Button Up Rejects

Remember a while back we hired an army's worth of new people that have never done this kind of work before in their lives? You might recall I also mentioned some of our idiot managers told us at that time "Anybody can do these jobs." Supervisors placed a number of new employees into our Mechanical Inspection/Electrical Inspection (Button Up) area. That's the last step in our process before we ship completed boxes out to customers. It's critical that employees working in Button Up pay particular attention to detail and stay focused. When rookies began working back there shipping boxes I predicted bad things would happen as a result. Sure enough, a whole bunch of junk has been able to get out the door since then.

The Japanese are some of our toughest customers to please. Typically, Japanese customers will refuse shipment of our products for the most insignificant problems. Something as minor as a ding in the paint or a tiny particle of dust trapped behind the front panel display glass is reason enough for them to reject their order and send it back to the factory. While that seems to me like unnecessary nitpicking and being unreasonably fussy I have to remind myself that a Japanese customer might have just spent $100K on a single test instrument. If I was in their shoes and I spent that kind of money on a product that had relatively minor cosmetic defects I would probably be pissed off too. From what I hear has happened in recent months, our customer satisfaction rating has plummeted through the floor. Monthly production has dramatically increased and we've got inexperienced workers screening finished products for defects. It's a terrible mix. Rookies are frequently unable to catch real problems and on top of that they seem to add even more colorful, unique problems of their own.

Lately the feedback we're receiving from the field indicates a huge spike in instruments shipped with cosmetic damage, missing accessories, incorrect operating manuals (customer ordered box Y but we shipped them a manual for box Z), software license keys that don't work or are missing, damaged hardware, and various hard electrical failures.

Then there's the really stupid shit.

We've been able to figure out fairly accurately what time of year some of our jacked up boxes shipped out of the factory. For example, a few boxes were sent to a Japanese customer with items rolling around loose inside the chassis. As the customer was unpacking their shipment an employee thought they heard stuff clunking around inside the instruments. They removed the instrument outer cover and the inner cover protecting the PC boards to discover a handful of Milk Duds. Milk Duds are popular for Halloween so we're really going out on a limb here and guessing that one of our nitwits was dumping them inside boxes back in October.

Another Japanese customer complained and rejected their shipment because they discovered candy wrappers plastered inside the instrument operating manuals. In that case the wrappers were for Cadbury's Chocolate Easter Eggs. April timeframe on that one. It is extremely embarrassing to have to explain how shit like this gets through our process and into a customer's hands. This is why we have a no-food policy in the instrument lines. More importantly, this is why only the most experienced instrument assemblers who have been here for many years should staff our Button Up areas instead of using jerks fresh off the street.

But hey. Anybody can do these jobs.

Feeling Sorry For Barney

Barney has been out of control. Almost every night he opens his mouth to say completely random stupid shit and TC shreds him to pieces instantly. Sometimes the rest of us join in like a group of sharks smelling blood. TC is so hilariously vicious at beating down Barney that I'm nearly in tears from laughing so hard. Barney has nearly been in tears too, but it hasn't been due to having a good time with us or from lighthearted amusement. He's slow on the uptake to realize he's being made fun of. Barney is generally confused and when it eventually dawns on him that he is being mocked he gets angry. Once or twice I've tried to tell him on the sly to stop making retarded comments out loud to the rest of Area 51's test group and just lay low. "Stay down" I told him, like I was a referee in a boxing match and Barney was the chump contender struggling to get up on his feet from the mat. He didn't listen and TC continued to go toe to toe with him for the knockout. Barney didn't get my drift.

It's really obvious to everyone that Barney has some personality problems. It's also plain as day that he has no skill or ability as a technician. Thinking about that one night I pondered how in the hell Barney got himself hired in here, in the first place. We have a fairly robust screening process for entry level electronic technicians here at Bill and Dave's. So how in the hell did that guy slip through the cracks? Curious. The way it works here is after a potential candidate has sent in a resume, the more promising people get a phone interview. During the phone interview veteran technicians will give the individual a test. Some of the questions are pretty tough from what I've heard. If the phone interview is a success then the next step is to come in for a real job interview and a written technical test that can take a couple of hours to complete. Could Barney be intelligent enough to run that kind of gauntlet and survive? I doubted it.

Late at night after Barney had gone home Wah, TC, and myself were sitting between the Adjust One station and their tech benches. We were shootin' the shit about Barney's antics and I mentioned to them that I couldn't understand why he had a job here. TC didn't get it either. Then Wah dropped a bombshell on us. Wah used to be on the interview team. When Barney came in to take the written test, Wah was the tech that sat him down and asked him a barrage of questions. She told us Barney scored an "F" on the written test. No surprise there. What she told us next was a shock though.

Wah said, "I got a phone call from a hiring manager asking me what I thought of Barney and he asked me if we should give him a job. I knew he failed the written exam but I felt sorry for him. I wanted to give him a chance. I told that manager to hire him."
My jaw dropped.
TC smiled.
Wah had an embarrassed look in her eyes. She knew better yet she broke the rules. Now we're all paying for it. So is the company, through all the scrapped PC boards and late instruments Barney now works on. There was no way I was going to let Wah forget that she held the door wide open for that screwball to waltz in here. TC was probably thinking the same thing, he wasn't going to let Wah forget it either and that's why he had an evil grin plastered across his face.

Debt To Society

Sitting on Autumn's livingroom couch I became more frustrated and angry with her. Too many thoughts were rattling around in my head at such a fast pace that I couldn't put a logical argument together as to why she should not waste her time teaching illiterate convicts. To a large degree I was disgusted with her. Violent offenders in a maximum security prison are throw-aways, people who are there because they committed acts of moral turpitude against society. I don't care if a serial rapist doesn't know how to solve simple math problems, nor do I care if a murderer can read or write. Fuck them. They're human garbage. I guess I divide people into categories of "worthy" or "not worthy" and Autumn doesn't.

It seems to me that Autumn has missed the point of being charitable, of what it really means to be an altruistic person. If you are going to help people, if you are determined to be a Saint, put your effort in where it's going to do the most good for society. Giving a kidney to an old man makes no sense to me. Why not have helped a person in dire need of a kidney transplant like a teenager or someone in their 20s instead? Wouldn't that have been a better choice? Why teach criminals basic literacy skills when there are tons of underprivileged kids in schools between Oakland and Richmond? Who is more deserving of Autumn's time?

