8.5.1996

Chuck was on vacation in Alaska for a week so Don finished training me in Chuck's job, Final Assembly. Since I got burned out of the Material Coordinator position this is what I am stuck with. Final Assembly is actually when the instrument gets built from the ground up. Other assemblers on the line put together the instrument chassis and power supply, all of the board modules, a card cage, and the front panel interface. I have to grab all of those and then install them to the chassis. Then I've got to install a few hard line cables and wire the whole fucking box up. The wiring harness has about 50 connections that have to be soldered into all the board modules and the card cage. Good thing I got alot of wiring and soldering experience back in the PC board days otherwise this would be alot more difficult.

While Chuck was gone I finally got to take a deep breath and relax a little bit. Chuck is extremely obnoxious to work with. He won't shut his mouth and just about everything he talks about is racist in some way or abusive to someone around. He's a total fuckup. Anyone who has skin other than white he refers to as "Third World" people, and he likes to talk about whores. I'm getting tired of hearing about Cat Houses, as he likes to call them. The real problem working with this guy is he doesn't like anything I do as far as getting the job done. If it isn't performed exactly the way he would do it, I'm a retard and he lets me know it. None of the shit he complains about really matters though. It's all petty. For example he yells at me if I don't use all the same colored screws in the instrument chassis. If even one of them happens to be slightly discolored somehow he will bitch about it. Stupid stuff like that. He keeps getting in my hair and I have been real angry about it.

When I am training in a new job and I get to the point where I feel comfortable with working on my own, I will go back to the trainer any time I have a question. I've told Chuck this over and over. The first two days that Chuck was back from his Alaska trip he was pissed off that I was working in his spot. He sat right next to me and watched me like a hawk all day long. It was making me nervous and I make more mistakes when I'm nervous. Chuck jumped on every little chance I gave him to bitch at me when I messed up. Finally I got so fed up with it that I told him to buzz off. He didn't take it too well. Hey, I'm making enemies right and left in this joint so might as well add another one to the bone pile.

This job is going to become mundane quickly. I need to have more stuff to keep busy with so The Drunk gave me permission to float around between a half dozen assembly stations if there is work to do. If I start to get bored I can break up the monotony a bit.