woes

Jennifer said a couple of shitty things to me last night. She didn't stay over and for the rest of the evening I was angry and depressed. I hadn't seen Jennifer in years, since just after high school actually. Things were always off-center with her and it seems that this time around we're off to a bad start seeing each other again. She hasn't changed much.

I left the house and went over to MerrySue's place. When I got to her driveway I looked up and saw all the lights were on and she wasn't alone. I debated for a few minutes whether or not to bother her and then just said fuck it and went up and knocked on her door. MerrySue asked me how I was doing. I replied honestly that I wasn't doing too great, but I'd most likely live. She thought for a moment and told me I'd be fine. Then she said I should stay away from girls like Jennifer and that if I did, I could have any woman I wanted. At the time I thought I wanted Jennifer but I also had a real bad feeling about her in my gut.

I didn't feel like going back home yet and Carrie's place was a few blocks away so I drove over there. I hadn't seen Carrie since the last time she came over to my house with a bunch of her friends in tow. They were drunk and dancing around like a pack of fools. It was obnoxious and I was glad when they left. Just before Carrie walked out the front door that night she came back to my room. She kissed me and told me she missed me. As she kissed me I told her she was lying. Then she left.

When I got to Carrie's place all the lights were on and a bunch of racket was coming out of the house. I walked inside and saw Carrie, Heather, and Tiffany getting drunk and dancing around with a bunch of friends from out of town. They were running low on booze so Heather and I went to the store for some beers and a bottle of shoddy whiskey. The whiskey was for Tiffany. As soon as we got back I went after my two 22oz. beers and then had about six shots of whiskey with Tiffany and Heather. I was pleasantly drunk. Heather talked to me about old cars for a long time because she really liked one of mine. She was hoping I might come over sometime soon to take a look at her old Rambler and maybe help fix it. What the hell, I'd give it a try.

I enjoy watching Tiffany get drunk. She gets all badass after she's had some whiskey in her and she tries to start fights. She's tough. This night she was kinda weird though. She showed me a bunch of pictures of her with bleached blonde hair. The whole time I've known her she's always been a redhead. I think she's already very attractive but as a blonde I was almost knocked over. She looked really good. She's apparently only into skinhead guys that treat her like shit.

Carrie looked dead. And I don't mean like in a cool gothic way either. The whole night she looked pale as a ghost. She looked bad. More frail and skinny than I've ever noticed before. I'm very glad things didn't work out between Carrie and I now because she's really a freak. I see how petty and useless she is. Carrie attempted to wrap me around her little finger and it definetly aggivated me. Senor 23 saw it all happening and he tried to get me to snap out of it. One night he listened to me rant about her for a long time. He's a good listener. I guess he was pretty pissed off Carrie was jerking me around so to get even with her he pissed all over her sunglasses. He didn't tell me about it until late one night after we left Carrie's house. She always kept her sunglasses in the bathroom for some reason and Senor 23 thought it would be a good idea to pee on them for me. Good old Senor 23. Every time I think about that night I smile.

It got very late, I was hammered, and it was time to go home. When I went in to say goodnight to Heather and Tiffany I found Tiffany on the floor crying. I asked her what was wrong and she said that she didn't think much of herself. I told her she was pretty and she shouldn't feel that way about herself. I was genuine when I spoke to her but I'm sure she didn't believe me or really care anyway. Then I got up and left. I'm going to miss all three of them actually. Tiffany and Heather are moving out at the end of the month to go back to Colorado. I'll miss Heather the most though. She's damn funny to be around. Carrie is going to still be here in town but I'm certain I won't see her anymore. Maybe that will be for the best. She's only funny when she's dancing in a strobe light to rap music. The rest of the time she's kinda dumb.

I drove home drunk after three in the morning. When I parked the car behind the B Street house I realized that the whole way home I didn't have my lights on. Good thing I didn't run across any cops...

Greetings, Your Honor

My last day of jury duty was on Thursday. I was supposed to report to the court by 8:30am. Jennifer stayed the night with me here and I had set my brand new alarm clock to wake me up the following morning at 7:30 so I could haul myself out of bed and make it to the county court house on time. For some reason the alarm clock didn't work and I woke up startled at nine. I jumped out of bed and made a mad dash out of the house waking up Jennifer in the process. I felt bad for her because she didn't sleep well during the night.

I made it to court a half hour later and I wasn't sure what to do or where to go. I ended up going to the jury commissioner's office first to ask for some advice. All they would tell me was to go back to the court room and talk to the baliff. So I walked over to where I thought we were supposed to be and looked at a list of names and juror numbers tacked to the wall next to the court room door. I saw my name and number on the list highlighted in yellow. That couldn't be good, I thought. There were a few other names highlighted as well and that must have meant no-shows like me. I poked my head just inside the door and a deputy from the sheriff's dept. came over and asked me what the hell I thought I was doing. I explained that I made it here but much later than I should have been. He told me to wait outside. Nothing more. I started talking to a few other prospective jurors who were waiting in the hallway with nowhere to sit. They had been loitering there since 8:30am or earlier not knowing when or if they would be called in. That's so jacked up.

