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Monday, February 27, 2006

The Beard And Cycle Time

At Bill and Dave's company, the main priority for those working on the production line is supposed to be simple: Get a high quality unit out the door and into the customer's hands. There were many different ways of tracking our performance in doing this, but one of the main metrics was this thing management called cycle time. Cycle time is how long it takes from the time one of our customers picks up the phone and says "Hey, give me one of them there instrument thingies" until the product is delivered to the customer. Depending on the product, this time can range anywhere from a couple days for small items, up to 6 months or more for complex systems.

On The Beard's line, this goal was around 8 weeks. Production was given a big chunk of this time to assemble, test, and ship the customer's product. Unfortunately, there were always reasons we could very rarely meet this goal. Unlike many of the situations in recent times our problem was simply that people didn't care because there were no consequences to missing our deadlines. This had been a problem company wide since the 1980's when Bill and Dave were the only game in town and if you the customer had to wait a year for your instrument, you had to wait a year. Nobody else made this stuff back then.

Of course, in meetings, all kinds of excuses were heard about why people just couldn't keep up with the demand. Usually it involved some variation of claiming that they had too many "collateral duties" to attend to so they couldn't perform their primary jobs. Some employee's collateral duties could also be referred to as "second jobs" because they spend a large amount of the day on eBay watching their items. Of course The Beard had to continue to let people spend time on their collateral duties because more often than not, it was something he was actually supposed to be doing but was too inept to do week after week. At the same time, those of us on swingshift were acutely aware of the root cause: dayshift didn't do shit. We would go home at night, and come back the next day to discover more often than not instruments would be sitting exactly where we'd left them the night before! Nobody on dayshift had even attempted to push them through our test process. We just sucked it up week after week, because our focus was on the fact that some customer dropped over $100,000 for this unit and he wanted it when we said he'd get it. The Beard's pretty charts and development plans could wait.

Eventually, things got so bad that a production engineer was actually assigned to observe the process and find out the real reason cycle time was going up. We got lucky. The engineer they assigned to investigate the problem wasn't some fresh out of college engineer. No, they assigned an old school Engineer. This guy was schooled in the heyday of Silicon Valley. He had been working on this type of instrument since it was originally developed years ago, and if anyone could see thru the BS, this guy could. We patiently waited until a few days later when he came to swingshift for our inputs. We were direct and to the point: people aren't being held responsible for doing their primary job. The work piles up on a few people and we can't handle the volume. We honestly thought that he would take immediate action, but a week or two goes by, and nothing really happens. We assume that nobody can believe it's something as simple as people not doing their main job.

Finally, one night we see the way to make our point. The Beard's production line had recently switched to some newfangled test stations that ran Windows2000. This means that they all had a built-in Windows screensaver. You know how people at work are, someone always has to put some sort of screensaver on, but the line standard screensaver was a basic time/date screensaver. We noticed that on roughly all 18 test stations that the screensaver timeout was 30 minutes. We then noticed that during the day, the screensavers quite often did not get removed for hours at a time. This meant that nobody on the entire dayshift team was checking to see if the test software was even ready to continue.

Often, you didn't have to even DO anything, the test software was just asking you to make sure a certain cable or connector was attached properly. Once you verified it was and hit enter, the station would run itself for anywhere between 30 seconds to 45 minutes or so.

We grabbed the engineer and told him to watch how often the screensavers were not running over the next couple days. We had to explain the 30 minute turn-on thing to him. He was a UNIX guy and didn't know squat about Windows at this point in time. Did I mention he was old-school? Anyway, once it dawned on him that if he saw the screensaver, that meant nobody had checked that station for at least 30 minutes, he got a gleam in his eye. Here was proof of a problem. The next week, the big-wigs got together for their pow-wow on cycle time. None of us were in that meeting, we were out repairing units. However, a few of The Beard's dayshift employees were on the Cycle Time committee. Of course these are the same people that can't see that sitting in meetings for 20 hours a week is affecting production, while at the same time they schedule more meetings to figure it out.

The day after the big pow-wow we come into work for our normal swingshift repair-a-thon. We notice something VERY peculiar. Not one single test station is running a screensaver. How could this be? Did dayshift kick it into gear? We were amazed. It took only another day to figure out what happened. Someone had leaked the beans to our dayshift counterparts, and they were quick to devise a remedy. Each time one of them went to the bathroom or left the area to have a smoke or to get more coffee, they would simply walk down the aisle of test racks and bang the mouse tray on each station to reset the screensaver timer. "Look at us now! Not a screensaver in sight! Dayshift rules!!!"

Cycle time is still increasing, but that's how it goes working at Bill and Dave's...

Negative Results

I'd like to thank Boomer for taking the time to write about some of his experiences dealing with The Beard. For me it was an interesting read, his stories are prime examples of what happens to a production line when you have an incompetent egotistical ass in charge.

There are a number of adverse things that happen to a department when a manager like The Beard is allowed to harass his subordinates and run his assigned area in such an out of control fashion. Employees who are top performers find themselves stuck working for a boss who is a serious obstacle to accomplishing basic job tasks as well as being an obstacle to growing in their careers. When people come to the conclusion that they cannot work with or for a manager like this, they either move to another job elsewhere in the company or they simply quit the company altogether. The resources expended and invested time it took to train that individual are lost. It will cost even more money to go back out and hire another person and take many more months to train a replacement. In the meantime other employees that remain must work harder to fill in the void left by coworkers who have bailed out. It's like trying to push a car down the road when it has a flat tire. You can do it with help from a few people, but it takes much more effort on your part to get the axles to turn. With each employee run off of the production line pushing that car becomes more and more difficult.

Another direct result is that the word spreads around that Mr. X manager is a real bastard. When that happens employees will likely go out of their way to avoid working in an area where Mr. X happens to be. It is then extremely difficult if not impossible for Mr. X to attract skilled workers when he has open jobs to fill. Ultimately his production line will suffer for it because he will be stuck with whomever he can find. Many times those people will be the bottom of the barrel, the dregs. Problem employees that get shuffled around from area to area because nobody wants them. This also will further hamper the efficiency and success of Mr. X's product line. If you consider that The Beard has been like this for the past 20 plus years it's easy to imagine Bill and Dave's company lost a considerable amount of money through attrition of capable employees and instrument lines left under his supervision that were operating far below expectations.

During the past week while the spotlight was on Boomer another employee who had worked for The Beard emailed me a story. He's a veteran electronic technician, very skilled. His name is Paul. I've known him for the past few years but while we were at Bill and Dave's we never worked on the same instrument lines together. He's a good guy. Paul is another example of a gifted technician who is an asset to have on your instrument line. The Beard of course didn't recognize Paul for his skills or for his efforts and like Boomer, he escaped to another department.

Now I'm going to turn Bill And Dave Are Dead over to Paul for yet another story illustrating The Beard's stupidity and lack of control running his area.

Sunday, February 26, 2006

Google Searches Part Two

Apparently the production material handler "Meatloaf" (Factory Peasant calls her The Troll) saw that pop up ad and instead of closing it she put on her snorkel and when brown-nosing to The Beard. Great. This human butt plug had just ruined an entire shift worth of work and I would have to make it up myself. I then looked into the production area and there was The Beard congregating all of his people from both shifts. He was interrogating them trying to find out who is doing "Google Searches" and they all look perplexed of course because it was me, but he has no control over me. I almost felt sorry for those poor bastards in his area. Since no one knew what the hell The Beard was talking about he began to get really frustrated, and since no one would confess he was going to show them what he was talking about by giving them a demonstration of what not to do.

Hearing this I hurry back to the Turn On 2 station, kill the pop up, go to the explorer properties section and remove his proxy (without a proxy it would be impossible for The Beard to get outside of the company’s firewall without it), and I take a seat nearby. I pretended to be busy all the while waiting for The Beard to embarrass himself. The Beard gets to the Turn On 2 station with his production line in tow and says "Hey what happened to that pop up?" to no one in particular and continues, "Well no matter. I can still show you people what not to do." He proceeds to open the internet explorer. Up comes the explorer window displaying our company’s local website, inside the firewall, and The Beard announces to everyone "This is our website it's local. You are allowed to search company websites, but you are not allowed to do this... now watch closely."

