Nothing

Blood leaked heavily out of my finger. It stung badly, the pain was like a new kind of motherfucker I had never experienced before. When I fell backwards off a step-stool in my garage one of my Masonic rings caught on a bicycle hook. The gold ring split along a bottom seam where two halves joined. It pried apart just long enough to open, slip past a hook I mounted in an overhead rafter and then bite down hard into my skin as it dragged from the base of my finger nearly to the tip. My weight careening backwards toward the ground provided plenty of force to slice me like a razor. I stood there holding my hand firmly as red oozed around my grasp dripping onto the concrete. Struck with a sense of irony about the situation I found myself in I thought how yet again Autumn was responsible for ruining another beautiful weekend. At least this would be her last opportunity to wreck my shit.

Autumn asked if she could leave two bicycles here. Her brother salvaged both of them from the county dump. One was a women’s frame from the 1960s, black, nearly complete. A three speed vintage cruiser with a chrome headlight on the front fender. If you put some air in the tires it was probably okay to ride. The other was a patchwork of metallic painted mis-colored parts and rust cannibalized from a few garbage dump gems. A rat-rod beast. I agreed to let Autumn keep them here until she could come back for them at some future date. I don’t have much room in my garage to stack them against a wall though so the only short term option was to buy a couple sets of overhead hooks from the hardware store around the corner and mount them into beams running under the garage roof. I lost my balance while placing the third one. Clumsy me. Now I get to bleed everywhere and still manage somehow to hang up broke dick bikes I want nothing to do with. One-handed bicycle hanging is going to be an adventure today.

I think I might need some stitches.

Autumn arrived at my door promptly on time earlier this morning. She was carrying two bags worth of items that belonged to me, left stranded at her apartment. A package she brought contained a set of black iron curtain rods and matching jet black curtains. She had them in her bedroom for the past couple of years. In exchange I had stacked a bunch of stuff that belonged to her next to my front door. Neither one of us had much to say. The moment was unpleasant, awkward, and painful. I invited Autumn to come outside and sit with me on my patio to try to talk but it was no good. Within minutes Autumn couldn’t speak and she said she had to leave. She was on the verge of crying, I thought. So was I. Autumn picked up everything I left for her. She walked quickly out the front door as I watched her pass by the patio on my front walkway to her car. Autumn drove away. I became severely upset.

I couldn’t move. No muscles in my body were working so I sat frozen, immobilized in my chair. A morning cup of coffee was untouched right in front of me on the glass table. By the time I started to snap out of it I took a glance at the kitchen wall clock. Autumn left about two hours ago. There wasn’t anything else to do really. It’s over. Might as well make an attempt at being productive and get those god damned junker bicycles hung overhead in the garage. That’s what I was thinking. Staring at all the gore in my hand wasn’t making anything better. I stepped into the kitchen and turned on some cold water. Dunking my outstretched hand under the faucet produced a burning sensation I would have preferred to avoid. After rinsing it I grabbed a clean dish towel that was nearby and wrapped my hand in it tightly.

The Following Morning

With both fists I started grinding crud out of my eyes that felt like it must have been the size of driveway gravel. Sleeping soundly I had no memory of the phone conversation with Autumn last night. Everything seemed normal enough, but as I sat up in bed and my mind slowly recovered from hours of darkness a terrible sense of something about to go very wrong engulfed me. I couldn’t put it together. Then I remembered I told Autumn we were done. As that recollection hammered it’s way home in my head, my stomach sunk like a cannonball sized hole had been blown straight through it. The hole was filling up fast with butterflies, and dread.

Honestly this was not what I wanted for both of us. I wanted the opposite for our relationship but Autumn was difficult shutting down every open window of opportunity. Overwhelming aggravation with her stubbornness is what finally pushed me too far. Still, this really wasn’t what I wanted. For a moment as I sat there in my bed thinking about what to do next I considered calling her right then to talk about working things out. Saving the relationship somehow. I knew what she would say though. And I would feel entirely stupid for suggesting such things. Instead I chose to stay quiet for now. Let things settle and talk to her some more in a day or two. The weekend deadline for returning personal belongings and house keys was still off by a couple of days. Maybe Autumn might even change her mind on her own and come back to me willing to make some real compromises for once.