My lawyer friend had returned my call a few days ago and he gave me some solid advice about how to get thrown off the case. Since I was working graveyard and not officially on any jury yet, the Optical Lab was expecting me in to work at night. It was a really bad scene. I needed to end this court debacle as soon as possible. The attorney told me all I needed to do was answer the questions from the 30 page survey with really fucked up shit. He said I needed to show lots of bias and come off as a total nutcase. I followed his advice and wrote down all sorts of mentally ill stuff. After he talked it over with me it seemed like a sure-fire plan to get thrown off the jury selection process.

Ten minutes had passed since the deputy told me to wait outside in the hall with the rest of the miserable people. He came back outside and hauled me into the court room without saying a word. Once I set foot inside, the deputy knocked my hat off my head with one swipe of his hand and practically punched me in the gut handing it to me. "Take off your hat while in front of the judge." The deputy told me in a menacing tone of voice. He then escorted me to a seat across the room from the judge. I could see a few sheriff deputies positioned around the room, two groups of people sitting at tables close to each other which must have been the opposing legal teams, and the two defendants. One of them had grown his hair out into a mullet. He looked dumb. The other one looked like a migrant worker. There was another person sitting very close to the two defendants and from the look of things it must have been an interpreter.

Once I was seated the judge looked at me through his eyes of authority and said, "Mr. Factory Peasant. What is your excuse for being late?" Sarcasm was just pouring out of his voice as the words escaped his lips.
I told him my brand new alarm clock failed to work.
"Does your alarm clock do this to you often, or is this an isolated case?" He said.
I told him the alarm clock was brand new and must be defective. As I was speaking to him the judge nodded his head in a contrived sort of way and then brushed me off with a gesture of his hand and asked me another question.
"Did you enjoy yourself filling out this questionnaire?" Again, he spoke to me with total sarcasm. I could see where this was going. I must have totally pissed him off with my responses and showing up late must have pushed him over the edge. I was becoming nervous, but I was hoping he was about to throw me out of there with a vengeance.
I needed to play him out. I responded to his question by saying, "Not really."
"Why is that, Mr. Factory Peasant?"
"Because I was angry at the time." I said.
"Angry with what?" The judge looked at me with a completely fake puzzled expression on his face.
"This whole deal." I gestured around the room at all of them.
"You mean with the inconvienience of having to be here." Said the judge.
"Yeah." I replied so quickly I almost cut him off.
"Well, Mr. Factory Peasant, I've looked over your responses and you have displayed a total lack of responsibility and disregard for authority. And the people have agreed that you have absolutely no business serving on this jury, or any jury in the future. Get out of my court room and don't ever come back." The judge was sort of red in the face as he lectured me. I got him.
"Okay." I said.

I got up and turned around. Once my back was facing the judge, a huge shit-eating grin was plastered all over my face. Those fucked up answers I wrote down on the questionnaire really must have done the trick. The judge put himself right where I wanted him and he did exactly what I wanted. Chump. I was off the hook completely. Maybe because the judge said I was unfit to serve on any jury in the future he'd even blacklist me from being called for jury duty again! I could only hope. As I walked out of the court room and back into the hallway where all the other people were standing around bored out of their minds just waiting, my eyes met with some of them. When they saw the big smile on my face a few of them were confused. I yelled "See ya suckers!" I cruised down the hallways of the building with a spring in my step and a laugh in my evil little black heart.

As soon as I got home I called a few friends who were keeping their fingers crossed for me that I'd get thrown off the case. I called my Mom at her work first. When I told her the news and what the judge had said to me she laughed. She congratulated me on a manipulative job well done. I am going to have to get my lawyer friend a six pack for this. I should also thank Samson. Out of all the people who gave me advice on how to get out of jury duty, his was the best. He told me that during questioning to be as brutal as possible. I'm glad I listened to him because it worked.

The Stripper Booth

Miguel has been showing me around the factory floor for the past couple of shifts and getting me started on some of the more mundane tasks. He's set me up on the third step in the manufacturing process making the color shifting pigment. It's a tiny room they call the Stripper Booth. When he first mentioned it by name I was thinking hell yes! Strippers! I immediatly began daydreaming of hot broads scantily clad doing the nasty to shiny brass poles. Unfortunately the Stripper Booth is nothing at all like the mental image I got.

It's a tiny closet of a room that's stuffed with a crazy contraption. It's a machine we load rolls of coated plastic into and strip the pigment from the material. Each roll has to be threaded through a series of metal blades that really aren't blades like a knife or anything. They're more blunt than they are sharp. The plastic coating goes into a chemical wash, through the blades, and spools up on the other side of the basin. There's two identical sets of the machine one on the left and the other on the right. To run this setup properly you have to ensure there's enough tension on the plastic so as it goes over the blades it literally scrapes off the color shifting pigment from the plastic. As it's being removed and collected in the chemical wash, the stripped plastic makes a horrible squeaking noise. The best way I can describe it is like this. Imagine an old woman that is driving her car down the street at 35 miles an hour and she forgot to pull the emergency brake. So one tire is locked up and squealing on the pavement as she drives by. And as she's at the wheel of her car she's also strangling cats with her bare hands. That screeching squealing noise is what we get to hear the whole time we're running the Stripper. I've been using ear plugs to try and dull the noise but it isn't helping much.