The Beard begins to type in www google com mouthing the letters as he goes (geez what mouth-breather). He then hits enter with such great anticipation, after all he was going to school his children on what not to do, but to his surprise explorer displays a DNS error "unable to connect to server." The Beard cries out "HEY WHAT’S GOING ON HERE?" then hits reload several times each time crying "HEY." Seeing The Beard having a problem I start to giggle a little on the inside and I decide to press the issue a little more so I walk over and ask "What’s wrong Beard?"
The Beard replies, "I can’t get to Google from this PC."
In my smart ass way I say to him, "You are not supposed to go outside the firewall with test station computers. Don’t you remember? Viruses you know."
The Beard is pissed now and he fires back "I know that! I am just trying to show them something!"
The Beard did not want to deal with me so he just turns frustrated back to his group and says, "Don’t surf the web on test station PCs!" and walks off.

By this time I cannot hold it in any longer and as soon as he is far enough away I let a nice and hardy belly laugh out. Got you dummy, and you deserve it. Simple thing like that is all I needed to feel good for about a month and of course I had to tell all my friends who had been subjected to that pea-brain supervisor. I made him look like a fool in front of "his people" and the funniest thing is he did most of the work. From that time on I called him "Google Searches" or "Baby Goo Goo Google Searches" and I even drew a picture of a cartoon baby with a beard shouting out "Goo Goo Google Searches" that I displayed in a few spots in the production area.

From time to time I still mess with the guy a little, especially when he was demoted to Individual Contributor status (a manager with no people assigned to him), but nothing was ever as gratifying as the infamous Google Searches episode.

Saturday, February 25, 2006

Google Searches Part One

After spending a few months in the lab working on the latest product it was time to take it to production and begin working out the bugs associated with producing a new instrument. This meant seeing my old buddy, The Beard. Now down in the production area they have what they call a "mirror production" line which is a separate line made specifically to be just like production, but used for introducing products until all the problems with it are solved. This is where I will be working. At this time The Beard is supposed to provide a couple of his techs to help us out and to get them acclimated to the new product, but their main job is to keep things moving during the day because I was alone on swing shift and had to concentrate on problems and not so much on dealing with testing pilot instruments.

Getting these pilot units through test could be quite a challenge because of new designs, new tests, broken parts, faulty firmware, faulty software and so on. So it was really important to keep everything going all day both shifts in order to meet our deadline. Well one day I notice a pretty big problem with our test software that would have to get fixed as soon as possible or we would have a serious setback and it could actually affect production itself. Since I know the programmer pretty well and he told me to page him whenever I needed him I decided to talk to him on the phone instead of emailing him about the problem. Besides it was still fairly early.

To my surprise he decided to come in and fix it right away because I was there now and the two of us could pound it out better than just one of us. He decided it would be easier for him to come in at night than it would be for me to come in during the day (true what a nice guy take note Beard). Anyway when the programmer got there we discovered that it was a much bigger problem than I had originally thought, this was going to take all night…crap. About 3:30 or 4:00am we are still a long way from finishing and while the program compiles we decide to take a smoke break out on building two's rooftop break area. While we are out there smoking and joking, you have to remember we have been working pretty hard for quite some time now and have gotten a little goofy minded, all of a sudden we see a bright medium size blast of white light. It was out close to the road like and seemed like transformer had just blown. We both go, "Whoa did you see that!" That's when the programmer said, "That was probably the infamous black helicopters taking shooting practice" or something like that. Now I had no idea what he was talking about so asked "What black helicopters?"

He told me that some people claim to see mysterious black military-style helicopters flying around for no reason at all or for spying on people.
"No way" I said.
So he tells me "When we get back to the production area just do a Google search on it."
"Ok I will."
When we got back to the production line instead of walking all the way to my desk and doing the Google search on my computer I decided to do it on the test rack computer, which according to The Beard is a no-no because we might get viruses on our test equipment. Did I mention that The Beard is a computer illiterate paranoid freak? Using the test rack's computer I could keep working while Google searching. So at Google I type in "black helicopter" or "mysterious black helicopters" or something like that, and sure enough many hits came back. I clicked on the first one and unbeknownst to me a pop up ad comes up.

I read the article and sure enough my programmer was right. Lots of paranoid people out there. I closed the web browser and went back to work still not noticing the pop up ad. Around 5:30am we finished and went home. This time I knew I would not have to be in early so I was going to sleep late and come in a little late. The next day I came in around 4pm or so and noticed that the Turn On 2 station had a note on it saying "Do not touch or close the internet window. This PC is under investigation." I thought to myself, what the hell is this? I talked to one of the day shift techs and he told me The Beard was on a rampage about someone using the test PC for "GOOGLE SEARCHES" and that the station had been shut down all day.

Friday, February 24, 2006

Ditching The Beard

December arrived and I knew everybody was looking forward to taking time off over the holidays to spend time with their families. Unfortunately at that time we were really busy. The Beard wanted some people to come in over the holiday shutdown to keep things moving. During our 12:30pm Thursday meeting one week my suspicions were confirmed, but instead of The Beard going around and asking if anyone could come in he wanted me to go around the area making a list of everyone's planned time off. I didn't feel like this was my job, but I didn’t feel like fighting so I did it anyway and brought the list back to The Beard.

The Beard picks up the list I compiled and again gives me that stupid laugh of his and says, "This ain't gonna happen. You are going to have to go back and tell these people they can't all take the same days off."
Sigh. He wanted me to be the bad guy. So I say, "Beard I don’t think that is my responsibility and besides if I tell them which days they can and can not take off I do not think they are going to be too happy about it."
I must have struck a nerve with The Beard because his face turned bright red and he snaps back, "YOU BETTER WORRY ABOUT MAKING ME HAPPY I’M YOUR BOSS!"
I replied, "I am still not going to do it."


The Beard stormed off.

That's the last straw, I thought. I have to get out of here. This knucklehead is on a power trip. He may be my immediate supervisor, but I do not work FOR him I work for Bill and Dave. I decided that when and if I get out of here I am going to have to exact some kind of revenge on this bearded bastard. Nothing direct like name calling or something juvenile like that, what I want to do is make him look foolish somehow. Preferably around a large group of people. That way everyone can see what a waste 'ole belly boy bearded fool really is.

After the holiday shutdown I planned my prison break so to speak. I had been working closely with another production group because they make some accessories for our instruments and I was told by one of their engineers that their lead tech was retiring soon. I asked "So are you looking to replace him from inside their production area or from the outside?" I was told from the outside. Apparently their engineering group was not too thrilled with the other techs in the area. So I just casually let it be known that I was looking for a new job, I was then rushed away to the hiring manager's cube and the engineer informed them that I should be hired into this lead role with them. Wow. I didn't expect that. I must have impressed someone, but this would be a difficult task because it would be a lateral move and The Beard is not going to to go for that.

"No problem" said the manager. "We will re-scope the job to one level higher." That meant a promotion, not a lateral move. Now I had some ammo over The Beard, bwahahahahaha! Instead of just taking the job I told them to let me think about it. So instead of going to The Beard I went to see a friend of mine who used to be a tech with me, but is now a supervisor in the NPI (New Product Introduction) group and tell him about the offer. He tells me "Sit tight. Don't act on that just yet. I'll get back to you in a couple of days." I wondered what he was up to, I hope I didn't blow this opportunity. A couple of days go by and my friend the NPI supervisor gets back to me and says "You now work for me up in the lab on new product development." WOW! I am stunned. Now not only do I get away from The Beard, but I get to take a nice step forward in my career. One other thing good about this situation is that the NPI products I will be working on will get introduced into the The Beard's product area, so I can now stay close enough to him to exact some revenge and he cannot touch me.

Thursday, February 23, 2006

Strike Two

A few more months passed with me working for The Beard and everyday is a challenge. This pinhead and I are clashing heads on almost everything, and one particular day turned out to be no exception. I was informed that we had an order for 20 or so "special handling" instruments which were a challenge to work on because they are always something the engineers come up with on the fly to accommodate a customer's special needs. All 20 boxes needed to be in shipping by Friday morning or it was no deal and today was Wednesday afternoon. It turns out The Beard sat on this info for the previous week and a half and didn't communicate this to his dayshift lead tech who in turn did not stress it to the dayshift technicians. They were all busy doing unrelated work for The Beard like metrics, BSOF, or their own individual development plans.

I felt a real urgency now to get all 20 boxes out that night and I really didn't want to put any pressure on my sure-handed tester to stay late with me because I knew he had to get up early to go to school. So Shoelaces and I both agreed to stay until every one of those instruments were troubleshot, tested, and put into Button-Up. We finally finished by 6am that morning and I fired out an email to portent management types informing them that we would meet our deadline. Then Shoelaces and I went out to a well deserved breakfast at Denny's. I finally got home around 8am Thursday morning and I remembered that The Beard didn't like it when I missed his 12:30pm meetings on Thursdays, but damn I was tired. Somehow I managed to wake up at noon and decided that I would make his meeting a little late but, I'd be there nonetheless.