Yeah, well probably not. During the past five years Autumn and I have been together she hasn’t made many compromises or been willing to work on stuff with me. I shouldn’t expect her to change now although it’s a nice thought. One of my general theories about people is the older we get the more set in our ways we become. People become comfortable with the choices they have made leading up to now and probably convince themselves that their way of thinking is superior to most other people. So why invest any effort to change? Everyone else is the asshole but you’ve got it all figured out. I suspect most individuals are like this whether they realize it or not. I know my father was like that. Autumn is largely the same way. Just not as obnoxious about it. Hell, I am too. But I’m at least aware of it and I’m trying to keep an open mind about things.

It’s damn tough though.

Well, I got to get up and head out for work. Have to worry about this junk later.

All Or Nothing

Movie nights at Jerry D’s house is always fun. I had two, maybe three beers while watching some messed up sci-fi stuff inside a living room jam-packed full of nerds and geeks. I can’t stay out late though since movie night is on a weeknight and I have to haul my ass out of bed fairly early for work the following morning. Arriving home at my scheduled time for sleep I felt slightly buzzed from those beers. Nothing incapacitating about the sensation. I let myself into the house and quietly navigated through dark rooms up a flight of stairs. At the top I turned right in the pitch black stopping just short of where I thought my door was and felt around for the handle. Giving it a twist I shoved forward, walked in and turned on the light. There was a blinking light on my answering machine.

Autumn left a message while I was out. Her voice sounded off. Listening to her talk I became angry. She was going through one of those “I don’t know what I am doing in life” episodes again. Something at that moment triggered my rage. Maybe it was a continued uncontrollable frustration with her, or perhaps the few beers I drank made me more irritable. Either way I was fed up with the ongoing un-fixable Autumn situation. Picking up the phone I dialed her number while trying to keep back the feelings of anger and hatred. She answered and I asked what was wrong.

She replied with the usual babble about not knowing how she felt about our relationship anymore, her life goals, job, blah blah blah. I had enough of that garbage.

“Allright. This is the same old routine isn’t it? Here’s what we are going to do. This weekend we are going to give each other back our house keys. We are going to pack up each other’s shit and return it. We’re through. I am tired of this dead end with you and since I can’t fix it it’s time for me to fade out and move on.”

Autumn sobbed into the phone, “Thank you.”

I didn’t reply to that. Too stupid.

Then she said, “We can still be friends.”

That really set me off. In my opinion when a relationship is ending women will frequently pull the “we can still be friends” bullshit because they don’t want to experience any feelings of wrongdoing or guilt for their actions. With the “we can still be friends” exit strategy they can bail out and go a hop, skipping, and jumping down the road like nothing happened and go fuck up somebody else’s life. That doesn’t jive at all with me. Once I am with a woman in an involved relationship for years that changes the friendship for good. It’s like being my best friend plus a whole lot more. So when all of a sudden that comes to a screeching halt I can’t go back to what it was before. It just won’t work. Besides I don’t want to meet up with her at social events or see her at mutual friends’ houses with her new guy when and if that takes place. Fuck that.

“No we can’t still be friends” I said.

Autumn was quiet for a moment. “It’s all or nothing, huh?”

“It’s all or nothing.”

Late Night Call

Startled awake by a voice coming from my phone’s answering machine I rolled over slightly to my right in bed and listened in darkness. It was a female speaking. Confusion slowly lifted as she spoke. She told me all about herself, what she had been up to and where she was living. The woman said she remembered me and was surprised to get a call from me after all these years. After a few minutes I realized Jacinda got my call from a couple weeks ago and was finally returning it. When I left that message I was not sure it was her number anymore. When a week passed followed by another without receiving a call back I wrote it off. You never can predict how things are going to turn out though just like my original call to Oregon a while back.

Annoyed at the late hour of Jacinda’s return message I chose not to pick up the handset. Instead I listened in bed until she finished yapping and the phone went dead. Hoisting myself off the mattress I barged through the door into my bathroom to take a leak. As I returned to my room Autumn asked me what that phone message was about. In the few moments it took me to get up and come back I knew this was going to be an awkward situation. While Jacinda babbled on to the answering machine Autumn woke up too. She heard it all. I decided the best thing to do was come clean and simply tell her the truth. I had been looking for Jacinda infrequently over the years, finally got a solid lead from someone up in Oregon and followed through with it. There was some things that were bothering me about my breakup with Jacinda from so long ago and I wanted to get it off my chest. Get it off my mind and out of my system for good. That was it, nothing more.

Autumn didn’t say anything. Both of us went back to sleep.