The cool thing is watching the color shift happen as you move your position between the two basins. If I'm working on a color shift that's green to gold, the left basin will be swirling with the most beautiful iridescent emerald green, and the right one will be filled with bright liquid gold. If I lean a little to the left the green will begin to shift to gold, and the other one will shift from gold to green. It's gorgeous. I would imagine that someone doing some psychedelic drugs would probably never want to leave after seeing this stuff swirling around peacefully. It's got to be one of the most incredible things I've ever seen. They tell me that they can make any color on the visible spectrum change to any other color. All you have to do is tell them which two colors you want and they can make it happen. Very unique technology to be sure.

While I'm running the Stripper Booth I still have to wear a full body chemical suit and if I am working over the machine they require I put on safety goggles. The safety goggles keep steaming up on the inside on me so again I can't see what the hell I'm doing. When nobody is around I don't wear them since it is just fucking me up but as soon as I hear footsteps I put them back on just so I don't get hassled. The booth has it's own fresh air supply so I don't have to wear a respirator which is good but I can see tiny particles of the pigment floating around the room. I wonder what those will do to me after I've inhaled a bunch of them over time. Hopefully it won't be like Asbestos poisoning or some shit. Anyway after I've stripped clean all the material from the plastic rolls I have to drain the pigment plus chemical wash into a collector. It cakes up in the collector and when it's dry enough I scoop it all into a container and send it off to the grinder. There's a guy that runs this grinder machine in the other room and that somehow sets the pigment up to be made into a printable ink. We don't do that here though. We just manufacture the pigment and then the Swiss somehow make it into a useable ink. That's their secret.

The grinder guy is sort of a weirdo. I don't know him at all yet. He leaves work at six in the morning like the rest of us but instead of going home to take it easy and go to sleep he heads out to golf courses and plays golf all day. Then he comes back in to work at six in the evening all beat to shit and looking like hell. He usually gets a couple hours sleep if at all. I don't know how he does it. Me, I need as much sleep as possible or I can't function and I turn into a hater. I hate the world and everything in it if I have less than six hours sleep a day. Eight or more hours sleep is ideal so I try to get in as much sleep as I can. It's best for everyone around me if I got a good amount of sleep in between shifts. Trust me.

6.7.1994

My new job as a technician at the Optical Coating Lab has been going OK so far. When I first started there I was extra nervous. Another employee from Bill and Dave's that I know well had started two weeks before me and someone sabotaged him, so he was fired. They said the reason he was let go was because of safety violations but I'm not buying it. His name is Jeff and I've worked with him in the PC board department for a little over a year. He was always a hard worker and very conscious of safety so I think something else was up when they fired him here. Jeff told me more than likely he was kicked out because his trainer had a personal problem of some sort with him.

Jeff was on swing shift with me and Senor Random at Bill and Dave's. Senor Random worked with him in Racking for a long time so obviously he knows Jeff much better than I do. When Jeff got hired over at the Optical Coating Lab, he was trained improperly by Miguel. Miguel taught him how to do some of the work using his special unsafe methods and then he went to his supervisor and finked on Jeff. The manager came out onto the shop floor and yelled at him. I guess Jeff was so angry he later caught up to Miguel and had words with him. Called him a backstabber and shit. To get even with Jeff for yelling at him, Miguel went back to management and told them Jeff delibrately sprayed him in the eyes with Acetone, twice. Even though it was a total lie, the supervisor took Miguel's word on it and they fired Jeff. I seriously doubt Jeff would ever have done that to anyone.

I've had the misfortune of being trained by the same guy. I don't like Miguel too much. He's an asshole. On the job he's kinda lazy and really full of himself. I'm not impressed. As a trainer showing the new guy the ropes he sucks. While he's been taking me around the plant and teaching me how to operate some of the equipment he's been showing me all his special shortcuts for getting the work done. I found out later from talking to Jeff that Miguel was trying to delibrately mislead me to see if I would follow his example or question him on why he was not following the written procedures. I would never have performed any of the tasks the way he was working because it was just too stupid. Fortunately I followed the procedures and ignored him. Miguel told me later on he was testing me but I think more than likely he was just fucking with me to see if he could get me fired too. Bastard. After the 18th of this month Miguel will be on another shift so at least I won't have to work with the loser anymore.

As a technician here I have a number of completely different tasks from what I was doing at Bill and Dave's. There is a bunch of factory floor work that has to be done throughout the night. Instead of working on electronics I'm now working on a color shifting anti-counterfeiting product that's used in money. The story I've heard so far is that years ago the U.S. Government approached the lab and helped them by funding their research to develop a color shifting counterfeit deterrent for U.S. greenbacks. After years of work the lab successfully invented a useable anti-counterfeiting product. For some reason by the time it was ready the Government wasn't interested in it anymore*. They left the company holding the bag with no customer. So, the lab shopped what they had around until a Swiss company was interested in it. The Swiss have been the sole customer ever since then and they use it to print currency for close to twenty European countries. Anyway to make this operation happen we have to stage up supplies at various machines using specialized forklifts and we have to do what they call Turn Arounds or T/A's a couple times in the shift.