When I arrived at work The Beard was the first one to see me and he gives me that stupid laugh he's got, it sounds like a choking victim trying to dislodge a chunk of unchewed meat from his throat, and in between HUHS he tells me, "I didn't expect you to make it in for this meeting, besides I called it off anyway." Sigh. I should have expected that and I guess deep down I did. What really got me about it this day was he didn't even say "Good job" or "Thanks you really saved my bacon on that one." I wasn't expecting a big party or a lot of adulation just a simple thanks would have been nice, but what I got was this Santa Claus looking reject laughing in my face yet again.

Later on that day as I got to my desk I began reading my email when I noticed a message had just come to me. It was from a high level manager thanking us for doing such a tremendous job on short notice and that made me feel pretty good. Well, as I read that The Beard must have been reading it too because as soon as I closed it he walked over and told me he wanted to thank Shoelaces and I for working so hard on this and making the order on time. I thought to myself "Too late jackass that's strike two," but instead I said, "Oh no problem just doing my job" and I went about my business.

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Production Line Shenanigans And Metrics

As months passed The Beard lost sight of what our production line was supposed to do, make money for Bill and Dave’s by producing as many instruments as possible. For example one Thursday afternoon after my meeting I took a cruise around the line to see what’s up and help wherever I could be of service. A few examples of what I saw from the dayshift crew were: a tech watching an engineer troubleshoot an easy problem for her, a tester and assembler working on their development plan (which The Beard was big on but made no effort to help anyone with), another tech working on one of Beard's frivolous side jobs, and the piece de resistance was a tech searching for a job in another state. I thought that last one was really strange. I thought this could be grounds for termination, I mean searching for employment while you are on the job during business hours when there is a boat-load of work to be done.

So I approach this guy, lets call him Spoon Man, and I say to him, “Spoon Man what are you doing? Aren't you worried Beard will see what you're doing and be upset?”
Spoon Man replied, “No I put it on my development plan to look for a new job and The Beard said it was okay.”
“WTF? There is a lot of work to be done.”
This really aggravated me because the swing shift crew and I had been busting our asses off to get out not only production, but also factory returns, which at the time Shoelaces and I were the only ones doing due to the expertise required, and The Beard gives the okie-dokie to these shenanigans.

The stupidest of all the frivolous jobs was the one The Beard assigned to Shoelaces and I when we were to be in charge of the production line's metrics. We got this job because The Beard had a line meeting one day and Shoelaces and I could not be there so he gave us about 5 or 6 each of these metrics to us as punishment. Metrics I thought sounded business related to me and I am just a techno geek so why should I have to do this? I asked The Beard about it and he told me, “Because you didn't come to my meeting and this will teach you.” So I figured out the line metrics were just what I thought. Make graphs of things such as productivity, line cost, line costs per person, and the such, it was all stuff that I was unfamiliar with on how to determine.

So it took me a couple days just to learn how to do this and where to get information from. A colossal waste of my time. I had to do this once a month and turn it into The Beard. After doing this a few times I started asking around other production lines if their people had to do this too, and the general answer I got was that they had heard of business metrics, but their supervisor was taking care of it because it was the boss' responsibility to get the data into the department head once a month. So me being me and already somewhat fed up I just stopped doing them. The Beard never said a word about it. I guess he figured it would be easier to do them himself rather than fight me and end up getting the paperwork handed in late to his boss.

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Boomer Meets The Beard

Right before the implementation of BSOF Bill and Dave's company went through a down-swing in business so much so that they offered VSI (early retirement/severance) to anyone who wanted to take it. After the down-sizing of people many production areas went through a small scale re-organization. One of the employees who got moved around was my current supervisor who just happened to be the most junior supervisor in the department. What they did was demote him to a high level tech and put him in charge of this new project, BSOF (Behavioral Safety Observation and Feedback). This was disappointing to me on a couple different levels. One was he is a great guy to work with. Very personable. Two was that he is the manager who interviewed me and subsequently promoted me to swing shift lead tech recently.

Together we had some good ideas about the way we would run the product line because there was a lot changing about it, we had a new product coming out from the lab and the company started sending field failure boxes back directly to the instrument line for repair instead of going through a regional service center. My supervisor was giving me full control of how the field failures would be handled and he allowed me to introduce and train up the technicians on the new product. I really liked this role being more of the technical lead versus a paper pusher. It's what I wanted and he gave it to me. So now my product line was stuck without a supervisor, but not for long. We were given someone who had spent the last several years working pretty much alone in the training department. I don't exactly know what goes on in training department because for as long as I have worked here I don't remember anything of importance or anything at all for that matter coming from their group (should have been my first clue right there). I have seen this person several times around the site he is a short portly fellow with a medium length gray mullet style hairdo, long shaggy gray beard, and he constantly wears some old aviator glasses. The beard is what really stood out to me I don't think I have seen a beard that long and shaggy since they took "Grizzly Adams" off the air hence the nickname "The Beard."

Anyway when The Beard was announced as my new supervisor something strange happened. One of the testers (an elderly woman who had been with the company many years) was gone. I didn't know what had happened, but after some asking around I discovered that she had requested and received a transfer to the sub-assembly area (should have been my second clue). As soon as The Beard was set up in his cube he arranged a meeting between his top techs and the material coordinator at his desk to go over how the line operates and how he thinks it should run. Well this meeting took place at about 12:30pm on a Thursday and I work swing (I generally get off at 11:30pm or midnight). No biggie here I figure it's a one time meeting and I could adjust to that fairly easy. My first mistake. The Beard informed me that this was going to be a weekly occurrence and my presence was mandatory. I asked him if we could push back the time a little to accommodate my late working hours to which he replied, "You will have to adjust." End of debate. As time went on these meetings became more and more meaningless and sometimes The Beard would cancel them without thinking about it and without trying to get word to me.


First strike against this nimrod.

Working For An Idiot

Boomer is one of the technicians I met a while ago here. He's been working in our Network Analyzer product group. Very sharp guy. He's one of those employees when you talk to him about work related problems you can just tell in a few moments he knows what he's doing. As an added bonus he's also got a really wicked sense of humor. Being in RF Sources I don't get out much to the other product lines often. There's no need to unless something comes up on a special project or another line really needs some help. We're in our own little worlds most of the time. Boomer and my pal Dave work in the same area so when I go over to bug Dave late in the shift Boomer is usually there working on messed up instruments or dealing with new models coming out of the lab. I asked Boomer about his experiences working for The Beard, and he had plenty to say.

For the rest of this week, Boomer is going to be in charge here at Bill And Dave Are Dead. He's got a bunch of stories to tell about The Beard. So grab a cup of coffee and a snack, sit back, and read. Oh and one other thing. Be thankful most of you out there never had to work for that moron we nicknamed The Beard...

Monday, February 20, 2006

The Beard

In 1996 when I was re-hired here at Bill and Dave's company, I had solid inside information from a number of employees. I kept in contact with a few people during the two years after I quit to go work at the Optical Coating Lab, and later at TDS. Thanks to them I got the inside scoop on a few job openings, and I also got the lowdown on which supervisors were total losers so I could avoid working for them. That was a huge help. I was warned specifically about Miss Malta, and The Beard numerous times.

There is a good old boy club of managers lingering around inside some product divisions here. The Beard is one of those managers in the club. He's been here for twenty plus years consistently making poor business decisions. He's reached legendary status for treating almost everyone who works for him like pieces of shit. The Beard is rude, condescending, manipulative, arrogant, petty, vindictive, and most importantly, completely incompetent. He has nothing to fear from his superiors though. Nobody ever calls him on his behavior or holds him responsible for his actions. The Beard seems invincible and he knows this so he has no problem sleeping on the job whenever it suits him.

You can't miss The Beard around here. No matter where he's assigned in the company The Beard sets up his cubicle with a small table covered in a red and white checkered cloth and on top of that he places a silver candelabra. I have no idea what the significance of that crap is to him, but passing by in the hallway I've noticed it many times. It strikes me as pure arrogance as well as being really weird.

Imagine yourself working for a boss who doesn't even have the common courtesy to seek you out and call you by name. Walking into the area wanting to speak to you he will simply shout "YOU!" and hold out his arm with a finger pointed at your face. As soon as you see this, he aggressively curls his finger like an inch worm on a hot plate and quickly heads for his cubicle. You have no choice but to follow him there. The Beard enjoys berating and humiliating the people who work for him at every opportunity. Picture this person as a short, fat, little man with a scraggly unkept salt and pepper colored beard that wears his shirt collar unbuttoned so everyone can see his tacky gold chain necklace. Think of him as a 1970s style reject that comes complete with aviator sunglasses. He looks much like Kris Kristofferson did in the supremely shitty 1978 film, "Convoy."