The Motherfucker’s Got Morals

Finishing my shift rather late in the day I decided to stop by Network to see Boomer and Dave before heading home. When I was working swing shift I used to go over to their department to bug them late at night. Since switching over to day shift I rarely see those kooks anymore which kinda sucks. I miss working the same hours and seeing those guys. After packing up my junk I walked through Building 2 across the darkened basketball court and re-entered our rat maze of production areas on the top floor of Building 3. Making a left turn off the main walk through I passed Network’s vacant assembly line and plunked myself down in an empty desk chair that was left alone in the middle of their test rack area. Boomer, Dave, and Shoelaces were sitting around bullshitting. Once in a while Dave or Boomer would glance over at a screen keeping a wary eye on tests in progress. When and if a unit made it far enough one of those guys would scoot over to change equipment hookups on a front panel and hit a button on the rack keyboard to keep things moving.

It’s no secret to my close friends here that I have been fixing damaged test instruments in my spare time and asking for permission from my immediate management team to take them off site for personal use. I talk about some of this with these guys because I trust them and they seem to think what I am up to is cool. My recent score of a scrap signal generator was huge. I let Boomer, Dave, and Shoelaces in on the story a few weeks after it happened. They’re not going to run off and blab about it to anyone so no worries.

About an hour after I invaded the test area for a visit it was time to go home for the day. The guys got up and walked with me towards shipping and receiving. I rarely park my car on that side of the factory campus but it’s close to where Boomer and Dave always park their rides to enter Building 3. As we reached the middle of the building Boomer starts talking about a manager that keeps a secret stash of booze hidden in his office area. Sounded like a tall tale to me. We have company parties and beer busts when everybody is given the nod of approval to get hammered, but those beer busts are few and far between these days. Smelling a lie I encouraged Boomer to prove said manager was indeed playing Secret Squirrel with some booze. Boomer readily agreed and like a dutiful tour guide he walked our small group through a gauntlet of cubicles to a double set of tall gray metal book cases. He pointed to a set of drawers and told me to open them.

I tugged on the top drawer. As I looked inside I laughed. The jackass, whoever he was stocked the shit out of that thing. I couldn’t see the bottom of that drawer it was so full of beer. And it was the good stuff too. Red Tail Ale, six packs of Sierra Nevada, Lagunitas, there was even some Boont. This was the jet fuel of good beers. The motherlode. No domestic swill rotgut like Budweiser or Coors was to be found. Management at Bill and Dave’s company is always bombarding us with company propaganda about liquor not being allowed on-site. That’s the hypocrisy of our company leadership. Do as I say, do not do as I do and don’t mention anything about all the coke we put up our noses in the parking lot back in the eighties. Standing there looking at this superior stash of tasty oat sodas I was considering swiping some for myself. I did not however. I kept my hands in my pockets. Boomer sensed what I was thinking though. Like an invisible devil floating off my left shoulder with horns coming out of his forehead and a pitchfork in his hand he began speaking in a low voice.

“You should steal some from this guy. Nobody will know who took it. Go on, do it. You know you want to. Just reach in and grab a six pack. It’s yours, man. What are you waiting for?”

I shook my noggin and pushed the drawer shut.

Boomer was amazed. I said, “I can’t steal someone’s beers. It’s wrong, dude.”

As those words were leaving my mouth Boomer got a big grin across his face. He looked at me, Shoelaces, and Dave then laughed out loud in my direction. Then he said to all of us, “Well what do you know. Factory Peasant will take a twenty thousand dollar instrument but he won’t steal another man’s beer. I guess the motherfucker’s got morals after all!”

Shoelaces practically spit up he was laughing so hard.

All three of them were laughing at me. I could tell my face was turning red. I guess it’s true though. I got a moral or two.

Autumn Doldrums

We’re at a standstill again. Nothing new there I suppose. Autumn and I had a lousy time of it this past weekend due to another heavy discussion about our relationship. As usual Autumn became all weird, I think she’s trying to break up with me. She is doing a lousy job. Like an idiot I continue to try to find solutions. Autumn offers little but counterpoints and arguments. Both of us went out to lunch at a chain Mexican restaurant in the newly renovated mall next door to her apartment building. It’s a short walk across a parking lot from her street. Just as we sat down to eat together Autumn said some shit that really upset me. I started to lose it right there in the restaurant and I had to get the hell out. There was no point in staying. People were starting to stare. I felt completely out of place and embarrassed. We left.