The T/A's are stressful because there is alot to do in an incredibly short period of time. The work is also really uncomfortable as we have to perform it wearing full body chemical suits and respirators. It's hard physical labor. They shut down one of the coating machines and they send us into a vacuum chamber that's big enough to fit a large car. All of us are handed a wire brush and a metal paint scraper. Inside the chamber there is a layer of chemical and metal deposit that we have to chisel and scrub out before they can reload the chamber and seal it for the next run. After just a few minutes of chiseling away I get so sweaty that the inside of my respirator fogs up and then I can't see what the fuck I'm doing. It kinda sucks. There are two vacuum chambers on each of the machines so we have two teams working one per chamber during the T/A. We have only 30 minutes to completely clean out both chambers. The coating machines are huge. They dug down deep into the concrete foundation of the building and installed them so that they fit nicely inside the two story roof line, but they are actually three stories tall. From the outside of the facility you'd never know anything like it would be inside.

*A few years later the U.S. Government came back to the lab and began to use the color shifting pigment on $20 bills.

5.25.1994

Today was an irritating waste. I spent five hours at the county court house this morning because I got slapped with jury duty. The timing could not have been worse. Tomorrow evening I start my first shift at the Optical Coating Lab. Since I have to work an extended graveyard shift the jury duty in the early part of the day is going to cut into my sleeping time. I tried to seize every opportunity to be dismissed or excused. I even asked for an extension to come back some other time, but the nerdy judge was being a cock about it. The case is a big deal, it's capital murder of a sheriff's deputy and the case was moved here from another part of the state. So they're not letting anyone out of the jury selection process. Two Mexicans executed a cop while he was placing them under arrest and putting them into his police car. Somehow even though they were handcuffed, one of them was able to unholster the officer's gun and then shoot him in the neck with it. The two then fled the scene in cuffs but were captured a few days later.

The first opportunity to try to escape jury duty came when the judge allowed us to present him with Hardship excuses. I filled out one of them stating that I had to start a new job the next evening and that I was working an extended graveyard shift. Twelve hours long starting at six in the evening and ending at six in the morning. I stressed that financially I could not afford the five dollars a day that the court allows for compensation. The judge told me to call my employer and find out if they would pay my wages while I was to be on jury duty. Some employers do pay for it, some do not.

I left the courtroom to make the call and I kept my fingers crossed that they wouldn't cover it. As I walked through the main hallways of the court house back to the juror's room I realized the possibility of the Optical Coating Lab being that cheapskate and not covering jury duty were pretty slim. The company is large enough that they probably have their shit together. I got on the payphone and called the head of the Human Resources dept. and was disappointed with her reply. They would defintely pay me while I was stuck on jury duty. Fuck.

To pass the down time in the courtroom I brought a book with me to read. It's "The Thin Man" by Dashiell Hammett. I've seen a bunch of The Thin Man movies starring William Powell and Myrna Loy. They've all been really funny so I figured reading one of the books might be kinda fun. So far it hasn't been too bad and I didn't realize the author had also written The Maltese Falcon.

After a few hours of hurry-up-and-wait the judge gave us all a thirty page questionnaire to take home and fill out. He said because there were so many people they were pulling in for this case that the prosecution and defense lawyers were not going to have enough time to cross examine every prospective juror in the court room. The questionnaire was supposed to speed everything up considerably. I briefly thumbed through some of the questions and it's all pretty weird stuff. I can tell they are looking for people who are racist or hate police officers.

I really feel the need to get myself thrown off of this case as soon as possible, so I called up a good friend of mine that's a lawyer and asked his advice on how to get bounced off the jury selection process. He suggested I respond to the questions with completely whacked out answers. The more bias and screwy shit I can put in the better he said. That way neither legal team will want me on the jury. It seems a little risky to me, but what the hell. I'm real nervous about trying to start a new job and the very same week can't come in because of jury duty. It just doesn't look good. At least I don't think so.

5.11.1994

Today was very interesting mostly because of Jennifer. She showed up at the house and looked much better than she did the other night when she was here. When she came in the front door I was waiting for her in the livingroom. I got dressed up in a coat and tie. She asked me why I was all spiffed out and I gave her some bullshit about getting dressed up once a week just for the hell of it. I'm sure she saw through that lie quickly enough. I definetly didn't want to admit I had got dressed up just for her. Jennifer was wearing a blue minidress, white nylons, and cute little black shoes. She looked very attractive and the more I thought about how she looked the more I wanted her.

I was impressed with Jennifer because she had paid so much attention to my ramblings the other night. Something I said prompted her to bring me a little present. She handed me a copy of the film "Closet Land" and she even put a black ribbon around it. It's a really demented film and it's one of my favorites. When she handed it to me I was stunned. I thanked her again and again to the point of sounding stupid I'm sure. Maybe when she comes over tomorrow I'll surprise her with some roses. That way I can get even with her for the movie.

We sat together in the livingroom making small talk for a short time. Coincidentally we both gave two weeks notice at our jobs on Monday. She gave her notice at the Italian restaurant she's been working at for a little over a year. I had the idea that she had only been working there a few weeks. I didn't realize she had been there that long. After the idle chit chat there was a long silence that made me feel awkward. After a couple of minutes I kissed her. It felt great and she was into it. Before I left for work we just sat there together for a while. Jennifer curled up next to me and I held her under my chin. It felt as if things were meant to be. Her timing couldn't have been better since I had just wound up a nightmare of a relationship with a headcase named Carrie. Carrie was a real pain and with Jennifer around the memory of Carrie will fade out that much faster.