Many of us have noticed that when The Beard is cruising through production lines, items mysteriously disappear without a trace. We have numerous theories about this unusual phenomenon. Boomer thinks there is another arm hidden inside that scraggly pelt of chin fibers and when no one is looking it shoots out lightning fast like the inner jaws of the Alien to steal torque wrenches and other tools. Dave thinks it's a bunch of mice living inside his beard. I think the jerk is nothing more than a kleptomaniac.

The Beard uses many of Bill and Dave's management tools for helping employees to grow in their careers in the exact opposite fashion. Instead of empowering people to make decisions about their future career path, he places obstacle after obstacle in front of them. He tries to keep people mired in his department so they are unable to transition into more challenging (and rewarding) work. It takes a good amount of skill to hop over his blockades, or figure out how to sidestep him all the time. One of the tools he uses to keep employees under his thumb is what we refer to as a "Development Plan." Annually each supervisor is required to sit down with his employees one on one and go over a plan for their future. Where does the employee hope to be with his or her work in six months to a year from now? And how can the manager help facilitate this? That's what it's about. The Beard uses these plans in such a way that no one can achieve their goals. He doesn't support his employees or give them the necessary resources. When those goals are inevitably not met, he sees this as failure and he frequently holds this against the individual. He will even go so far as to demote people for this. It's a ridiculous no-win situation.

So nobody wants to work for the asshole.

Employees generally begin to jump ship as soon as The Beard is assigned to a new area. Lateral job moves from product line to product line are frowned upon by management but not totally impossible to rig up. Mostly what happens when The Beard takes over a line is everyone who can find a promotion elsewhere in the company takes it because as a rule your immediate supervisor cannot stop you from accepting a better job. He has to let you go whether he's happy about it or not. Sometimes The Beard likes to boast to groups of employees that thanks to him many of his people move up in the company which is comical. It's true, but what he's too stupid to realize is his people were promoted because they were trying to get the fuck away from him. Over the years I have never heard one single positive thing from anyone's mouth about The Beard. Many of my friends at work have been stuck with that guy and have nothing but horror stories to tell. I've never worked for The Beard and I can honestly say I hate the man.

Kicked Out

In the months that have passed since Turtlehead announced our company split, morale here has hit an all new low the likes of which I have never seen before anywhere I've worked. Nobody is happy about it. The majority of employees feel like Bill and Dave's computer division pulled an underhanded back room deal with corporate to ditch us and steal Bill and Dave's name for themselves. Most of us feel this company breakup is totally unnecessary which further aggrivates everyone. It seems so pointless, like it's nothing more than a ploy for Turtlehead and a few of his henchmen on the board to line their pockets with loot and run for the hills. Totally fucked up.

Like many of us here I have been depressed about the situation and I'm apprehensive about the future of our as yet to be named new company. The only reassuring thing I've heard so far about this deal is when we are spun off from the computer division we will leave them with only 30% of the company's technology patents. They will only have their personal computer products, imaging (printers, cameras, and scanners), and institutional mainframes. That's a very weak mix. On our side of the fence we will take the lion's share of technology patents (70%) and intellectual property. We leave with all of our test and measurement instrument product divisions, chemical and life sciences, component test, the medical instruments division, and more.

Management has gone all out to try and get us to buy-in to their company breakup scheme. They haven't been successful. Claiming our input matters to them, they started a contest seeking everybody's ideas on what we should rename the company. I am pretty sure the corporate board could give a shit about what we think nor do they care about allowing anyone here to come up with a new name for the company. No, they've probably already contacted a consulting firm of some kind and come up with a new name and brand logo to go along with it.

They've also planned a massive celebration which will take place soon. Here at our division there was talk Huey Lewis And The News was going to play, but management later said he wanted too much money to do a gig for us on site. Last time I checked on our company finances I think we had a couple billion dollars just sitting doing nothing in the bank. Unless Huey wanted a few hundred million to do an hour long show here, I think we could have afforded it. It's not like I'm a Huey Lewis And The News fan, I'm not, but it would have been kinda funny to have him play here at the factory. I guess what they have in store for us now is a circus, or a carnival type thing.

Saturday, February 18, 2006

Aliens Are Real

Late in the shift I walked into Building 2 trailing behind a couple of the Malay girls who are training on our line. They were maybe twenty feet ahead of me walking side by side while giggling and whispering to each other. I wasn't paying any attention to them until they reached Area 51. The shorter girl on the right let loose with an ear shattering scream and jumped at least a foot or two off the concrete floor. Startled the fuck out of me. Her friend was unsettled worse than I was since she was right next to the girl when she freaked out. The Malay girl on her left grabbed her and held on to her with both arms as I ran up to them and asked what was wrong.

She Pointed towards TC's workbench. I looked over and saw Jeff's alien. Months ago when Autumn's room mate Jeff broke his leg, his mother shipped him a get well present. It was a three foot tall foam rubber alien. You know, the kind of spaceman that has big black eyes, long skinny fingers, and an oversized noggin. He's a 1950's style UFO pilot for sure. A Hollywood special effects studio manufactured it with very lifelike attention to detail. Shortly after Jeff got the alien he decided he didn't want it. So I brought it into work for Area 51. We needed a mascot. TC and Ron used some wire to strap the alien into a standing position on one of the workbench support beams. They managed to get the alien's little hands closed tightly enough to hold a small American flag. Everybody thought it was pretty cool.

Laughing at the two girls I asked if the alien had scared her. She shivered while nodding yes and said, "I thought I saw it move!" I shook my head and laughed some more. The frightened Malay girl began to laugh nervously while her friend dragged her away into our assembly area.

Silly girl.

Dingbat Fruit Picker

Jim told me a good one today.

Super Shopper passed by in the aisle squawking to the housewives about a bunch of cheap shit she bought at Target like usual. I muttered to Jim what an idiot she is. He scooted his chair over next to me and said in a low voice, "She used to work for my grandparents."
"Really? Doing what?"
"Picking fruit."
"You're shittin' me."
"Nope. They have a ranch on the west side of town. Vineyards, and orchards filled with different kinds of fruit trees. When I was a kid I saw Super Shopper working in the orchards with a basket picking fruit."
"That's awesome. In a way, it suits her. Super Shopper should be doing that kind of work even today instead of hanging out here. She's too dumb to be doing this stuff anyway. I can see her standing in the middle of a vineyard picking grapes with dozens of migrant workers around her." I laughed.
Jim looked around and whispered, "Don't tell anybody here about this okay? I don't want her to remember about it and realize she worked for my family, or remember me either."
"Sure. Damn funny though man."

Friday, February 17, 2006

Company Breakup

Everyone here is in total disbelief right now. Employees are walking around the buildings like they've been stunned with a cattle prod. Our CEO whom I nicknamed Turtlehead (because he looks like a cross between a sea tortoise and Alan Greenspan) made a special announcement company wide via satellite today. The corporate board has decided to break Bill and Dave's into two separate companies. Bill and Dave's name will stay with our computer division while the actual core of the company, test and measurement instruments, will be renamed. Talk about adding insult to injury. Assholes. So we're going to get a new name. I can hardly wait to see how that is going to turn out. I'm certain it's going to be completely stupid.

I've never liked our computer division or their shoddy products. Now I really fucking hate them. They're taking the company name and kicking us to the curb.

Turtlehead whined for a long while during his announcement speech about how Bill and Dave's company has grown too big for the corporate management team to handle anymore. By breaking up the company along our two biggest business divisions they claim each division will be much more nimble and easier to manage. Nobody here is buying that bullshit. At least nobody I've talked to so far anyway. What Turtlehead is really admitting, is that his leadership as CEO is totally lacking. He has no creative vision, little if any real ability to run this company effectively. He's also made it painfully clear that our corporate board can't manage their way out of a wet paper bag.

Worldwide we have slightly over 120,000 employees. We are a diverse high-technology company, but we are not as diverse a company as let's say, General Electric. GE has many different kinds of businesses under their corporate umbrella and their management staff seems to be able to handle things well enough. Guess they have somewhat more competent managers working for them than we do.