Back at Autumn’s apartment the impasse in our situation only became more complex. It’s entirely frustrating dealing with her, I know she’s playing games. Her diatribe of complaints are always the same and it makes no difference how I attempt to work with her on the things she doesn’t like. Sometimes I feel as though Autumn is deliberately setting me up for failure by bringing up issues with no possible fix, no way out. We sat in her living room talking for a long time. Talking didn’t help one bit. I felt twisted up and rotten inside. Another weekend ruined.

Act Like Ya Know

Security officers are few and far between around the campus. I mean, we aren’t the only employees who have suffered heavily from nearly a dozen rounds of deep job cuts over the past couple of years. Subcontractors, material suppliers, and even some specialized vendors have also been eliminated due to Bill and Dave’s off shoring to Asia. It’s a trickle down effect in that aspect. Before all the Stateside downsizing security was very tight at all of our divisions. Guard shacks were manned 24 hours a day seven days a week at each site’s main entrances. As a visitor you had to get a pass from the guard shack just to show up in the main lobby. Employees also were required to stop briefly to show ID before going through. After hours other entrances leading into a factory campus were closed tight with barriers and gates blocking the way in. During one of the initial rounds of layoffs the company that provided security services to a number of divisions in my local area were drastically diminshed and then eliminated altogether. Another company took over, I assume at a much lower cost. They provided a skeleton crew of unmotivated minimum wage workers who never once set foot in a guard shack and seemed content to sit in the security command center bullshitting about nothing. You get what you pay for.

Meanwhile dozens of motion sensitive cameras fed back high resolution video to banks of monitors in the command center that nobody was paying attention to. I learned security only retained video feeds from site cameras for thirty days. After that they were erased.

None of this went unnoticed. I watched them carefully over a long period of time. I concluded the only thing these new security officers were doing daily was walking around at the same time each shift scanning in with a sensor at a tiny wall mounted pad in each building. More than likely it was simply for insurance purposes. If someone had a heart attack or shit caught on fire the company could go back to it’s records and prove security resources were on the job. At least in theory, anyway.

A plan had been forming in my mind for getting off-site with that Signal Generator. Even though the box was made from non-asset material and tested by one of our department technicians on his own time, I knew if I got caught walking through the gates with it the company would consider it theft. They were looking for any and every excuse to fire employees no matter how petty or insignificant the crimes were. For every worker fired the company was one body closer to reaching it’s next attrition goal and it didn’t have to pay out another lucrative severance package. I did not want to get myself busted down by a lackadaisical security man while walking out with a piece of test gear under my arm.

Many years ago I saw a television interview with a gangster rapmaster. I forget which homey-G thug it was although I vaguely think it may have been Ice-T. Anyway, this criminal from the ‘hood was talking about his method for robbing jewelery stores. What he’d do was, he’d walk into the store during daylight hours pretending to be a customer. He explained that it was easy shit to chat up people working behind the counter to make them feel comfortable. As soon as they were at ease someone else would engage the employees so they were distracted. Then he’d walk behind the counter and begin scooping shit out of the cases into a bag or whatever and walk right out the front door. When asked if he was fearful about having another employee discover him behind the counters, or concerned if another customer came in off the street he would simply “Act like he knew.” Like he was supposed to be there all along.

I have an instrument bag. It is designed to carry up to a one hundred pound piece of gear. We have them made with the company logo plastered all over them just like tons of other accessories for our products. You can use a strap handle to carry it like a suitcase or you can unzip a pocket to reveal two wide shoulder straps and turn it into a backpack. Frequently I used to deliver instruments between factory locations. It wasn’t uncommon to see me on camera coming and going throughout the week, entering gates and leaving a few hours later with a full instrument bag slung over my back. Occasionally the bulky over sized dimensions of a new product and the instrument’s tiring weight caused me to hasten my foot steps just to get the trip over with. Sometimes playing delivery boy for the research and development labs really sucked.

What I decided to do to get my ghetto scrapped Sig Gen out of the department and off-site was load it into the instrument bag and walk right through the main gate under plain view of cameras. Throw the box in the trunk of my car and drive away like I normally would. Act like I know. If I saw a security officer along my path I’d just continue onward as if it was business as usual. Nothing different or extraordinary, maybe I would even say hello as I passed by and wave. Reasoning that only a nosey housewife would be that curious or bored to ask about the contents of the bag I felt more confident making my escape.

And that’s exactly what I did. Act like ya know.