Part of the reason why I am upset with Autumn is that her charitable acts are in my view, extreme. Once, she tried to explain to me why she does this stuff. Autumn feels like she owes a debt to society. In my opinion Autumn doesn't owe anyone a damn thing. Apparently she feels some kind of pain and the only way to get rid of it is by doing things to help other people. It was unclear to me if this pain she feels is physical, emotional, or imaginary. She lost me there, and I began to suspect that maybe what she is really dealing with is some form of mental illness. Something only a psychiatrist would be able to understand. The bottom line is Autumn doesn't care how I feel. She is going to do what she wants to do no matter what I say about it. To her, my opinions are not valid. That hurts.

With an accusatory tone in my voice I began asking questions. I wanted to know why she was so bent on tutoring criminals. Autumn said that most of San Quentin's inmates will eventually be paroled. If they don't have the most basic literacy skills before being put on the street there is a much greater chance of them reverting to a life of crime again. They'll land right back in prison. She had a good point. I didn't know what to say. I was greatly concerned with the kind of safety Autumn would have inside the prison. What if an inmate shanked her? Would guards be nearby in case she needed help? Autumn told me that in order for prisoners to be allowed into San Quentin's literacy programs they had to have good behavior status or something, and she said that many of them were old and grey. She blew off my worrying about her safety like I was being an idiot about it. Then it hit me. Autumn anticipated I wasn't going to support her decision and that decision had already been made. There was nothing I could do to change her mind.

Sideswiped

Just when I thought things between Autumn and I were finally settling back down into a sense of normalcy, she goes and hurls another monkey wrench at me, and into our relationship.

I had a very difficult time with Autumn's kidney donation. Since then her incisions have healed well. When she first got home from back east after being hacked open I was shocked at the sight of her wounds from surgery. I was upset and sad. She is back to her over-active self on weekends like nothing happened now though. Weeks passed and I did my best to put the whole situation out of my mind like it never took place. Once, Autumn invited me to have dinner with the man she gave her kidney to. I wanted no part of it. I have no desire to meet that man or his wife. Since then she has been fairly quiet about them and I have been happy to let it go at that.

We slid back into our routine of only seeing each other on weekends and spending the rest of our time alone doing our own thing and slaving away at our jobs during the week, fifty miles apart from one another. Things seemed good.

Autumn sat me down in her livingroom and told me she wants to be a volunteer teacher. She went on to inform me the volunteer teaching position she has in mind is at San Quentin. She would be teaching math, reading, and writing skills to convicted rapists, murderers, and drug fiends. Autumn gave me a minute or two after telling me about her plan and asked how I felt about it. I didn't say anything right away, but on the inside it was like someone had just punched me hard in the gut and I couldn't breathe. I felt like the rug was being pulled out from under my feet and I was about to do a faceplant into the floor.

I didn't see this one coming.

Abu

One of our jackass supervisors dumped Abu in Area 51. Figures. For the time being we're stuck with him. A managed move like this takes place when a problem employee has to be swept under the carpet because his or her coworkers have been complaining about the individual to the bosses for too many months. Instead of trying to correct an employee's poor job performance or address the employee's personality conflicts with coworkers it's easier for supervisors to simply shuffle deadbeat employees around from area to area. They're hoping the issue will magically go away by itself. Never works out that way. Ever. Abu is now the new Adjust Two station operator on swing shift. He's already fucking up after being here with us only a few days. I'm not in the least bit surprised. We'll end up wasting our time babysitting the jerk.

Dung and I were talking about Abu the other night. Dung knows like the rest of us do that Abu is pretty much worthless around here. Dung refers to him as "Abuuuuuushit." When I told him Abu had been tossed our way he said, "Abuuuuushit. You see? Yeah! Yeah yeah!" As usual he made his patented gestures in the air with both arms like a famous orchestra conductor as he said "Abuuuuushit."

I've watched Abu screw off for months. In the assembly lines he has a reputation for disappearing from his workbench hours at a time. Nobody can find him when they need him and when he is present and accounted for all he does is talk on the phone or sleep. One night about six months ago I sat in with Abu while he was building instrument chassis. My product group was slow, Abu's group was slammed so they needed all the help they could get. Abu was supposed to train me on his assembly station but that didn't happen. Instead he talked my ear off for most of an eight hour shift about his home country, Eritrea. I did learn alot about Eritrea that night, I admit, but we sure as hell didn't get any boxes finished.

Abu is kind of funny looking. He reminds me of a black Freddy Mercury that wears his hair in a 'fro. It's because of his odd jaw line and pinched up mouth. I think Abu is a stoner. That would explain why his eyes are always halfway closed and bloodshot. It might also explain his habit of falling asleep on the job so much, too. In the past couple of evenings I can't help but watch as Abu puts his feet up on BP's workbench and kicks back. Each night he grabs a box to test and if we're extremely lucky Abu might actually finish it before he goes home at the end of the shift. That's pathetic. One tested unit per eight hour shift. BP knocks out tons of boxes during her eight hours on dayshift. You have to know it's pretty weak when a blind woman can do more work than you can. And in this situation it's not a joke.

Barney

"Hey! Hey Guy! The alternator in my unit... is broken!"
TC looked up from the signal generator he was working on and laughed. He laughed and shot back at Barney, "Maybe you'd better check the starter then."
A few of us snickered. That's Barney for ya. Apparently he doesn't know the difference between a RF Attenuator and an automotive alternator. Chump.

Every night this week Barney has been saying the most retarded shit I've ever heard. It's obvious he doesn't have a clue about electronics, yet here he is in Area 51 tasked with the troubleshooting and repair of complex test and measurement instruments. Supposedly Barney has a degree from college that says he is a full-fledged electronic technician. You wouldn't know it from working with him though. He knows less about our products than I do, and that's messed up.

"Hey! Hey Guy! My unit is unleveled."
"Check the wheels on your instrument cart." TC doesn't waste a second of time when responding to Barney's stupid announcements. Whenever Barney yells out "Hey! Hey Guy!" he's always trying to get help from TC. Barney never calls TC by name or tries to get his attention in a calm, polite manner. Instead he yells across the test area at TC in a state of weird panic. I think it's starting to annoy TC but for the rest of us it's great entertainment.

Barney blurted out, "Did you know the Babylonians brewed beer?" Before anyone could respond he continued, "If you tailgate me I throw pennies at your windshield!"