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

I'm A Thug

Jim is one of the assemblers that's made a move into testing instruments just like I did. With the increase in orders I couldn't keep up by myself at Adjust One anymore. Each of us has our own test rack to operate at either end of a long workbench. We sit side by side tuning instruments, taking measurements, and swapping out circuitboards. To pass the time Jim and I yap about whatever happens to pop into our minds. I like Jim. He's got great stories about his past and he's got a good personality. Working together on fucked up instruments has been fun.

When I start working with someone new one topic of conversation that always seems to come up is, what kind of work/jobs did you do before coming here to Bill and Dave's? Jim told me he used to be a bouncer at a nightclub and bar, and he used to drive a semi for a dairy company, among other things. When I asked him what it was like being a bouncer he mentioned that sometimes no matter what you do you've got to slug people. Guess it goes with the territory of dealing with angry drunks. One night he had to bust a guy in the grill and he used brass knuckles to do it. He broke the guy's jaw. A buddy took Jim's knuckles away from him before the police got there. Jim knew all the cops because they went to the same high school together. When they showed up on the scene they wanted to know what happened, Jim told the cops that the man lying on the ground with a broken jaw slipped and fell. I'm sure they knew better.

I remembered I had brass knuckles Autumn's Dad picked up for me in Mexico in a pocket of my Army jacket. I swiveled around in my chair and grabbed my jacket from a hook on Wah's workbench. It had been so long since I last thought about those knuckles that I couldn't remember which pocket they were in. I started reaching into each of the four pockets and pulled fistfuls of stuff out and dumped them on our workbench. Jim watched me as I unloaded a pair of gloves, five or six rounds of 9mm, a bottle opener, a mini-maglite flashlight, a deck of playing cards, a few miscellaneous lockpicks, a boxcutter, and finally the brass knuckles.

Dumping all this stuff out on the table reminded me of a scene from one of my favorite movies, The 5,000 Fingers Of Dr. T. It's a little acid trip of a film made in 1953 by Dr. Seuss with Hans Conreid (the voice of Snidely Whiplash in "Rocky and Bullwinkle" and he also played Captain Hook in Disney's "Peter Pan") in the starring role as the evil Dr. Terwilliker. Near the end of Dr. T the film's two heroes, a kid named Bart and a singing plumber named Mr. Zabladowski, are trapped in a small cage. In order to attempt some kind of escape the two pool together their resources. Bart rifles through all his pockets to produce a healthy pile of junk. Marbles, jacks, a piece of string, a slingshot, and a hearing aid stolen from a sleeping guard. They then mix everything together in a coffee can to make an atomic bomb.

Jim grabbed my brass knuckles and put them in his grip. Clutching them tightly he socked his other hand a few times and said, "Yeah these are good. They feel real good. Don't get caught with these though." I nodded. It finally dawned on me why Autumn's Dad selected that particular kind of knuckle for me. Autumn's Dad was in the Army back in the 1950's as a Military Policeman. He drank heavily and brawled alot so he was used to fist fighting. I think he gave me those knuckles because he knew they were a proper fit. If I ever went to hit somebody with them I was less likely to break bones in my hand. Jim handed my knuckles back to me and took another look over the collection of items I placed on our workbench. Almost as an afterthought Jim kind of scowled and asked, "Why are you carrying all that shit around with you?" It was useful stuff as far as I was concerned. I shrugged my shoulders and said, "I dunno. Maybe I need it sometime." He thought about it for a second or two and then said to me, "You're a fucking thug." I was truly shocked, a little hurt even. I yelled, "Me? A thug? No way dude! I'm one of the good guys!"

Jim shook his head at me while turning his chair towards the Adjust One test rack and went back to work.

Conspiracy Against Abu

Five or six months have come and gone since Abu was dumped on us here in Area 51. The Adjust Two station has become a terrible choke point for production due to a large increase in orders and a total lack of effort from Abu. On dayshift BP has been working in overdrive. I think the strain has wore her down some. TC has been jumping from troubleshooting broken units to running Adjust Two when he can. It isn't enough though. Boxes keep stacking up at the Adjust Two rack.

We knew almost as soon as we got Abu that this was going to happen, but we had to give him a fair shake before passing judgement on him. He has a reputation for wandering around the buildings doing nothing for hours at a time and for sleeping on the job. When he starts his shift the only things I see him do is put his feet up on BP's workbench, grab the phone, and start yapping with his family and friends. The rest of the time he's nowhere to be found or he's sound asleep in his chair. A few times the boss has gone out on patrol and walked right by Abu without noticing he was slumped over asleep. Idiot. All of us have been giving Abu shit for it but it hasn't had any effect on him. He doesn't care. So, the next step was to work through management for a solution.

Our lead technicians brought up the issue of Abu's shoddy performance privately with a supervisor. He listened but took no action. Weeks went by and more of the swing shift techs went one by one to this manager and complained. Still nothing happened. At one point I even brought it up to this guy. I got no reaction from him. Amongst ourselves we talked about the situation trying to decide what to do next. Someone suggested we go to BP's husband JP who is a lead technician on another product family in our department and ask for his help. JP was painfully aware of what was going on already no doubt due to his wife complaining about being overloaded with instruments to test. JP did go to bat for us. We wanted Abu's work habits corrected or have him thrown off the line.

JP collected daily throughput data from the Adjust Two station over a period of a couple of months. He paid particular attention to dayshift vs. swingshift and put it all together into a spreadsheet. What he found was 90% of instruments tested were completed on dayshift and the remaining 10% were finished at night. Big difference. JP then approached our boss with his findings and explained once again that Abu was a serious problem in Area 51. The boss told JP he felt there was a conspiracy in Area 51 against Abu. In his opinion our group is a clique that won't accept anyone from another line. This is partially true, we didn't want anybody else from the department because we feared getting nothing but deadbeats on our line. Abu is without question a deadbeat. None of the data JP collected was valid, and the boss went on to say that JP was only involved because he was covering for his wife. That really burned JP up. Somehow JP managed to keep his composure and not lose his temper.

We're still stuck with Abu.

This is a prime example of a manager who happens to be completely out of touch with reality. Unfortunately there is alot of that going on around here these days. Supervisors like this can't see a blatant problem even when it's sitting right in front of their nose. It's like if a coworker is suddenly on fire and I go to the boss and say, "Hey boss that guy over there is on fire. You see him?" The boss will look at his shoes, look at the ceiling and reply, "I don't see a problem here. I don't know what you're talking about." End result? The problem at hand grows worse. Because of Abu failing to perform the most basic functions of his job everyone around him has to work much harder to pick up his dead weight. This directly impacts our ability to complete instruments on time, which affects customer shipments. It also causes morale in the area to suffer.

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Barney Gets Pranked

This afternoon when Barney walked into Area 51 he discovered a sheet of paper sitting square in the middle of his technical workbench. It was a letter. Barney read it, and was instantly confused. Slightly alarmed too. He handed it to me and asked me to read it. Reluctantly I took the piece of paper from him and sat down. The letter was from someone claiming to be in upper management and I could tell from the author's name he probably didn't exist. It was too screwy. The gist of it was supposedly management wanted Barney to take a business trip back east on the company dime. It was totally vague as to the reason for this trip. His flight itinerary was nuts. Seven or eight connecting flights to reach his final destination. If Barney had any questions there was a 1-800 number he could call. I dialed the number and pressed #7. Then I heard a duck quacking.

Barney was being set up for a practical joke. Shoelaces must have been behind this. I went along with it and told Barney the whole thing seemed legit, he should pack his suitcase. I suggested he call that 1-800 number and get confirmation on his business trip. Barney dialed it and listened. When he hung up the phone he said, "Hey guy all I hear is someone say wah wah. What that mean? He re-read the letter and said, "There's too many numbers." I shrugged my shoulders and went back to work. He wouldn't let it go though, so he took the letter to one of our supervisors to ask him about it.

Last week Shoelaces kept calling our phone extension in Area 51 in disguise. He made himself sound like a cartoon character and asked to speak with Barney. The phone Shoelaces was using to make his prank calls is just down our main aisle through the production area. You can practically see it from where we sit. Anyway Barney would pick up the phone and start arguing with the person on the other end about firewood for sale. Week before that he was arguing with Shoelaces over an acoustic guitar.

Shoelaces would say "I saw your ad in the newspaper for firewood I want to buy it."
"Hey guy I got no firewood. You have wrong person."
"You're Barney right?"
"Yes."
"And your number is 555-1212 right?"
"Yes."
"Then I have the right person don't I stupid. So how's about that firewood?"
Barney spent a good ten minutes arguing with Shoelaces while we all quietly laughed. He sure gets mad fast.