Phone Tag

There was a message on my answering machine when I arrived home from work last week. Tuesday I think. Actually I don’t remember. It was from Jacinda’s phone number in Oregon. I had not heard anything back for days after I first called so I wrote the effort off as a dead end. A bogus number found on the internet. You never can predict how things will turn out though. I listened to this peculiar message as a guy’s voice droned in monotone fashion about Jacinda. Very factual. To the point. The stranger informed me that Jacinda no longer lived at that residence. Apparently she had relocated some months ago back to California near Chico. Chico is located off Interstate 5 and surrounded by flat agricultural lands. It’s approximately a four hour drive from where I live near the coast. Not much out there to speak of. Chico is a college town filled to the brim with twenty-something year old drunks. Sierra Nevada Brewing Company is there, at least those knuckleheads are close to the source. This person also decided to give me Jacinda’s new number in California. As I sat thinking about it I felt adventurous. I made up my mind to call Jacinda, but first I wanted to call dude in Oregon.

Dialing his phone number again I waited as it rang multiple times. Nobody picked up. When his answering machine kicked in I said thanks for the info and mentioned that he didn’t have to fill me in on Jacinda’s current whereabouts. I realized that and wanted to make sure he knew that was pretty cool of him.

The following day when I came home that familiar red light on my Panasonic phone was blinking again indicating people left annoying messages. Most of the time the only messages I receive are from telemarketers or bill collectors. I don’t have much enthusiasm for taking the time to play back each and every item. Most of them end up skipped or deleted when I don’t recognize a caller’s voice in the first few seconds of playback. Just as I was about to dump a fresh message by pressing the erase button with a heavy finger of doom, I detected that Oregon stranger’s monotone way of speaking and I held off for a moment. It was the Jacinda guy again. He said he wanted to talk with me. It sounded genuinely important. So, I immediately called him back. As before all I got was his outgoing message. Nobody answered with a simple “Hello.” When I was prompted to speak by an electronic beep I told him what my work hours were and when I should be home on weekdays. I said I would be more than happy to speak with dude about whatever was on his mind. I hung up.

Whoever he was, he failed to call me back.

Seeking Permission To Be A Thief

Electronic test and measurement gear ain’t cheap. The instrument given to me by one of our technicians as a scrap-build for my personal hobbies retailed just under $20,000 when it was first introduced on the market. Swiping a piece of test gear from work even though it was officially obsoleted from our catalog was huge. That is why I absolutely had to talk with the Bossman about taking an item like this off-site. Better to ask permission from management and be told “no” rather than attempt to sneak shit past roaming security officers and get caught- then promptly fired for it. Yesterday I stopped by the Bossman’s cubicle and mentioned there was something important I wanted to talk with him about privately. As always he was super cool, said we could step outside for a bit early in the afternoon. He would listen to whatever I had to say.

When the time came to meet, I couldn’t help feeling damn nervous. It was not simply due to a fear of having my supervisor say “no dice” to a proposed theft of company property. I concerned myself with making sure nobody else in my department got into trouble. I thought of a positive way to approach that with the Bossman however. No matter how things were going to flop there would be no harm done. Generally, I am a cautious person. Thinking ahead I chose a nearby outdoor location that frequently exposed employees to a high level of noise. Anyone walking in our vicinity would not be able to overhear our conversation. The spot was next to a long row of freight loading docks in receiving at the West end of Building 2. Across the parking lot from where I planned to discuss my Sig Gen with the Bossman there happens to be a couple of massive liquid nitrogen storage tanks. Liquid Nitrogen is under an intense amount of pressure so any large industrial size containment areas of the stuff seems to outgas and make a fucking ton of racket. That was the spot I wanted to talk this over, and that is exactly where we went.

The moment both of us were through a double set of glass doors I scanned the immediate area for other employees. Nobody was around, so I started yapping my mouth off.

“Something happened a few months ago. I decided to keep quiet about it because I really wasn’t sure what to do, Boss. Earlier this year we shitcanned a bunch of perfectly usable test gear. Upper management made the decision to obsolete one of our product lines and they sent out emails to techs instructing them to scrap, throw out, and eliminate everything left on the line. When I found out about it, it was too late because all the testbed boxes and good used parts were already on their way to the county landfill. I could have used some of that stuff at home to help me troubleshoot vintage nixie tube gear we built back in the 1950s and 60s. I snagged a bunch of those on eBay. I talked to a group of senior technicians in the department afterward and I asked that if such a situation happened again in the future, would they please come and see me first before simply tossing everything into trash cans.”