"Hey! Hey Guy! What is the YO efficiency?"
"What is the YO efficiency? Huh?" Everyone was confused on that outburst from Barney. TC had to think about it for a few minutes before he realized Barney was asking about the YiG Oscillator. Barney said YO like a rapmaster thug instead of saying "why-oh." None of us understood what he was getting at.

Barney is lost. He is hopless. He is junk. Whoever hired that guy in here deserves to be kicked in the balls. Hard.

Adjust Two

A few feet away from where I sit working at the Adjust One test station there is a dark grey five foot tall test station called Adjust Two. Adjust Two is the next step in our instrument test/calibration process. From what I can tell, Adjust Two is predominantly a manual tuning operation. I asked TC about that station and he said, "Adjust 2 is for adjusting the power level on the unit. It sets the calibration-constants, power to make sure that the power that was set on the unit was the power that was delivered. It also has hookups so that we can make sure that every BNC connector on the unit is actually connected to the right place and electrically functional. There are also some AM adjustments, but that's small shit."

The interesting thing about Adjust Two isn't really the equipment or the process, rather it's the female technician that operates it on dayshift. I call her BP. BP got her degree in electronics and moved out here from the east coast to work for Bill and Dave's company. Bill and Dave's prides itself on hiring people with disabilities and doing everything they possibly can to accomodate employees. BP is blind. In order for her to make measurements on a unit and then tune it, engineering rigged up the Adjust Two station with an electronic voice box. When BP hooks up an instrument and starts the test routine, that little voice box calls out the measured value. With only a second or two of delay as BP makes real-time tuning adjustments the voice box tries to keep up with her. It's pretty cool. Usually in the afternoon when I first get to work I say hello to BP and her trusty seeing-eye dog, named Doug. Doug is a laid back Golden Retriever who's really friendly, but before I can pet him I have to ask for permission from BP to do so. It's a rule she has about approaching the dog. I don't know why. Anyway during BP's shift Doug patiently rests on a big blue cushion underneath the workbench BP sits at. Doug doesn't seem to mind hanging out with all us nerds and geeks.

Boxes that have passed the Adjust One station are beginning to pile up in the Adjust Two area. BP is working as fast as she can, but there's only so much a person can do in an eight hour shift. There's some talk about getting someone to run that station with us on swingshift since nobody is currently operating it at night. I don't know who we might get. A few names are in the hat. There's only one employee's name I heard so far that I hope we don't have foisted upon us. That's Abu. Abu is notoriously lazy. At night he spends most of his time wandering around in the building corridors, or running his mouth like a jackhammer. He's also a phone beast. No matter where managers have moved him in the department he continues to suck. So like I said, I hope we don't get him.

Pimple Crusher

Usually by the middle of each work week I discover a large pimple or two growing out of the center of my back. I'll suddenly feel itchy and strain one of my arms trying to scratch at whatever is bugging me. Occasionally as I'm scratching away at something I cannot see back there, my fingers will suddenly feel wet. Under my nails there will be a pulpy mix of white curd and deep red smears that was contained in a monster zit. Other times I don't notice that a pimple or two is there quietly incubating on me until the weekends when I'm spending time with Autumn.

Autumn is a funny creature. All of my past girlfriends have had interesting little quirks and habits that make them unique from one another. One of Autumn's goofy quirks setting her apart from the rest of the pack is that she likes to find and destroy any pimples growing on my back. Since we only see each other on weekends she seems to take particular pleasure in popping them, like it's some sort of holiday bonus. Usually just before bedtime she will ask to inspect me, so I'll roll over on my stomach and patiently wait while she does her thing. It's kind of funny, like something you'd see from the pages of an R. Crumb comic book. Autumn is the comic book character that busts zits with her fingers in an intense state of purpose. When Autumn finds and crushes a pimple that produces a heavy amount of gunk she frequently will blurt out a triumphant, "Hah!" Other times she just makes a few self-satisfied chortles and as I look up to see her reflection in my bedroom mirror I notice there's a pleasant smirk on her face.

Pimple eradication doesn't always have a happy ending though. Sometimes Autumn can't seem to muster up enough strength in her fingers to force a zit open. In those cases she gets frustrated and uses her hands to push downward on me with greater force rather than press her fingers together from either side of my blemish. As I end up being jammed into the mattress I have a harder time trying to breathe. Autumn's fingernails begin to dig under my skin which is damn painful. With a concerned tone to her voice she will ask if she's hurting me. Even though I can barely take in a lungful of air and tears well up in my eyes, I usually manage to tell her "I'm fine." I'm supposed to be tough, after all. With my face down in pillow I'll mumble at her to push her fingers together instead of straight into me to which she always replies with frustration, "I can't." To myself I think, "Girl fingers are supposed to be stronger than that." Oh well. If Autumn doesn't hit paydirt in five minutes or so she will give up with a disappointed, mopey sort of movement. But that's okay though because she can always try again the next evening.

Troubleshooting The Deck

I'm definitely getting my feet wet in the realm of instrument testing.

Adjust One has been a much needed challenge for me as things around here were getting boring. There's a decent amount of manual tuning that I have to perform on each unit which means getting a box into the proper power range or frequency level can be a chore. Many of the PC boards are loaded with potentiometers that can take up to 20 turns before a signal peak pops up on my test rack's oscilloscope or spectrum analyzer. Sometimes I see what the technicians refer to as a "false peak" during a tuning adjustment. A false peak looks like a good signal on the display, but if you crank a pot just a few more turns you'll get an even cleaner, stronger signal peak. It's important to find the right one before moving on to the next tuning adjustment. So far the whole process has been straightforward enough. I think I'm doing okay with it.

My real headaches come from that no-good RF Deck assembly. The RF Deck runs down the length of our units on one side and it's loaded with shiny gold plated microcircuits. Each microcircuit is held to a metal back plate by numerous screws and also made more secure by a series of metal rigid cables. I hated building these things, but now I've discovered trying to troubleshoot them is even worse than simply putting them together. During testing sometimes I'll get a real dirty signal up on the display. Instead of a nice clean signal peak that resembles the silhouette of a tall traffic cone I'll end up with a jagged runt of a triangle. Or I'll get what the techs refer to as a "suck out" or a "power hole". What those are is a total loss of radio frequency power like a signal dropped by 10 to 20dB. On an oscilloscope display it looks like a sharp spike pointing at the floor. All of these indicate a real problem somewhere on the RF Deck.