Monday, February 13, 2006

Dinner Snapshot


Autumn and I were out for Italian food the other night and she snapped this photo of me. I like to look like I'm possessed by evil or make silly faces as if I were mental most of the time when she tries to take my picture. She's complained about it once or twice. Can't help it. It's something I do subconsciously I suppose. Couple months ago Autumn asked if she could bleach my hair. I hadn't done anything like that since high school. Didn't care one way or the other about it and I figured if it makes her happy why not. It's been growing out and I dig the two tone color of bright yellow tips with dark blonde roots.

Sunday, February 12, 2006

Master Of Mongloids

When you've been working at a job for a long while you just can't help but notice your coworker's little habits and quirks. Those unique traits can be anything from the way a person organizes papers on their desk to a loud annoying chronic cough to the way they greet you every day when you come in to work. Everybody is different, everybody has their own routine they follow.

Each day Barney gets a phone call from home. Area 51's phone is on TC's tech bench so most of the time when a call comes in he gets it. Sometimes he's half way across the test area so I'll jump up and grab it. The persons asking for Barney sound like they are handicapped. TC and I suspect Barney is involved in running a kind of halfway house for retarded folks. That's cool, not my bag but whatever. The thing that's weird about it is when these guys call up asking for Barney we get to suffer through his half of the long, drawn out conversations. Sounds like Barney has some fairly strict rules at his place. Nobody can use the TV or stereo unless they call him at work and ask his permission first. He only has to say yes or no and the call should be over. That isn't the way Barney operates. Barney drags such a simple request on for a while like he's trying to impress all of us at work obviously because he needs to feel important. Barney is merely the king of the idiots. The master of mongloids.

I feel bad for the poor bastards that got stuck renting a room from him.

Barney really is a messed up guy. He's one of those people from the moment you first meet him you just know something is very wrong with him. His social skills are nonexistent, and he's plain obnoxious to be around. That's why he gets picked on all the time by TC, myself, and Shoelaces. TC beats Barney down daily. You'd think Barney would have learned to keep his mouth shut by now, but no. He's like a Timex, takes a beating and keeps on ticking coming back for more. I throw myself into the beat down mix sporadically. Shoelaces has taken up the habit of playing practical jokes on Barney throughout the week. It's swell.

Getting The Message

Walking through the assembler's area I passed by their phone and noticed the red "you have a message waiting" light was on. Nobody was around, they were probably all out for lunch either in the cafeteria or off site somewheres. I picked up the receiver and punched in a passcode, then listened to the department voicemail. A squeaky woman's voice filled with superficial worry rambled on about some drama or other. After just a few seconds of hearing that junk my ear ached. It was one of Super Shopper's idiot daughters. She has three of them, in their 20s-30s and all of them are incredibly dim. I couldn't listen to any more of her airheaded monologue without wanting to shout curse words at the ceiling so I deleted the shit.

An hour later I had forgotten about that voicemail until I saw Super Shopper walk by in front of my workbench. I stopped her and mentioned she had a phone message from her daughter. Rather than ask me for any details she instantly tore off for the phone before I could say anything else. She loves the phone. Most nights Super Shopper wastes the bulk of her eight hour shift jabbering away into the phone instead of building instruments. From where I was sitting I watched Super Shopper pick up the receiver at the same time rapidly tapping away on the keypad to get into voicemail menus. She didn't see that the red message light wasn't on anymore. A few seconds elapsed. She entered the code again. Nothing. I could almost see the tiny, rusted gears with missing teeth slowly turning inside her head. A confused, frustrated look bore down on her brow. Futilely she tried again and again to retrieve a message that wasn't there.

Super Shopper turned to face me with the phone receiver still in her hand. She said, "There's no message."
"Yeah. I erased it."
From the look on her face it was like I had just hit her right between the eyes with a rock hammer. Instantly her whole noggin glowed bright red and she screamed at me "YOU DON'T DELETE OTHER PEOPLE'S MESSAGES!"

I had been waiting for an opportunity like this to come, waiting for the past couple of years. A showdown between myself and this pea-brained obnoxious housewife was finally presented to me. See, I hate Super Shopper. Not just because I think she's a beady-eyed fool, it's because during the years I've had to work with her I've quietly watched her destroy people. She screws up her work constantly when she can be bothered to actually do any real work and then blames her mistakes on other employees. She sabotages newhires mainly. Generally newhires are on a probationary period for 90 days and they can be let go for pretty much any reason during their first three months here. They have no recourse when Super Shopper tells a supervisor the reason why a half dozen instruments got wrecked was because of her trainees not paying attention, or some other bullshit like that. Thanks to her we've lost so many promising new people.

Standing up from my chair I crossed the distance between us and got in her face. I said to Super Shopper, "You just got the message. One of your daughters called."
"I DON'T KNOW WHICH ONE OF THEM CALLED AND WHAT IF IT WAS AN EMERGENCY? YOU DON'T DELETE MESSAGES NOW I HAVE TO CALL THEM ALL TO FIND OUT WHICH ONE IT WAS..."
Yelling in her face I cut her rant off. "Every night you waste hours of company time running your mouth on the phone to those stupid kids of yours instead of doing your fucking job. Who cares which one called? You'll end up talking to all three of them anyway tonight just like you always do. What if it was an emergency? Oh you mean like one of them calls to tell you she's getting another divorce kind of emergency, or one of them calls to tell you about a sale at Target kind of emergency? I bet our management staff would really like to know who has been responsible for running up our department phone bill every month. Dontchya think?"

The queen of swing shift dingbats didn't say anything. I nailed her and she knew it. On the inside I was laughing hard. Her cheeks were so violently red with blood rising that I thought she might blow an artery in her neck. It was sweet. I expected her to shriek at me some more but surprisingly she turned and walked away. I'm sure her first reaction was to run straight to a supervisor with tears streaming out of her eyes claiming I had harassed her or something. The threat of being ratted out for phone abuse kept her in check though, must have been scary stuff. If Super Shopper suddenly lost her phone privileges at work I'm certain she would die. For the remainder of swing shift Super Shopper was quiet.

Thursday, February 09, 2006

Ruger P94



Finally found something I liked. I bought a Ruger P94 in the 9mm flavor. I was really impressed with it's safety mechanism. The safety is ambidextrous, you can instantly render the pistol useless with the flick of a thumb from either hand. Not only does it disengage the trigger when it's pushed into "safe" it also de-cocks the hammer. I also liked the weight. Ruger's P94 frame is solid metal. The salesman at Helm's explained Ruger uses a new method of production called precision casting. Instead of machined parts on the frame they make very accurate casts which saves a ton of money during manufacturing. That means lower retail cost and lower cost makes me and my bank account happy.

In order to buy my gun, I had to pay $20 on top of registration and DROS fees to take a dumb test. It's called the California BFSC (Basic Firearms Safety Certificate). California's Department of Justice put this hacked crap together. Essentially the BFSC is a multiple choice question and answer test that a chimp could pass. Waste of time really, and it burned an extra twenty bucks. Passing the BFSC is supposed to make me a safe gun owner? I dunno. Just more government red tape if you ask me. I paid for the automatic and then waited for ten days during a registration and background check. Everything was cool, so now I've got my first handgun.

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Rent-A-Gun

Montana Hawk has a nice collection of handguns available to rent for use on their indoor range. Twenty five bucks gets you your choice of revolver or automatic, two or three paper targets, and a large sandwich baggie filled with the appropriate caliber rounds.

Autumn picked something out from their rental case. I didn't pay attention to what she chose to shoot with and I contented myself with wandering around Montana Hawk's sales floor while she was escorted by a range master into the soundproofed shooting area. Every few minutes I broke my gaze from looking at boxes of bulk ammunition or pistol cases to watch Autumn through an observation window. The range master spent some time going over Montana Hawk's shooting policies and safety rules. Then he explained all of her weapon's functional features like where the safety was and what to do in case of a misfire or a jam. Next thing I knew, Autumn was in there plugging away at a paper target. Looked like she was having a good time doing it up, too.

The great thing about renting pistols is you can get some real hands-on experience with different caliber rounds and models of guns. Maybe you find out a .44 Magnum isn't your style because it's too rowdy, so you go with something else like a .32 instead. Better to find out what you are comfortable with before you buy.

I didn't bother to rent anything myself while we were there. I pretty much have my mind made up about what I want. All I have to do is find a 9mm that looks good and feels heavy in my hand. So far everything I've checked out is totally weak.

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Potatohead's Butt Snorkel Becomes A Technician

Okay. This has to be the most disgusting kiss-ass story ever told.