The Bossman stood next to me with his arms crossed quietly listening. He didn’t say a word.

“Okay so fast forward a few months from that conversation I had with technicians on the shop floor. One night a guy comes up to me, points at a beat up box on a roll-away table and says it’s all mine. Same thing happened, the instrument line was obsoleted and upper management said ditch the shit. So beforehand this tech goes and builds me an entire box from scrap parts fully loaded with every available option we got and to top it all off the brother puts it through our whole test process. He gave me a functional, calibrated unit. It is a non-asset, with no real serial number. It’s not an actual production box. Since that night I been stressing about what to do. A few more months have come and gone since then. I needed to get this off my chest and tell you about it Boss because I’d really like to swipe the box for personal use.”

One of the receiving employees whizzed past us driving an orange delivery tug with a yellow blinking light on top of the cab. He disappeared into an open bay at the bottom of Building 1.

I continued, “Look what I’d like to do is give you the choice to say yes or no. I’d rather not mention names or product numbers because if you aren’t cool with this I do not want to feel like I got somebody else in a world of trouble. If the answer is “no” I can’t have the Sig Gen I will honor that and just take it back to dude. He can scrap it or whatever. No big deal, no harm done.”

The Bossman took everything in, thought about it for about thirty seconds and then he responded.

“You know FP, what we used to do in the past was allow you guys to buy old equipment and tools from the company. Either we’d auction it off to employees or what we did was… we would look at the full retail cost and then charge employees on the original tax amount. Then we as a company took that employee money and used it to fund company picnics and parties. But all that is long gone. You are aware of that.”

He paused for a moment and said, “If you tell me that this box was built with one hundred percent scrap parts and components I have no reason to believe otherwise.”

A big, stupid grin grew across my face.

“You can take it, but I DO NOT want to know about it. If you get caught you are on your own.”

I understood the Bossman’s drift. He didn’t want to be mixed up in the situation if things turned ugly. I could deal and be okay with not ratting him out should I be stupid enough to get myself busted.

“Thanks, Boss. I don’t know what to say except thank you.”

He said, “FP, you should stop and think about something for a minute. Having your fellow coworkers build you an instrument, test it for you, and then give it to you says a lot. They aren’t going to do that for just anyone around here. You are very highly thought of by the team. This is a big compliment to who you are and what you do here. Keep that in mind.”

Catching me totally off guard I kind of kicked my shoe into the concrete and coyly said to the Bossman with a retarded smile from ear to ear, “Oh stop.”

I was happy. As we walked together back inside towards the department I already had a plan…

Honesty Is The Only Policy

Each morning when I walk in to my desk from the main hallway I pass by a chrome Metro shelf rack that is my personal inventory staging area. Most of the crap I stashed on its four shelves are good used spare parts that I give to our customers when their boxes are returned for repair. Years ago Bill and Dave’s company mandate was that when a customer box came back in from the field for service or repair and the instrument had cosmetic damage, we gave the customer new parts. Or at least cleaned and repainted their equipment to make a customer unit look better than it did when it arrived in-house. Not long ago our fuckup division managers told everyone to cease all cosmetic upgrading of customer boxes. If the customer’s instrument showed up covered in dents and black soot go ahead and send it back exactly as we received it. Don’t lift a finger to clean it or dab a little touch up paint on the box even if it only takes five minutes of your time.

I have a problem with that.

Scrounging and stockpiling is my game. We’re a wasteful beast of a tech company. I have plenty of brand new scrap parts to play with so I set perfectly usable spare parts aside on that Metro rack for customer repair boxes. I’ve got rack mount handle sets, tons of rear feet, bottom feet, chrome bench mount front stands, outer cases, and probably the last set of fresh touch up paint colors for just about any instrument we have produced in the last fifteen years. The touch up paint is unobtanium around here since those management clowns laid off everyone working in the paint shop and engineering can’t be bothered with looking up that information on the drawings. Any time I get a customer box back here that’s royally screwed up I throw their shitty cosmetic parts in the trash bin and give them nearly brand new replacement material. I want their item to return in better shape than we got it. That’s my bottom line on refurbishing customer test gear. No exceptions. If I could I’d still be giving them brand new replacement parts like we used to do.