To locate a hidden problem in the RF chain of microcircuits and cables you have to be methodical. The first thing to do is check to make sure all the rigid metal cables are seated properly on microcircuits and torqued down all the way. Sometimes I'll find a loose nut on a cable and the messed up signal I see on my equipment instantly cleans up. Most of the time however I'm not that lucky, I have to begin tearing the whole microdeck section down instead. I have to pull the deck out of the unit and mount it on top of an extender board. The extender board makes a connection between the deck itself and the instrument's motherboard. Then I loosen up microcircuit screws to give them a little play and start removing sections of rigid cable. I hook up a power sensor with a 90 degree angle section of rigid cable so the sensor can be placed very close to microcircuits. There isn't much room to work with around them. Once the sensor is hooked up I take more measurements until I find which microcircuit or section of cable was causing a weak signal. It's a really time consuming process of elimination.

Obviously I don't understand the electronic theory behind how all this stuff works, but I've asked the techs to try and break things down for me in a bonehead sort of way so I at least have a little idea of what each microcircuit is there for in the box and what it is supposed to do. TC gave me a pretty good overview the other day when I asked him about it.

TC said, "Here is what I know about the RF Deck. The YO (YiG Oscillator) is the oscillator that makes an RF signal between 2-7Ghz. The YO feeds into the YTM (YiG Tuned Multiplier) which multiplies the frequency from the YO to 2-26.5Ghz. The YTM feeds into the Dual Mod. This is where the amplitude or frequency modulation is added. It is also where the feedback from the Detector is adjusted. From there the signal is fed into the YTF (Filter) that separates the unwanted frequencies from the frequency that the unit is tuned at. The YTF is fed into the Doubler. The Doubler doubles all the frequencies so that we can get 50Ghz out of a 26.5Ghz unit. At the end of the RF Chain is a Crystal Detector. The Crystal Detector is used as a feedback loop. When the power goes too high, the Detector converts the RF signal to a DC level, and then sends a correction back to the Dual Mod. The Dual Mod adjusts the power so that it remains the level that the instrument is set at. The last component is the Attenuator. The Attenuator acts as a resistor would in a DC circuit, but it does the same thing with power (measured in dBm)."

When TC finished up explaining the RF Deck to me, it kind of reminded me of that old song about skeletons. You know, the one that goes something like the leg bone is connected to the hip bone the hip bone is connected to the whatever. I did come away from the talk feeling like I had a much better working understanding of what all those little gold plated boxes do. So that was good. As far as my training is concerned with TC, Wah, and the Crazy Redhead lurking about, I think I'm in very competent hands here.

Adjust One

Hee Haw made good on her promise to rig me up with a more technical job. I'm a little surprised she followed through with it since most supervisors here are notorious for not doing what they say they're gonna do.

I've moved out of the Signal Generator instrument assembly area into test. The first station in our test process is Adjust One. What happens there is a raw box goes through a series of procedures and programs that set initial tuning ranges on some circuitboards. It's also supposed to set general frequency ranges and check for basic functionality. Since I don't have a technical background or any schooling in the field of electronics, there's only so much I can do if I find a problem. One strength I do have is years of experience working with this stuff. Already I've spotted damaged or missing components on a few boards so I can just go ahead and replace or repair that crap on my own. Saves everyone else a bunch of time. So far though most of the time I find a failure I just troubleshoot down to the board or microcircuit level and replace that. Board swapping is easy, but removing and replacing a microcircuit from the RF deck portion of a box is always a total pain in the ass. Takes a bunch of time and an operator has to do almost a complete tear-down of the RF deck assembly. Kind of nasty.

The station I'm working at consists of two identical eight foot tall test racks placed at either end of a long workbench. Two people could run boxes through Adjust One at the same time, one tester at each rack. We'd be rubbing elbows sitting back to back though. For now it's just me and when I'm feeling ambitious I'll hook up two boxes and jump back and forth all night long from test rack to test rack. It's fun. The equipment I'm using to test our Sig Gens with is vintage, most of it 1970s-80s era and all of it our own brand. I can tell what decade each unit is from by the style of front panel keys or CRT screen. 1970s oscilloscopes for example will generally have a rather pretty sky blue colored screen while a 1980s Spectrum Analyzer will have a bright emerald green monochrome display like an old Apple II computer. I prefer working with our vintage equipment. It seems like the old stuff was always better made. More rugged, more reliable.

Working here in test I'm starting all over again like a shit for brains. Thankfully the swing shift tech crew has been really helpful. Wah, TC, and a Crazy Redhead are babysitting me. They are spending alot of their time answering my questions and showing me the ropes. Pretty cool. I'm having a good time with this change. There is an element of screwyness to it though. A guy named Barney works kind of off to the side of our test area as a technician on a smaller Sig Gen product. He doesn't seem able to keep his mouth shut during the shift and he constantly says absurd shit. Barney doesn't seem very technically skilled, either. For now I'm just going to keep quiet and observe...

Hallway Locker Dining

I was talking with Tet earlier in the shift today. Seems like almost everybody in the department working swing shift is noticing oddball things about Germ Freak. It's the latest hot gossip across the shop floor. Tet mentioned he's been watching Germ Freak covertly sipping bottled water while he's hunched down low in front of his open locker out in the main hallway. From the way Tet describes it, Germ Freak squats down to the floor and opens his locker door about three-quarters of the way. He looks down the hallway to see if anyone is around and then he sneaks a few quick drinks off his water bottle. Does the same thing with food too, like if he has a sandwich he will make sure the coast is clear and then take a stealth bite of his food. Tet wanted to fuck with the guy a little, so once or twice he said he came out of nowhere to interrupt Germ Freak's sneaky locker cuisine. From what Tet says, Germ Freak slams the locker door shut as soon as he sees someone in the hall and acts very nervous.

What a kook.

Shitfoot joined the conversation Tet and I were having. Shitfoot told us he's been watching Germ Freak eat Pop Tarts almost every day at his workbench. He says Germ Freak meticulously opens up the Pop Tart foil package, removes each Pop Tart with care, and then proceeds to break off all the edges. He only eats the luscious frosted centers. Shitfoot asked Germ Freak why he eats them in such a goofy manner and he responded, "Because the edges touch the packaging."
I said, "So what the fuck about the top side that touches the foil, or the one on the bottom that's in constant contact with the shit?"
Shitfoot shouted and pointed at me, "Exactly! I decided not to mention that because eating those Pop Tarts seems like it's his only daily pleasure and it might ruin it for him if he thinks about it that way."