5.10.1994

I've accepted a full time permanent position with the Optical Coating Lab. I passed the drug test just like I expected and I also passed the physical on my lungs. From the sound of things I will have to wear a respirator on the new job at times. I guess you have to breathe harder to get air through the filters on a respirator and they wanted to test my lungs out to make sure I wouldn't have any problems. The nurse at the clinic asked me some questions after the first test because she said I was borderline. The reason why is because I've just gotten over a bad cold. She gave me the evil eye anyway though, and then tested me again. The results were better and they should have been since I took extra deep breaths and held them for as long as I could. I didn't want the nurse to think I was trying to conceal that I'm a smoker or something. She must get lied to alot.

This job is going to be an excellent opportunity to get out of Bill and Dave's company for good. I lost some sleep over the last couple of nights stressing about whether or not I'd get the new job. Today when I got back to work I gave Shamu my two weeks' notice. It felt really good to do that to her. I know that when I leave her area it's going to cause problems for months. There is no one on swing shift that can take my place and crank out as heavy a throughput of work like I can. Hope it hurts.

Jennifer is coming by the house around two in the afternoon. I haven't really seen her since we broke up in high school. She showed up here uninvited with a friend of hers the last two weekends. We were having a little B Street shindig and she barged in and found me, then left about as fast as she had come in. On the next Saturday she stayed here until late in the evening. It was really weird. Anyway she's apparently coming here to talk to me. About what I'm not sure. She always had a way of confusing me when we were together years ago. It was very frustrating. When she was here with me this past Saturday she stayed until 4am and was acting like she wanted me to work her, but she kept making comments like "I'm not sleeping here tonight." Her tone of voice was snyde as she said it each time.

She's gained alot of weight since high school. At first I couldn't believe it because I always remembered her being so damn skinny. After I thought about it for a while though it made perfect sense. Jennifer never liked to do anything physical, like ride bicycles or go on walks with me. Pretty much all she ever did was sit on a couch watching movies or TV and eat. So after watching five years of TV and grubbin' out I think it's caught up with her. Jennifer's hair is really short like a little boy's. She dyed it jet black. I think it's funny. Definetly doesn't suit her. When she was here though I was polite and told her she looked fine. She mentioned that she walks three times a week around a lake near here and she's on a diet. That's cool, but it seems she's stuck in a rut like a little old lady. Apparently every wednesday night she gets together with a bunch of girls she works with to watch some TV show and have a dinner party. Jennifer doesn't drink, but she picked up the habit of smoking which I couldn't believe.

I felt pretty good about kicking her out that night. If she was interested in me it showed her I'm not going to be easy. If she wasn't then I saved myself the embarrassment of being rejected and creating an uncomfortable situation for the both of us. The only reason I'm in this at all right now is because I'm curious about her. After we stopped seeing each other it was as if she had disappeared from the face of the earth. We shall see what happens.

5.4.1994

Over the past couple of months our department has become a huge network of news and rumors about other technology companies in our general area that are hiring. Everyone who is currently an internal temporary worker here is trying to bail out as quickly as possible. Some of our people have quit Bill and Dave's to take on permanent jobs elsewhere only to come back and tell us how bad their new job is. Others have found work at another company and like it much more than they ever did here. I've been interested in listening to all of them and I think I've been able to get a good enough feel for what some of the other employers around are like.

I am so dissatisfied with the way Bill and Dave's company is treating all of us that I've interviewed with an Optical Coating Lab. They do a variety of commercial and government work. I'm not clear on much of the specifics yet, and I'm going into this after hearing mixed opinions from people who have worked there. Bottom line is I want a full time permanent job. I want job security that I can't have here at Bill and Dave's. To me that's the most important thing right now.

Yesterday I had to go in for a physical and a drug test. I have never taken a drug test before so I've been curious what it's all about. If I pass everything then I still have to go in for a separate physical concerning my lungs. I don't know why the Optical Coating Lab needs that. The whole piss-test thing was silly and kind of degrading. I had to piss into a tiny plastic bottle while inside a bathroom that had it's sink locked up and a guard standing right outside the door. I wasn't allowed to flush the toilet until after I handed the pee-soaked bottle to one of the clinic workers. Because the bottle's opening was so narrow and my aim kinda rough, I ended up spraying my stuff all over the place. Including my hand. It struck me as so funny to see a woman handling a bottle of my filthy urine like it was some sort of a valuable antique. Whatever. I won't have any troubles passing the drug test. It's a waste of time and money really.

2.24.1994

The rumors about outsourcing our PC Board business have intensified quite a bit in recent weeks and there's also a new twist. The internal contract workers are most likely going to be forced to work for a temporary agency due to be determined soon. It's interesting that after running their own internal temporary workforce for so many years Bill and Dave's company will all of a sudden decide to outsource a bunch of their workers to a temp agency. If they follow through with it I wonder how they will compensate all the employees that have been working here for all the years they already put in. How about the pay and benefits? It's all up in the air. One thing is for certain. The rumored news has further deteriorated morale. Alot more people are nervous and more angry now. This place is a joke.