When I kicked myself out of Team Loser it seemed inevitable to me at the time that Meth was going to be Potatohead's number one Grade-A boot lickin' yes man and supreme butt snorkel. That guy buried his head so far up Potatohead's backside that it must have been three feet deep, jammed in at a fourty-five degree angle. Shameless.

Meth wanted to become an electronic tech here at work so he bitched and moaned about it to Potatohead until he agreed to set him up with an online course through a university back east. It costs Bill and Dave's a few thousand dollars per employee to enroll in that program. Problem is, Meth is not a bright guy. He's a grease monkey and a bullshit artist. That's about it. He has no aptitude for math and zero ability when it comes to critical thinking. Shortly after Meth started his online technical degree, he realized he was in over his head. There was no way he could complete his assignments and pass the course. So what did he do? He got his girlfriend Leslie to do his homework for him every week. What a good girlfriend. Leslie had already graduated from a Junior College with her tech degree so she had no trouble with his assignments.

Months later Leslie had easily passed Meth's online courses for him. The day came when Meth had to step into a closed conference room with a veteran technician and take the company's entrance exam. He-Man was selected for the job of administering those tests. Not long after both men entered a vacant conference room, Meth stepped back into Team Loser's production area acting mopey and angry. Raygun asked him what was wrong. Not surprisingly, Meth told Raygun he failed the test. Meth wandered around through their line acting like a spoiled kid that just got spanked for doing something dumb. Raygun waited until Meth walked away and then asked He-Man how the exam went. "He didn't even pass the phone interview questions so there is no way he can take the real written test. We got ten or fifteen minutes into it and he didn't know what to do. He isn't ready."

Meanwhile Meth went to Potatohead and told him what happened. Not long afterward Potatohead took He-Man for a walk outside. When they returned He-Man packed up his briefcase in a hurry and grabbed his coat. Angrily stepping out of Team Loser's production area Raygun stopped He-Man and wanted to know what was up. "Go ask your boss. You have a new technician on the line." He-Man left work for the rest of the day in a sickened state. Bouncing through the shop floor Meth kept yelling "Woohoo" like he was Homer Simpson. Even though he was a total failure on the tech exam, Potatohead promoted Meth up to a technician level and gave him a new job.

Lose Something?

Raygun told me a great story about The Factor and Potatohead today.

A few weeks ago The Factor left for the day when her shift ended like she usually does late in the afternoon. Nobody on Team Loser gave it much thought. About an hour later, The Factor walked back into Team Loser's production area with fresh mud covering her legs up to her shins. Raygun said she was visibly shaken and she complained about feeling cold. When he asked her what happened she said that one of her front wheels fell off her truck. She lost control, driving her truck into a deep ditch along the roadside. It took her an hour to walk back to the factory. It was raining outside.

Over the weekend Potatohead did a brake job on The Factor's truck for her. Apparently he must have spun down the lug nuts on both front wheels when he finished reassembling the brakes, but evidently he forgot to tighten them up on one side. Nice. I knew that guy was stupid. Anyway while The Factor went to her desk and called Potatohead at home to yell at him, Raygun and a few of the other technicians bailed out to go see The Factor's truck trapped in a muddy ditch.

By the time those guys found her truck and turned to come back to the factory, Potatohead and The Factor passed them in the other direction. In the few minutes that it took the guys to double back again so they could watch those two nitwits bicker by the roadside a tow truck had already arrived and snagged The Factor's vehicle. It quickly headed away from the scene enroute to an impound yard. Raygun said everybody in the car was busting up laughing as Potatohead flipped a bitch in the road and chased after that tow truck.

I would have enjoyed watching that.

Sunday, February 05, 2006

Buying Handguns Part Two

Choosing a pistol is tough. When you step into a gun shop like Helm's House 'O Guns you're presented with an emporium of revolvers and automatic pistols neatly displayed inside long rows of glass cases. There's all kinds of them available, from wicked looking jet black ones to mighty chrome plated long barreled six guns with sturdy wooden grips. Some are incredibly small, tiny frames that could easily fit in a pocket or a boot. Others are monstrous hand artillery. So, where to begin? I decided a brand new 9mm semi-auto of one kind or other was what I wanted. That narrowed down my initial search quite a bit. It ruled out anything used and of course it eliminated all revolvers from the running. Autumn was open to just about everything regardless of whether or not it was new or used. She had a long way to go in order to weed out the undesirables and make a selection.

Salesmen at gun stores are somewhat predictable when they see a female customer. Recently I've overheard them in a few shops pulling a moderately condescending routine on women. In their view women are poor little incapable creatures. This breed of gun salesman inevitably tries to steer ladies away from buying anything semi-auto because as they say to them, "It could jam on you. You don't want that to happen. A revolver will NEVER jam on you." Then they bring revolver after revolver out of their showcases and foist them upon the lady. It's like there is some unwritten rule in some gun salesmen's minds that women can't handle automatic pistols or figure out how to quickly clear a jammed round in the rare event that it should happen. I don't get it.

Autumn will no doubt make up her mind on her own about what to buy because she's so stubborn. Any recommendations will more than likely be discarded by her, but in this case that's probably a good thing. For example what I like in a pistol or what I think will work for me might be a terrible choice for someone else. I'm starting to realize that when you're buying a handgun it's critical that the damn thing is a comfortable fit. You wouldn't buy a pair of shoes that are two sizes too small for your feet or wear pants that are five sizes wider than your waist. Ideally you want a gun that fits your hand well, with good feel to the grips and at a weight that seems natural. If Autumn and I do a very thorough job scrutinizing different makes and models we will most likely pick something up that we'll be happy with for many years to come. That's important because shelling out dough for a handgun isn't exactly cheap business.

I asked Helm's sales staff to show me some Glocks. Their solid black finish and modern shape appealed to me. After finger-fucking a few medium sized 9mm Glocks I quickly noticed a few things I didn't dig about them. The rear sight had a bone white U shaped line around it's notch instead of two white dots on either side. The front sight blade had a single white dot on it and it seemed awkward trying to line it up with the rear sight. It didn't work for me. Glocks apparently don't have a safety switch anywhere on the frame. Closely inspecting the trigger piece it looked like there was a small spring loaded lever sticking out of the front of it. What the hell? The salesman said that was the safety. Weird. For lack of a better description it looked like a double trigger. Glocks are made of a composite material except for the slide assembly. It's some kind of polymer I guess. Each one I picked up felt incredibly light in my hand which was all wrong. I wanted something heavier, something much more solid. I crossed Glock off my list.

Cost is a big factor for me. Scanning over price tags on handguns that caught my eye I realized the average price was in the neighborhood of $600-$700. My wallet was groaning. Something a couple hundred bucks less than that would do the trick. Hopefully I'd be able to make that work out.

Absorbed in my own little world drooling over hardware I looked up to notice that Autumn had two attentive salesmen answering her barrage of questions. I rejoined her at the counter and patiently waited until she ran out of things to ask. She spent a good deal of time checking out all kinds of stuff. Eventually we left the store. Autumn was still uncertain of what she wanted to buy. I was too. The only way to narrow down the field a little would be to try a few different models at an indoor shooting range. Renting is a great way to find out if you actually jive with a particular gun before you plunk down a sizeable chunk of change on it. Our next stop in the quest for a perfect handgun would be Montana Hawk. Montana Hawk is a gun shop and an indoor range with a nice variety of hardware to rent at inexpensive rates.

Saturday, February 04, 2006

Buying Handguns

California has some of the most oppressive gun laws in the entire nation. Every year it seems like the state's firearms laws become more and more restrictive. People like myself who want to purchase a handgun have more red tape and useless hoops to jump through in order to get one. Autumn and I have been talking about buying pistols for a while. New laws are on the way that will make handgun ownership even more difficult so the two of us have decided to go out shopping for pistols now before things get worse.

Thanks to idiots like Clinton and Feinstein, who frequently have championed firearms bans and other anti-gun legislation, I now own four rifles. I wanted to buy them before I wouldn't have the freedom to do so anymore and I feel the same way about owning a pistol. I'd like to get a handgun before I don't have the ability to own one because of new anti-gun legislation. Autumn feels the same way to a point, she doesn't like the Government telling her what she can and can't have. She also doesn't like the idea of waiting for some politician to pass a law that's going to somehow protect her from crime. Autumn would rather be able to protect herself in a bad situation if need be instead of waiting for a man with a badge to come to the rescue.