Automatic Door Superstition

Shitfoot has befriended the Germ Freak, why I have no idea. The two of them went out for lunch tonight. When they came back, Shitfoot found out Germ Freak has another odd quirk. He tweaks over automatic doors. You know, like the kind at grocery stores. Someone steps into a motion sensor and the door opens magically all on its own...

After parking in the lot behind Building 2, Shitfoot and Germ Freak walked towards an automatic sliding glass door to get back inside. We all have to use a proxy card at a security sensor in order to trigger that door to open from outside the building. The two of them were deeply mired in some sort of involved conversation while they were walking so Shitfoot wasn't paying particular attention to anything else. Shitfoot said he used his proxy card, the door opened and as he was walking inside he heard Germ Freak shout "Whoa!" He looked back and saw Germ Freak standing outside with his hands up in the air like he was a helpless victim in a stagecoach robbery.

Shitfoot asked him what the problem was and Germ Freak said, "I can't walk through automatic sliding doors."
"How come?"
"I'm superstitious about them."
At that point Shitfoot told me the situation was becoming too screwy so he decided to not ask Germ Freak why he had a problem with the door. Instead, Shitfoot chose to leave him outside. I guess Germ Freak eventually found his way back into the building. He walked around until he found the manual double doors on the other side of our Chemical Stores area.

Scream Like A Little Girl

Man, it's not fair. I step out of the production area for like, ten minutes and I miss all the good shit.

Typically on swing shift as the hours pass by later into the night, people working on the production line become absorbed in their tasks and zone out. The area settles into a peaceful quiet with only the hum of hundreds of cooling fans in test racks making any noise. It's an almost hypnotic atmosphere that makes me feel like I'm in a science fiction film. Idle chatter between employees dies off. You subconsciously tune out the background noises of pneumatic torque tools being used at random intervals. It's like you could hear a pin drop on the concrete floor from across the factory. If anything sudden and loud happens with no warning, people will practically jump a couple of feet out of their chairs. That's what happened while I was in another part of the facility. The quiet was shattered by Germ Freak. He flipped the fuck out.

Olaf gave me the details. He said, "Germ Freak started screaming like a four year old girl that had been slapped across the face by a man trying to hit a four year old as hard as he could. We thought someone had just lost a limb or something and it scared the shit out of a few people. Some of us ran over to where he was sitting. As soon as he saw us coming he shrieked at us to stay away from him and he spat into a tiny wound on one of his fingers. It was like a pin-prick or something, there wasn't even a scratch."
"What the hell?"
"A supervisor in another part of the building heard his screaming and came running down the hall probably thinking an employee had just died. When she got here she saw what we did, no real injury. Germ Freak kept whimpering so the supervisor asked him if he wanted an ambulance. Germ Freak didn't notice it, but as she asked about the ambulance she looked at us and rolled her eyes."
"Then what did you guys do?"
Olaf said, "Nothing. We left him alone and went back to work. He was acting like a nutjob."

Sheesh. What a big fucking sissy.

Finger Cots

Germ Freak seems to have discovered a way to protect his precious hands from touching dirty things while he's on the job. To him, everything around here is filthy. I don't know who turned him on to it or if he found them purely by accident, but he's been wearing rubber ESD finger cots on both hands non-stop. He filled a small box with a few hundred of them and every couple of hours he sheds the ten he's wearing and puts on a fresh set. If you aren't familiar with what a finger cot is, it's like a miniature condom. I've seen them in various colors over the years but here at Bill and Dave's we have jet black ones. In the electronics industry finger cots are useful for keeping skin oils off of sensitive components and microcircuits. Skin oil will sometimes contaminate circuits that later on will result in dendrite crystals and or rotten solder joints. Dendrites cause short circuits in PC boards. Because they are made of a conductive material, finger cots can reduce static discharge. Finger cots are also useful for keeping chemicals off of your hands if you happen to work with them.

What makes Germ Freak's use of those things kind of silly here in assembly is he doesn't work with microcircuits or chemicals so there is no real need for them here. It won't hurt anything now that he is wearing them all the time though. It's obvious he's quite pleased with himself for armoring his virgin contamination-free mitts. Any time someone drops by his workbench to talk to him, Germ Freak sort of sits back in his chair and places his hands just close enough so that he can tap his fingertips together relentlessly like a zombie. Nobody has said anything to him about it but I can tell everybody thinks he's being extra weird.

Germ Freak's Vacation

Things have been pretty nice in assembly minus the Germ Freak. He's been gone for a couple of weeks on a vacation to Hawaii. I lost track of how many days he was gone. Today he returned to work bearing tourist trinkets as gifts for all of us. A nice gesture on his part I suppose, but I would have been happier if he had skipped giving me a turn picking something from his basket of goodies. Before he left to go on his trip, I joked around with Shitfoot about Germ Freak probably being one of those nitwits that won't get on a plane unless he's wearing a respirator. Or at the very least a HEPA dust mask.

When the Germ Freak walked over to Final Assembly he caught me up to my elbows in gutted boxes. I didn't have anywhere to go, so I sat and took the hit. I tried to feign interest in his collection of ball point pens, minature decks of playing cards, key chains, and lighters. The sooner I grabbed an item and made small talk with the guy the sooner he would be gone. As I selected a ball point pen from his pile o' crap, I asked him how the flight went. Germ Freak said, "It was okay, but some people were making fun of me when I walked on board the plane."
Hmmmm. I smelled stupidity on his part. "And why were they hassling you?"
"They recycle the air inside planes. Did you know that?"
"Yeah. So what?"
"I don't want to catch a cold from somebody else so I wore a mask during the flight and some people were ridiculing me because of it."
Man. Can I call this shit or what? I laughed in his face.
Germ Freak looked at me with a hurt expression and he said, "I'd really like it if we could be friends. Can we be friends?"
Oh brother. This was getting too sappy for me so I said, "Sure, pal. We can be friends. Thanks for the pen. Now take a hike. I'm fuckin' working here." I gestured around at the four or five dead Signal Generators I had on carts surrounding my chair.