When I got hired in here I was happy. I finally got into what I thought was a good company and a good place to work. I'm in my early 20s and my main concern is getting established with a solid employer where I can do a good job, be rewarded for it, and retire. This place is totally out of control. It's nothing like what people said it would be. They said working for Bill and Dave would be a dream come true. Good pay, good benefits, good job security, and plenty of room to move up in the company. I don't see any of that happening here. You see, I am one of those employees that's on contract. I have a company employee number just like a full time permanent employee but I'm a second class citizen here. I already came up for review and they extended my contract for another year. That's all fine and good but I don't want to be like one of those guys I talk to in the hallways that's been an internal temp here for like five years. That's fucked.

Alot of our people are currently in the process of looking for a full time permanent job in the tech industry elsewhere. Bill and Dave's has already lost a bunch of really top people in the past year and I see alot more leaving very soon. I think I will be one of them. I've got some good on the job training and experience now and I like this kind of work well enough. Hell, it beats the shit out of working in grocery stores. I can't allow myself to go back to doing that crap. I'm going to start looking for a real job someplace else. I'm not going to work for an outside temporary agency. That's weak. Now that I'm here and had a taste of what it's like working in electronics I want to stay in the tech industry. I want to feel secure in my job. Job security shouldn't be hard to find, should it?

2.23.1994

Apparently I'm just like my uncle Steve. That's what Dad was yelling at me today. We got in yet another big fight and as usual it was over nothing important. My Dad's younger brother Steve has always been hassled by Dad and he thinks his little brother is a bum. That's what he's told us over and over again anyway. Steve doesn't seem like all that bad of a guy to me but I guess he's done some dumb stuff over a long period of time to his family. I'm not clear on what exactly because it's all coming from Dad. I can't trust much of what he says.

Since in Dad's eyes Steve is a bum and a drunk, by telling me I'm just like his younger brother I guess this is supposed to be some sort of hateful insult. It's actually kinda comical really. I don't think I'm anything like my uncle or ever will be. Dad's just an idiot. He gets pissed off for no reason at the drop of at hat over insignificant shit and then he's gotta open his yap. I'm sick of hearing him after so many years of his junk. You reach a point where none of it matters or has any effect on you any more and it becomes surreal, or comical, or mundane. You just stop caring.

2.12.1994

Last night turned out to be sort of a bummer. Everything started out well enough. I left work early because a few friends were going to come over to my place to do some drinkin'. Senor Random showed up as well as AR, and Adam. Senor 23 flaked again. It was cool to see AR since it's been a long while and at first it was cool to hang out with Adam too, but ten minutes after he was here I really wished he wasn't.

Adam spent the whole night yapping about things that made absolutely no sense whatsoever, or he rambled on and on about himself. Most of the time he talked about himself actually. I wanted him to shut the fuck up. Some of the things he said were so ridiculous that I had to try so hard not to laugh at him. At one point he told me "I'm a megalomaniac. I'm a dick. You win some, you lose some." Then he looked at me like I totally understood his profound statement. I was in awe of his stupidity that evening. As the night wore on so did Adam's rambling and I started to feel sorry for him. He must be a very unhappy and insecure person these days. I don't know how accurate my observations are of him anymore since I only see him about once a year. We used to hang out together alot more a couple of years ago. He drank alot less back then.

Among other things, Adam guzzled my booze without saying thanks even once, clumsily wandered around my room knocking things over and making a walking disaster out of himself, and I caught him rifling through somebody else's coat. I don't know what he was looking for but that was kinda messed up.

When Adam finally left I was very relieved. I couldn't bring myself to kick him out. I wanted to ask him to leave badly but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. A while after Adam was gone I got a sinking feeling he might come back to the house. I locked the door to my room and Senor Random and I settled in to do some more drinkin'. We began talking about how much of a sloppy drunk Adam has become. The thing that amazes me the most about Adam is he hasn't had a real job since high school and I don't know how he has been able to survive this whole time. Senor Random and I came to the conclusion that Adam is much worse now than he has been in recent years with his drinking problem and his personality has become increasingly obnoxious. In a way it's like Adam is slowly going out of his mind. He likes to talk all the time and use big words that he doesn't even know the meaning of and he talks for a long time without saying anything of worth.

Just when things at my place had settled down and got pleasant again, Adam barged back into the house and cruised into my room. I expected it might happen. As soon as he walked drunkenly in he handed me a crudely photocopied picture of a gun that he had used in a flyer years ago. He informed me and Senor Random that he had just been over to the downtown copy center and made 1,000 copies of it. While he walked back to my house he threw all 1,000 of the photocopies around the downtown square. I didn't see the point. Senor Random started grilling Adam about it and after a few minutes got him to admit that he was littering rather than doing anything creative for art's sake. That was a damn funny conversation to watch.

Well at least tonight I can get some revenge. Adam invited me over to his place and I'm going to bring some misery with me. I'm going over there with Senor 23 and Senor Random in tow. I know those two guys alone will mess with him a bunch.

Hand Load Lines And Auto Test

The last stages of the PC manufacturing business here are the Hand Load lines and Auto Test. The Hand Load lines are where the bulk of our employees work. Each of the lines is responsible for certain division's PC boards in Bill and Dave's company. Hand Load lines do all of the manual assembly such as soldering, wiring, board modifications, and installation of oversize hardware or components. I've spent as much time as I can out on the Hand Load lines when we're out of work in the solder masking area. So far I enjoy building boards much more than anything else I've had the opportunity to try here since I was hired in.