On the bottom shelf of the spare parts Metro rack, near the right hand side there is a Sig Gen. Every day I pass by it on my way to sit down and start working. Every day I see it, and I stare at it for a few moments. Nobody has noticed it. If they have seen it, nobody asks any questions. Months have come and gone since it was given to me by one of our veteran technicians who made the whole box for me out of scrap boards and used microcircuits. It is mine. But, I don’t dare talk about it with any of my coworkers. That Sig Gen sits there on the bottom shelf quietly collecting a layer of dust. When I look at it I experience a feeling of doom because in my mind I have run through dozens of scenarios that would enable me to sneak it past security off-site. I want to use it at home to work on personal projects. The ideas I have always end up bad, with me getting caught for theft and drop-kicked out of here. Each time I look at that custom instrument I feel stressed out. I wonder if this is some sort of 1950’s style loyalty test, like something executives at IBM would pull on those who are about to move up in their ranks to the next level. Corporate chutes and ladders…

Today after lunch I decided to get this over with. Rather than do something foolish I reasoned the best thing to do is talk to the Bossman about this unusual situation. I don’t want anyone to get into trouble. I figure the best way to approach him is be honest, give him the details but leave out names and product numbers. That way he won’t be able to identify who was behind building and calibrating a bootleg Signal Generator on our line. If he says no, there is no harm done. I’ll simply return the instrument to the technician who put it together and he can keep it for a testbed or give it to someone else. I will feel better being honest about it rather than trying to be all covert and shit. Tomorrow. I will schedule a meeting with the Bossman tomorrow afternoon and see what he says.

Tracking Down Jacinda

Some months back I found myself online again, late at night performing more private investigation work on Jacinda’s current whereabouts. Every so often she crosses my mind and I wonder what happened to her, where she lives now, if she remembers me. Usually at least a few occasions a year I spend a small amount of time searching. I suppose problems with Autumn give me more opportunities to think about past relationships. I wonder what could have happened in my life if I had been successful with a previous long-term girlfriend. As years have passed I discover more and more web-based resources for tracking people down. It’s interesting while at the same time kind of spooky so much personal information is easily obtained on people. The last time I did an online search for Jacinda I found a phone number in Oregon that I thought was probably hers. I wrote the number down and put it away. Tonight I decided to call that number.

Nobody picked up. I talked to an answering machine, leaving my name and number. The outgoing message was a guy’s voice that had a slight southern drawl to it I thought. Probably her boyfriend or husband. I said I was an old friend of Jacinda’s and that it had been thirteen years since I last saw her. Didn’t say much else. I don’t know if I will hear anything back, but I felt good about trying to get in touch with her. There are still some things I wanted to say, things I need to get off of my chest. When we split up everything was such a mess. I never saw her again after that.

From Zero To Sixty

It’s weird.

Every weeknight when Autumn got home from work I’d call her. She was always there, in her apartment after work spending time reading books and eating popcorn. We would yap at each other for hours some nights. Our regular scheduled time to socialize with each other. Reliable, you could always count on it. Not anymore. Most evenings these days Autumn is out, spending time with that obnoxious friend of hers. Autumn doesn’t call until eleven. We talk for a short time and then she’s off to bed. Her galpal lives somewhere in the hills East of Berkeley with her husband and a couple of kids that should have moved out on their own long ago from the sound of things. Autumn told me they have a trampoline in the backyard that she likes to jump around on. They sit and watch movies. I guess she eats dinner with these people each night, then eventually goes home. It’s like Autumn has gone from a complete standstill- zero to sixty with her friendship to Miss Obnoxious.

Both of them went out drinking together the other night. Really got hammered from Autumn’s description of things. They hit a few places to booze it up and then sat in a gutter on a sidewalk somewhere. Miss Obnoxious lost her purse which included all her credit cards and some cash of course. What a clueless dunce. When Autumn told me about that scene over the phone I couldn’t help but feel happy that skank was stupid enough to lose her shit. Made me grin. Honestly I don’t understand what it is about this woman that Autumn finds so fascinating or interesting about to want to hang out with her all the time. Seems strange to me but I can’t say why exactly. Just is.

Another Piece Of The Autumn Puzzle

Autumn’s brother invited me over to his place this past weekend for a BBQ. Due to prior commitments Autumn couldn’t make it, but I decided to head on over by myself anyway. Her brother was a friend whom I knew since high school. Along with him other mutual friends would be there like Canopener and Jerry D, so I figured why not go and hang out? Besides, Autumn’s brother was one hell of a cook. His grub kicks ass, from the grill to the kitchen. Everything he mixes up will please my family-size stomach like there is no tomorrow. That alone is reason enough to arrive at one of his weekend backyard BBQ’s.