Kitchen Calamity

Sometimes, I'm really lazy. Tonight I went to start a load of dirty dishes in the dishwasher and I discovered the box of Cascade was totally empty. Holding the box upsidedown and shaking it violently only produced a light sprinkle of soap granules and a cloud of dust. Even though there's a big ass twenty four hour grocery store right around the corner from where I live, I decided to take the easy way out. I substituted liquid dish soap for the other kind. No big deal, dish soap is dish soap. Doesn't matter if it comes out of a bottle or a box. Right?

I learned the hard way that not all dish soaps are created equally, nor are they all universal in purpose. After I filled both compartments with green Palmolive where the dusty granulated soap usually goes, I slammed the door on the dishwasher shut and fired that sucker up. No sooner had I turned around to grab a beer I noticed suds were pouring out from under the dishwasher's door frame. Then the kitchen floor flooded. And then soapy suds were engulfing the entire kitchen like The Blob. The mass of pure white soap suds were making a run through the utility room for the garage.



Fourty five minutes later I had beads of sweat collecting in my eyebrows. I contained the soap sludge armed only with a ratty old mop and a bottle of Negra Modelo beer.



Evidently, I fucked up. Liquid dish soap is not okay for the dishwasher. Now I know.

Sensationalism Or Journalism?

Months after Autumn underwent a successful kidney donation operation and had been recuperating at home, she was contacted by a news reporter from the San Francisco Chronicle. He wanted to talk to Autumn and interview her about being a kidney donor for an article he was working on. Autumn agreed to meet with this reporter and tell her story. Her hope was to make other people aware of kidney donation issues and by being a living donor she was able to save another person's life. By making her sacrifice public, maybe it would inspire other people to follow her example.

On August 11, 2002 the San Francisco Chronicle ran her story. Sort of. It was a simple enough tale to tell, a woman agreed to become a living kidney donor for a stranger and by doing so saved another human being from death. Instead of going with a positive story of inspiration, instead of actually educating the public about kidney donation issues, the Chronicle's staff writer chose to write what I like to refer to as a "fear story." Fear stories are common enough spin in the news these days. They are designed to sell newspapers and scare dingbat housewives. That's about it. The more sensational a headline is, the better. Autumn's story appeared with the headline Transplant patients turn to Internet Health officials wary of black market in body parts. Oh, scary! I didn't know that Craigslist was a black market human organ clearinghouse!

I read the article. It was truly ridiculous. Laughable even. The Chronicle's reporter didn't waste any time jumping straight into a bunch of dubious overdramatic bullshit. He described the plight of a man in need of a kidney donation asking for help by way of the internet as a person who had wandered into the complex world of organ trading. Gimmie a fuckin' break. All that guy did was post an ad begging for assistance from someone. Anyone. Is that organ trading? I think not. The article continued. Against a backdrop of desperate people and the unprecedented reach of Internet marketing, officials worry that the ingredients are in place for an electronic black market in body parts. Ah, I see. The ingredients are in place. Take a dash of internet, a cup full of kidney and a body or two and you've got an "electronic black market in body parts." So does that mean the black market in body parts has started yet or is it still in the works? What a joke.

Autumn's experience as a living kidney donor was used as nothing more than a backdrop, an example if you will, for a story that had little if anything to do with her. It was about as poor an example as you could possibly find for proof of black market internet organ trading. Autumn and the old guy that got her kidney were two consenting adults that worked out a cut and dry deal between themselves. Very little money was involved. Autumn only asked that in return for her kidney, any costs incurred should be paid for by the kidney recipient. That meant her plane flights, hotel room, meals, and a couple weeks of lost pay from her job would be covered. Her requests were sensible and reasonable. No federal or state laws were being broken in this situation, despite a few wingnut claims to the contrary in the Chronicle's article. When I finished reading the crap news article I realized any opportunity for something positive to come out of it was totally thrown away.

Nice job, assholes.

Conversation With Q

Q called me up looking for Autumn today. She wasn't here, I guess she must have missed his call at her apartment. I don't talk to Q often. There was an awkward silence for a moment and then he asked me, "How is she doing?"
"Autumn is sleeping alot. They told her after the operation she would feel extra tired for a while. I kind of like it because she is staying in bed late on weekend mornings with me for a change."
Q said, "You know, it's a noble thing she's done. I just wish it wasn't my daughter that did it."
"Yeah. I wish it wasn't my girlfriend that had done this, either."

After Q said goodbye and hung up, I sat down on the edge of my bed and thought about everything that happened. Autumn was upset with me and hurt because I didn't support her decision to donate one of her kidneys to a total stranger. She flew back east for the operation. I didn't go with her. On the inside I was torn between wanting to be supportive somehow but still making it clear I did not condone her action. Q's comment, "I just wish it wasn't my daughter that did it" made me feel a little better. Maybe my negative reaction to Autumn's choice wasn't really out of line after all. I don't know what to think actually, the whole situation is so incredibly weird.

Living Donor

I am so depressed and confused right now.

Autumn made an announcement to me today that I was afraid might be coming soon. Not too long ago while I was spending a weekend at her apartment I discovered a package of medical paperwork sitting on her coffee table. When I asked her what it was about, Autumn told me there was an old guy on Craigslist that had recently placed an ad. He was desperate for a kidney. She went on to say that this person had a rare blood type making it unlikely he would find a suitable kidney donor before he died. Apparently he had been on dialysis for so long that his veins were collapsing. In order to clean out his blood the dialysis had to be placed into good sections of veins closer and closer to his heart. There is a risk of heart infection when dialysis treatment has been prolonged over extended periods of time. This was all news to me, I knew nothing about the subject. Her medical paperwork was for blood tests which she was going to go ahead and have performed to see if she would be a match. I couldn't believe it. Not to worry she said, she probably wouldn't be a close enough match, it was no big deal. I did worry though, and looking back on it now I'm starting to think that her story about blood chemistry was all bullshit. I suspect she wanted to do this from the moment she read that Craigslist ad.

Testing on her blood was completed this week and it showed she had a close enough blood chemistry to the man in need of a new kidney. She has chosen to be a living kidney donor and save the guy's life. This is an extreme act of kindness that I do not understand. I mean, if her younger brother suddenly had his kidneys fail and Autumn stepped up to the plate to save him, that I could understand. If Autumn decided to be a living kidney donor for a complete stranger who was a teenager or someone in their 20s I'd still have a difficult time with it but I could understand it better than giving a kidney to a grey haired man in his 50s or 60s. If you're going to make such an important sacrifice why not place it where it will do the most good? An older man seems like a poor choice for this. Compared to a teenager in need of a kidney transplant hasn't a man in his fifties lived long enough? Why save him? What's so special about this particular person? I don't get it.