Auto Test is an interesting part of the overall process. When we're finished with a box of boards in the hand load area, we deliver them to Auto Test which is located across the hallway from us. We have to clock in each box of boards with a time stamp device and then place the goods on the incoming shelves for the technicians. The techs grab a box of the PC boards and take them back to a station to do some functional testing and some preliminary tuning if it's required. The test stations are unusual. Each station is set up to accept modules that are made of black ESD safe plastic and have gold plated spring loaded test pins. When the technician installs the appropriate module to the station he can then load up a board and engage the vacuum. The vacuum pulls the board down into the fixture and makes contact on the gold test pins. They can then power the boards up and begin testing. Auto Test technicians primarily make sure the boards are functioning within spec and do some troubleshooting if there are problems. I would guess they probably find alot of simple dumb stuff like components installed with the polarity reversed, or damaged parts. I don't spend too much time over there interacting with those guys so I'm not really sure what else they do.

There's some other support groups we have here in the department. We have a small engineering group that will help us on the go whenever we have unforseen problems or requests for changing tooling or something else whacked out happens. I'd say they are all pretty good guys but there's definetly an oddball element to most of them there. Engineers here are kinda goofy. They are really good at what they do, but they sometimes surprise me with their weirdness. I get the feeling many of them don't see the daylight very often. Some of them are socially inept and keep to themselves. Hey as long as they do a good job that's OK with me.

Solder Wave

Our PC board assembly center exists for one reason. To feed boards into the Solder Wave. The Solder Wave is a machine that is enclosed in it's own building on our floor. The size of the Solder Wave is about two buses long and it's somewhat narrow. Usually it only takes one guy per shift to operate the whole thing which is impressive. It's a complex machine that takes the racked boards with loose parts installed from Royonics and solders every joint in the board in one shot. The Royonics operators take their loaded boards and carefully place them on slow moving chain driven conveyors. The conveyors trail into the front of the Solder Wave room and it runs the boards just slightly above the solder pot. In this manner you get thousands of perfect solder joints made in just seconds. It's actually quite cool to watch. The solder pot must have more than a gallon of liquid metal solder in it, and it looks like the shiniest chrome you've ever seen. As a racked board passes over the solder pot you can see shiny liquid metal wick up the parts legs and into all of the component's through holes.

After a board has hit the solder pot, it continues down the conveyor for a brief cool down period. Then, just like in an amusement park log ride, the boards disappear into a cave. Inside the closed portion of the Solder Wave machine a couple more things happen. The boards are rinsed in a warm water bath which not only cleans the boards but it also removes the hard vinyl substance we put on the back side of each PC board to mask certain areas so solder doesn't adhere to it. The solder masking goop we apply using those robots in my production area is water soluable. After the water bath they continue on through a drying stage and then get spit out back in the Racking area. The Rackers then de-rack the boards, put them back in black ESD boxes, and ship them out to an auto test area or the boards go back out to the hand load lines. This is why the Rackers always have to bust ass all shift long. They are taking new boards from my area and racking them, and de-racking boards all night long as they come out of the Solder Wave. Those folks really have to keep an eye on things or it can get out of control fast.

Here's why the solder masking process I work on is so important. Many, if not all of the PC boards have to get wiring or oversized components installed like large capacitors. Sometimes they even get additional hardware added like heatsinks. Without the solder mask those through holes that accomodate these kinds of parts would be filled up with solder from the Solder Wave and blocked up. So the masking keeps those holes clean and free. Also it's necessary to add some of these components and wiring after the Solder Wave opeartion anyway because they might extrude too far from the surface of the board and get caught in the machine. Or the parts might be sensitive to heat or moisture so they have to be added after Solder Wave is finished. When it's done right, and everything is running smoothly we can really crank out a high volume of PC boards.

CPI Line Meeting

I just arrived home from work. Today I had to be in the plant by 1:30pm to prepare for our line CPI meeting (Continuous Process Improvement). Overall it went much better that I expected, but not without some hassle and resistance from our day shift people. As a result of their stupidity they tried to fight solutions that our swing shift group had come up with and recommended. Our end goal was to get them to start working. It's extremely frustrating to have to work with a half dozen people that are delibrately trying to avoid doing their jobs. At times during the meeting I felt like they were trying to sabotage my efforts to hold them accountable for the lack of completed work from their shift on a daily basis. To my surprise, our supervisior came to the rescue and backed me up. I wasn't counting on her to do that. I have to assume she really got her ass handed to her by the rest of our management team because our day shift is so blatantly screwed up. Otherwise she'd probably continue her non-involvement style of running things.

The boss is going to hold them to the changes we are making so we will see what happens. If she goes back to not paying attention, and that is highly likely, the day shift slobs will go right back to doing practically nothing. My expectation is that she will start watching them like a hawk and call them on every dumb thing they do from now on. She needs to motivate them to do the work they should have been doing this whole time or get rid of them. It's really not that hard to figure out. Her employees either want to be here and earn a paycheck, or they don't. Why this is so difficult for some managers to comprehend amazes me.