During the weekends Autumn and I started hitting places like The Gun Room, Montana Hawk, and Helm's House 'O Guns. The Gun Room is in Autumn's East Bay neighborhood. It's a strange little joint that looks somewhat like a run down barn from the outside. The front double doors are locked and they have black iron bars across them. You can't get in unless someone behind the counter buzzes you through. I guess they've had some problems in the past with shady characters trying to mess with them. Most of the time I wear an olive drab Army field jacket and that must be okay with The Gun Room crowd. They always buzz me in. The majority of inventory at The Gun Room doesn't appeal to me though. Their stuff is mainly cowboy style six-guns, shiny chrome plated revolvers like something you'd see in a Dirty Harry movie, and antique lever-action rifles with wooden stocks. Not my speed. The prices at The Gun Room seem a little high to me compared to other gun shops in the bay area so Autumn and I will probably pass on buying anything from them.

I want a semi-auto pistol of some sort. Ultimately I'd like a Colt 1911 .45 but for a first time handgunner I think a .45 isn't a good choice. A 9mm would be a good pistol to start with and then I can work my way up to the .45. That's my plan anyway. Autumn's interested in checking out everything available, from revolvers to semi-auto models and then making some sort of educated choice. I'm not sure which way she will go with it yet.

Time Cheater

Every evening at work TC packs up to go home hours before any of us. He comes in to start work much earlier in the afternoon than the rest of our little motley crew, in fact I'm still at home fast asleep when TC starts his shift. A few weeks ago Shitfoot and myself began to yell at TC each night when he heads out. We're in one giant open section of the building so voices carry a long way. More people picked up on our harassment of TC and they yell at him as he's leaving too. It's stupid stuff really, saying goodbye or goodnight to him using silly retarded voices in an effort to embarrass him. Since he's done for the day way before I am, I started shouting out "Gooooooodnight Time Cheater!" TC would never cheat on his time, we all know this and that's part of the joke.

At first TC thought it was funny. But over the next couple of weeks, he thought it was much less funny.

One night as TC was splitting the scene for home I yelled "Bye bye Time Cheater!" and a few seconds later TC was standing in front of me at my work bench. He had a big smile on his face but the look in his eye told me he wasn't amused. TC said, "You know there's other people in the building here at night that don't know me and they might think I really am cheating on my time." He was still smiling as he spoke but I could tell he was dead serious. The shit was bugging him. He continued, "I'd really like it if you don't do that anymore. Okay?" He smiled and nodded as he said that to me. I hadn't thought about someone actually thinking he was cutting hours off his shift to rip off the company. Maybe some dingbat would approach a manager and cause a problem for him. He had a point. I felt dumb. I told TC I'd knock it off.

From now on I'll just call him TC.

Thursday, February 02, 2006

Dressed Like A Whore

Since I left my old production line, Team Loser, I have tried to stay in touch with Supertech, Raygun, and He-Man. From time to time I drop in on them late on swing shift when I know Potatohead is long gone and Meth has probably left for the night. I don't want to see either one of those slobs. Getting myself kicked out of Team Loser was one of the best things I've ever done here. It was the only way to escape Potatohead and his kiss asses like The Factor and Meth. I expected things would only get worse up there with Potatohead in charge and sure enough from what the guys have been telling me it is truly a living hell.

Meth has been given free reign to act like a bastard to anyone he chooses at any time for any reason. He seems to enjoy harassing two of the female assemblers in particular, Doria and Julie. Bringing them to tears as he's yelling at them for petty mistakes is one of his favorite things to do. He's also banging one of their newhires, a pretty good looking technician named Leslie. I'm amazed a goofy looking dirtbag like Meth could get together with a girl like her.

The Factor has been up to her usual bullshit. She continues to royally screw up Team Loser's supply orders so the line is constantly out of needed parts. And she is still coming to work in skin tight terry cloth tube tops and spandex bicycle shorts, or far worse. Raygun told me the other day she showed up to work dressed like a hooker. He said she came in wearing black boots, fishnets, a mini-miniskirt, and a tight leather top. The mental image I got from that made me want to retch. As The Factor was walking through the building to her cubicle she passed by a section manager's desk. When he saw her cruising through, he got up and followed her. He managed to catch up with The Factor just as she walked into Team Loser's assembly area. Raygun overheard their conversation.

"That outfit is not appropriate. You're going to have to go home and change clothes or just stay home for the rest of the day." The section manager told her.
"But there's other women here who dress like this."
He said, "Yeah, but you don't look like they do. Go home."

The Factor was really pissed off at that comment. Sounds like the two of them are in the middle of a brawl that's going to last a few weeks before settling down. Nice one though. Whoever that section manager is, he kicks ass.

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Germ Freak Tennis

Our department had an off-site celebration this week. I forget why. Might have been because we broke some record for production shipments last month or maybe it was just for the hell of it. Supervisors like to refer to those sorts of just for the hell of it get-togethers as "Team Building" events. Whatever. As long as there is free grub and booze I'll show up even though I can't stand many of the people I work with.

At this particular BBQ and beer gig, Germ Freak drank a little too much and got rowdy. We reserved some space at a public park nearby the factory. It's located in a quiet neighborhood a short drive from our site. The park has basketball courts, baseball and soccer fields, and a few tennis courts. Hours after our group arrived and got loaded on good beers a bunch of us went over to the tennis courts and took them over. Olaf, K-Lid, Shitfoot, Germ Freak, Shoelaces, and a few others were on the courts playing while the rest of our drunks were just watching. Germ Freak missed most of his shots and the ones he did hit were totally screwed up. He was playing against K-Lid who murdered him out there. Each time Germ Freak messed up, he screamed out "Fuck" or other expletives as loud as he could. The whole neighborhood must have heard him. It was really lame.

Having a temper tantrum, Germ Freak stormed off the courts. Shit talking started. Someone blurted out "Germ Freak is a gayrod," and for the next few minutes the court conversation snowballed into a Germ Freak hate-fest. Then, with no warning everyone was caught off guard. From nearby bushes Germ Freak shouted "I'M STILL HERE." Everybody froze not knowing how to react or what to do. Oops. Nothing happened, he didn't run back out onto the tennis courts to confront us or demand an apology. He just faded away and disappeared. Shit talking immediately resumed, of course.

Asleep On The Toilet

We've known for some time that Abu has a habit of falling asleep on the job. He will sleep just about anywhere in the factory in plain view of everyone working here. What none of us knew is, in an effort to be slealthy Abu locks himself in bathroom stalls and he proceeds to fall asleep while he's sitting on the toilet. This afternoon Abu got a little bit of a surprise when he woke up slumped over against the handicapped railing in the crapper.

We have a group of developmentally disabled people (retards) working here on site doing menial tasks like sifting through trash and building simple assemblies. It's jobs that nobody else wants to do, so they perform the tasks for us. Here in our production division the retards are supervised well and taken care of. Other divisions have been somewhat lacking in their duties looking after them and they end up bouncing off the walls going haywire. The only time they get to roam wild and free here in this division is when their handlers release them to use the restroom.

There are three kinds of antics you can expect from the retards when they are set loose on the bathroom. I call them the three P's. There's The Poopers, The Pants Droppers, and The Peekers. The Peekers are harmless enough but a little unnerving. Those are the guys that catch you while you're trying to pinch off a brown tail in peace and they peek through the crack in the stall. Usually you'll hear a low, guttural laughing like "HURRRR HURRR HURRRRRR" and you'll look up to see a single eye peeping at you through the gap in the door frame. Nothing you can do about it really, maybe yell at them but it doesn't do much good. Next you have The Pants Droppers. Those are the tards that stand real close to you while you're taking a piss in a urinal. They undo their belt and unzip, then let their drawers drop to their ankles. With cock in hand they will turn to face you and holler "Helloooooo" and smile. And finally, there's the most infamous of the bunch. The Poopers. Those guys get into a bathroom stall and just blow it up. I mean, to these poor souls it's as if the idea of a toilet never existed. The Poopers will drop a turd square in the center of the stall floor, or worse.

I feel kinda sorry for our janitors.

Apparently during Abu's hours of blissful bathroom slumber, one of The Poopers used the stall right next to his. Abu's leg stretched out and drifted under the partition. I guess his foot was in the other stall being used by a Pooper, who was long gone by the time Abu woke up. They didn't actually take a dump on his foot (that would have been killer) but a log was placed rather precariously close to it. It freaked him out. He ran out of the restroom back to our production area and dragged Tet in there to check it out. Then Tet told the rest of us what happened to him. Abu is such a fool. Maybe next time he has to take a nap on the clock he'll choose a vacant conference room instead of the shithouse.