I questioned Autumn for a long time. We sat in her livingroom and I hit her with every reason I could think of why she shouldn't do this. She easily brushed my feelings and concerns aside. When I asked about the risks to her health and possible complications Autumn rattled off medical statistics like she was a computer. She had an answer for everything I asked about so quickly that it was a little odd. Either she had spent a tremendous amount of time researching being a living kidney donor or someone had done a very thorough job coaching her on what to say if anybody didn't agree with her decision. Autumn said that on average, people who are living kidney donors have a longer life span than people with two fully functional kidneys. And she said life threatening complications from the operation are low. Still, I didn't want her to do it.

The conversation ended when Autumn plainly stated to me, "It's my gift to give." There was no further discussion. It was obvious that no matter what I might say to her on this matter she had already made up her mind to go through with it. She was going to donate a kidney and choose who to give it to. Period. No one would have any input. Autumn was also determined to make an altruistic statement by refusing to accept any payment for her kidney. I won't lie, when Autumn told me her plans I was angry and frustrated. It made no sense. Rather than use logic to solve problems and make decisions, Autumn was using her emotions. That doesn't work out too often.

Ramp Up

Pressure from upper management to shift instrument production from the United States to Malaysia has been heavy. In order to stay competative in the global marketplace they say we have to ship boxes out of Malaysia. Management's song and dance on this point is rapidly becoming stale. Currently there are a number of high profile initiatives and projects running full-tilt in order to make this transfer of technology happen sooner rather than later. We're all pretty stressed out and spread thin as a result. There's rumored talk and speculation many of us will lose our jobs once we've handed everything off to Malaysia. Honestly I don't know what will happen. Most of the time I try not to think about it. I'm too busy to care right now.

More Malay are arriving here weekly to train with us on many aspects of producing boxes, from Material Coordinating to Engineering and everything else in between. Simultaneously, a team of technicians are building dozens of brand new test racks. As each batch of new racks are completed they are rapidly packaged up for shipment to our factory in Malaysia.

At the same time general mayhem is taking place across the factory our greedy little managers are encouraging the marketing staff and sales force to "punch up the numbers" as they like to call it. Punching up the numbers means go out and sell everything you can no matter what it takes to convince someone to buy, even though there is no possible way we can realistically deliver finished instruments to customers on time. When a customer places an order with us we give them a quoted standard time from the moment they place the order until it is actually shipped. From start to finish a Signal Generator could take months to complete under normal circumstances. I know what they're doing. Management is just trying to make the books look good for end of quarter financial results. They'll get customer orders on the books, bury us under a huge backlog of work and leave us scrambling to figure out their mess.

In production a section of shop floor has been cleared for the storage and assembly of workbenches from a company called GWS. GWS makes killer production workstations for use in electronics. We've been buying their stuff almost exclusively for the past few years and I really like them. I wouldn't mind having a GWS bench at home in my garage, actually. They're that good. Expensive though, a standard workstation has a price tag in the thousands of dollars. Adding an electric motor to a GWS bench so an operator can raise or lower the work surface easily adds over another grand to the cost. That's way out of my price range. Anyway, someone around here put together a group of guys to build all these new workbenches. We need those benches here for the short term to help accomodate Malay employees. Right now at each bench we've got people doubled or tripled up which makes things cramped for everyone. In the long term once the Malay have been trained up and head home all those extra work benches will be shipped out to their factory for use on new start up instrument product lines.

Unabomber Gets Himself Fired

It finally happened.

I'm not sure what the blowout argument was between Unabomber and his boss the other day but it must have been one hell of a fight. No doubt it had to be over something petty because that guy never knew when to shut his big fat mouth. The next morning when Unabomber came into work, he was spotted by site security officers and recorded on camera carrying a large package that looked suspicious. Unabomber's supervisor fired him as soon as he arrived in the Metrology Lab and had security escort him off the property. There was one problem though. Nobody could find the suspect package Unabomber brought in to work. I guess someone thought it a potentially dangerous enough incident to call the police and request help from their bomb squad.

Bomb squad personnel were unable to locate the package.

Personally, I'm happy to know that fool has been thrown out of here. Too bad it took so long for someone in authority to act. Employees like Unabomber should never have been hired in the first place. Now if they could just get rid of that deadbeat J2, we'll really be on a roll.

Playing In The Yard

Autumn had to go fetch her car from that hickville transmission shop this past weekend. A close friend of hers named Jamie was nice enough to drive her all the way out there to pick up her Honda. The transmission shop had to build a new gearbox using parts from a couple different years of Honda five speed manual transmissions. From what I gleaned from Autumn's phone conversations with the shop, her year of Honda had a weird five speed in it and they only manufactured it for two years. I think. Anyway the cost of rebuilding it was expensive. Surprisingly it cost even more than a rebuilt automatic transmission. I feel terrible about it. There's no point in telling the truth now. It's too late, and it's done. I failed.

While Autumn spent the better part of the day on a roadtrip to rescue her Honda, I was working hard in my back yard laying 305 square feet of fresh lawn. It's a project Autumn pestered me into months ago. She did most of the work putting the whole thing together though so I'm not complaining. It's the least I can do. The sod was delivered off the back of a flat bed semi onto my driveway. It had been neatly packed up by the sod farm on a wooden pallet. Very compact, and heavy as hell. They had to use a forklift to get it off the truck. I spent hours making trips back and forth from the driveway to my backyard carefully placing each section of lawn into the dirt. Everything went according to plan and when I was done it looked great. Came out better than I imagined it would anyway.

Autumn lives in a small two bedroom apartment in the East Bay. She can't have a garden there. Most of the time she's fiending for gardening on weekends so I let her use my front walkway and the backyard here for her botanical projects. It makes her happy. She likes to refer to it as "playing in the yard." Unlike her, I don't have a green thumb. In fact I'm down right rotten with the care and feeding of plants. It's not deliberate or anything, I seem to forget about watering them and next thing you know they're deader than shit.