It was a very slow day production wise today, so I ended up working on special projects all evening. I'm very tired now. I spent the bulk of the shift weeding out old documentation for PC boards that we no longer build. It's usually due to obsolescence of the particular board, or the instruments the boards went into were phased out. Either way all that excess paperwork in our files makes it difficult to call up the right board drawings quickly. There was so much outdated stuff that I filled up all the garbage cans in our area. I was constantly emptying them elsewhere on our floor and then I filled up the two big rolling dumpsters and all the big garbage cans around. I looked all over for other places to get rid of the bags. I didn't have too much luck and I even had one of our janitors bring the stuff back to me because he thought the papers we were throwing out was a mistake. Our custodial team is a little too helpful at times.

Repo Man

Two weeks ago Senor Random called me up at home with a request. He wanted my help repossessing one of his cars from his ex-girlfriend Heather. He figured I'd be up for the mayhem, and I readily agreed to help get the job done. I do enjoy comitting evil deeds against pesky ex-girlfriends for the cause of justice. I don't know why Senor Random and Heather broke up and to be honest it's none of my damn business anyway. So I didn't ask why he suddenly moved out of their place about a month ago. Apparently Heather didn't have a working car though and Senor Random has a fleet of classic Volkswagons so he lent her a light blue VW truck.

The agreement they had together was she would only need the VW for a week or two until Heather got a different car. From the sound of things I guess those couple of weeks passed, and Senor Random never heard from her. Then he called over there a few times and Heather never returned the calls. At that point he figured Heather was delibrately avoiding him and I suspect he got worried about the fate of his precious VW truck.

I met Heather at their place and talked to her only a few times in recent months. She's a blonde of average height, very plain looking, and her face has somewhat of a cherubic quality. Her cheeks are kinda puffy. I don't remember her ever saying anything interesting in conversation. I did notice she always smelled funny, like wet horse combined with fresh hay. Or maybe it was wet hay and fresh horse. I don't know which, all I know is she always smelled of stable-funk whenever she was around. I think Senor Random mentioned once that she worked at a horse place of some kind. Actually, maybe it was simply that she owned a horse. Oh well it doesn't matter. Heather smelled mangy. That's all you need to know.

My plan to repossess the VW was simple. Do it on a weeknight around 3am. Everyone is dead asleep by three in the morning. The cops are usually busy rounding up drunks as they flee the local dive bars and try to run the police gauntlet. As luck would have it, on the night we did the job there was a heavy downpour of rain. Even better to do crimes in the rain because if you do happen to make some racket just outside someone's bedroom window they will never suspect it's anything other than noise from the storm. It would make no sense for anyone to be peeking out a window every few minutes just to see what that last noise was. So I feel like I can operate with more confidence that I won't get caught. Crime does pay, actually. They just don't want you to know that. You do have to put a little thought into it though.

The repo job went much smoother and faster than I expected. Senor Random and Heather's place was in a rural part of town on the slope of a hillside. I drove us to the neighborhood and parked on a downhill side street about three blocks away. We walked to the house and Senor Random got in the truck, pulled the brake, and steered the vehicle down the driveway as I pushed. The driveway was all dirt and gravel that opened up to a long steep decline. Once we got it aimed in the right direction and the truck picked up momentum I hopped in. The truck rolled smoothly and silently to where I had parked my car. It took Senor Random less than five minutes to hotwire his truck. I asked him why the hell he was hotwiring his own car and he mentioned that he only had one set of keys. Obviously Heather had them. I imagine she must have been a little surprised to find no VW in the driveway that morning. Hehe.

Senor Random didn't have a place to store the truck short term so I saved him a spot at the back of the B Street house. Heather had never been over to my place so she would never think to look for it there. Personally I don't think she would have looked for it anyway but Senor Random was so paranoid about it that he wasn't taking any chances. Whatever. I was happy to help. Late night crimes like that are always fun.

2.10.1994

Jerry is my granola eating, dope smoking, incensce sniffing, flower child of a room mate. He's still here at B Street. I wish he would wake up and die some morning in the near future. I had the misfortune of discovering that his band, Zag, will most likely be playing another hippie kid gig here at the house this Saturday. This means I can plan on getting no sleep that night. It also means the house will be loaded with those burned out IQ-of-a-pumpkin organic types again. Now that I think about it I should stock up on some more stinky cigars. That seems to keep them at least six feet away from me whenever I walk through one of our hippie infested livingrooms.

Lately Jerry has been a little easier to get along with, but it's only because he hasn't been around the house as much. His loser friends haven't been camped out downstairs as much lately either. I even went out of my way to talk to him once or twice. I think I pretended to be interested in his dumb band or some shit like that. The main thing he's been doing to piss me off in recent weeks is he puts all of his newspapers out in the hallway in front of his bedroom door and somehow all of his used newspapers end up in front of my door. I have to keep kicking them out of my way to get into my room. The damn hippie can't even clean up newspapers.

Anthony is my other room mate here and he's in charge of all the bills. He collects the cash from all of us for the utilities and stuff. This month things are way out of whack. The water bill came in and the city said we used 44,000 gallons of water last month. That brings the bill to five hundred dollars. I don't know what the fuck happened on that one, all I know is I'm not paying any of it. We only have one bathroom here for the four of us so there's no way we could have used that much water in one month. Unless, something devious is going on...