The backyard here at my place was consumed by an army of ivy. It was so dense you couldn't see the ground from the livingroom sliding glass door all the way to my neighbor's fence. Autumn decided to rip all that ivy out and then amend the soil in preparation for laying sod down. Most weekends she would get up hours before I did and head out there with a small collection of hand tools to do battle with the ivy. Sometimes Jamie helped too. I would wander through the house in my bathrobe wiping crud out of my eyes and find both of them hard at work. I felt kind of bad about it, but Autumn seemed happy so I didn't worry about my lack of participation too much. A couple months passed. The ivy was eradicated and the soil was rendered into pristine condition ready for hearty fescue to move in. Autumn and Jamie did a fine job.

Shortly before everything was ready to go, Autumn dragged me out to a few plant nurseries and a sod farm. I hadn't been to a plant nursery since I was a kid. My mother dragged me out to nurseries once in a while for whatever gardening projects she was working on. It was boring at the nurseries. All I wanted to do was go out and play anywhere but there. As an adult setting foot back inside a nursery with Autumn in the lead I decided that plant nurseries are still boring. Instead of going out to play all I wanted to do was hide in the garage with a beer or something. I noticed most of the guys I saw there were in the same boat I was, which made it kind of funny.

We were all being dragged around by our girlfriends or wives who were enthusiastically telling us about this kind of plant or that one, mentioning how pretty those colors are, and myriads of random plant facts. The dudes were making muted "Mmmhmmm" and "Uhuh" comments in response. I did my best to feign interest when required of me by Autumn, but most of the time I just mindlessly followed her around like a robot carrying a tray with petunias and whatever else had caught her eye. I daydreamed of I don't remember what. The other man-robots were doing the same thing, some were dragging little three wheeled carts instead of carrying a tray like I was. The expressions on some guys faces were classic. I could tell what was going through some of their minds. They wanted to be sitting on a couch with a cold beer in hand watching the game, or be hanging out in a garage somewhere tinkering on a project. Poor us.

Hittin' On The Malay

It's open season for woman hunting since the Malaysians arrived. Quite a few guys have been coming out of the woodwork to chat up Malay girls. I've seen dudes show up on our line almost every night about half way through swing shift usually, and they try to discover whether or not these girls are single. If they are, it's all about going on a date. I think most of the women are married already and have a few children. You wouldn't know it by looking at them though because they all seem so young. I've been having a good time watching some guys try to put on the smooth moves in pitiful attempts to impress the ladies. They crash and burn hardcore. Malay girls giggle alot and they aren't shy about laughing in a man's face when he's being corny. It is pretty funny to observe, I have to admit. Nobody has been too successful snaring a female yet but it probably won't take long before romance blossoms. Hopefully there won't be a bunch of drama spilling into the production area as a result. I hate that shit.

One of the Malaysian assemblers is attractive. She hangs out with a Chinese girl all the time like they are inseparable best friends joined at the hip. Sometimes I find myself daydreaming about being with her and I wonder what it would be like having a Malaysian wife. I have Autumn and even though I only get to see her two days a week, I will never hit on any of the girls here. Or anywhere else. Autumn is the only woman I want to be with. I just wish we could figure out a way to be together more often. During the week when she is not around I get lonely. The feelings of lonliness have been much worse lately. Not sure why.

I don't bring up subjects of conversation with the Malay women about relationships or anything like that. Too dangerous for the workplace under any circumstances. I have a policy to never become involved in a relationship with anyone from where I work. No matter what. Bad scene, really. Rarely ever works out in the long run. If you start having personal problems at home with your coworker spouse those problems will inevitably follow you to work. You have nowhere to escape. The spouse ends up spreading gossip about strife at home and before you know it everyone in three or four company divisions are up in your shit. Happens all the time to other people around here.

Shitfoot

Building RF decks really sucks. A temporary worker we nicknamed Shitfoot finally got hired in full time permanent and he's been assigned to crank out those miserable RF decks by the dozens. Occassionally Shitfoot runs into trouble putting together assemblies. I can tell when he's really frustrated because he'll yell out an expletive or two like, "Fuuuuck!" and a thrown wrench will slam against a shelf unit or a test rack somewhere else in the assembly area which makes me laugh. I feel his pain though. I can't stand building RF decks and I've done everything possible to try and avoid working on them.

Shitfoot is a good guy. In some ways he reminds me of Curly from The Three Stooges because he can be extremely silly at times just like Curly, and he slightly resembles him. He's a big man with a bald head. Funny as hell. Shitfoot's sense of humor is very sick, which I dig. It's a constant mix of poop jokes and a fascination with that he likes to call "pretty feet". So I put the poop and the feet together to nickname him Shitfoot. The name has stuck. When I mentioned Shitfoot's nickname to a technician named Darryl, he asked me in his deadpan voice, "Is that his Indian name?" I hadn't thought of it before, but I guess it could be.

He's been employed by Bill and Dave's company as a temp worker off and on over the past couple of years. People like him have been working very hard here helping us to make production shipments on time and greatly contributed to our success. Many temps have given us years of solid effort and in my opinion are superior workers compared to some of our full time employees. Yet the temps aren't recognized or appreciated by anyone for a job well done. Shitfoot is one of the lucky few to have finally made it from the ranks of temporary workers to full time permanent status. Most temps never make it in, managers are content to use them like a disposable commodity and then throw them away on a whim.

During a break the other night Shitfoot and I were yapping a little bit trying to get to know each other better. Conversations like that usually touch on how long you've been with the company, where you went to school, how long you've been living in the area, etc. Simple stuff for pleasant small talk. Both of us graduated from the same high school one year apart. Shitfoot began name-dropping. Did I know so and so? Who did I hang out with? Then he asked me if I knew Senor Biskits. Senor Biskits was one of Shitfoot's best friends all through high school but after graduation a few years passed and they lost contact with each other. I let him continue telling me about their times hanging out and partying for a while. When he finished I said, "Biskits is my room mate." Shitfoot damn near fell out of his chair.

Another strange coincidence between the two of us was that both Shitfoot's little sister, and my little sister were best friends for years. I never met Shitfoot before he started working on our line recently. Funny.
He said, "Don't take any offense to this, but I always thought your sister was hot. I wanted to nail her."
I laughed. "I've heard that a bunch of times from a lot of guys since school. You know, I would have liked to date your little sister. She was cute."
Shitfoot got an evil grin on his face and he laughed. "Maybe we should have a little sister swap sometime?"
Both of us laughed at the thought.

What a small world.