Shortly after I drove across town to his house and walked in through their garage, I opened up a bottle of beer. Slugging it down in bright afternoon sun I stood next to a flower garden that appeared to be freshly groomed. Quietly taking in the scene of children running about playing on their lawn I cast my gaze around from random clusters of people having involved conversations. Everyone seemed to be having a good time. My beer was dead so I grabbed another. Taking a gulp from the bottle I noticed Autumn’s brother walking towards me. As he came near he said there was something that had been on his mind for a while. Something he wanted to ask about. He wanted to know how long Autumn and I had been friends, when we first met. That sort of stuff. I guess it wasn’t a topic we had talked about together before.

Autumn and I first met in 1987 or thereabouts when I was still in high school working part time at a record store. I explained to him that Autumn was somewhat of an enigma to me then. She would blow through the double doors in the record store’s lobby wearing full length, flowing skirts that obscured her shoes from view and probably dragged along the ground half the time she was walking. Her hair was long and dark, hanging down to her backside. She used to ask me for recommendations on horror or sci-fi films. I mentioned to him that Autumn used to bring me little presents like polished rocks tightly wrapped in paper and twine. Nothing ever happened between us though. I was dating Jennifer at the time and Autumn had a boyfriend. I didn’t find out about her man until many years later though.

Continuing on about my past with Autumn I told him a story about a strange night I never forgot. Autumn and I did not have any relationship because she was confusing to me. At times I thought she wanted something more than just a friendship, but other times she was standoffish and distant. Mixed signals girl. I couldn’t figure out what it was that she wanted, if anything at all. One particular night after she finished a late shift at her job she called me up saying she wanted to go out. She wanted to take a drive with me over to the town of Napa. It wasn’t far away, but I knew nothing would be open in the middle of the night. Napa is in the heart of California wine country. It is a tourist town that closes up shop fairly early each evening. There’s no night life. Nothing to do. I thought it strange but what the hell. I agreed to go for the late night drive.

We took the Cougar. Just as I expected when we rolled into the downtown part of Napa proper there wasn’t a single shop or restaurant open. Autumn wanted to criss cross up and down each street. I didn’t get it. It was like she was searching for something that wasn’t there. We drove around town away from shops that were little more than tourist traps for the wealthy. There wasn’t a single person out on the streets that night no matter where we went. A half hour later I was becoming bored and suggested we drive off to a secluded spot to park the Cougar and hang out together. In the back of my mind I was thinking maybe the two of us could get busy making out or some shit. Heading North on a deserted rural road I found a spot with a wide, flat shoulder off the pavement under a single file grove of Eucalyptus trees. I eased the car to a stop, shoved the gear shift all the way forward, and pulled the parking brake. Twisting the key to the left, pleasant rumbling from both exhaust pipes abruptly ceased. It was silent.

I don’t remember how long Autumn and I sat together in the dark making little more than small talk. Initiating action with a girl like trying to lean over across a car seat and skillfully plant a kiss was always a stressful moment for me. The fear of rejection was great. Nevertheless, I made a move towards Autumn. She anticipated this and reacted quite unexpectedly. Autumn reeled backwards against the passenger door away from me with a threatening look on her face. She appeared tense. Confused by what I was dealing with I tried once again to gently move towards her. That was a mistake. Autumn positioned her right arm against the glass ready to strike out at me with a fierce punch. So, I got the hint. She wasn’t into me.

That night set the tone of our friendship for years to come afterward. I explained to Autumn’s brother that she and I never had anything more although I stayed in touch. When she was away at college in Southern California we wrote letters to each other. And when Autumn was living in Russia we still wrote back and forth frequently. Eventually I lost contact with her though. The letters stopped and I didn’t know where she ended up living or what Autumn was doing for work. The rest of the story William knew well enough. Autumn and I started talking again when he moved back into town. Coincidentally he happened to be renting a room at a friend’s house. It was all thanks to him myself and Autumn were talking again. Nearly five years had passed since then. Five years Autumn and I were in a serious relationship.

The funny thing was, after Autumn and I were in a serious relationship together we talked about that night occasionally. The first time it came up in conversation Autumn remembered it vividly. We both had a good laugh. Another time I brought it up a couple of years later and Autumn claimed no memory of the incident whatsoever. It was strange, like she was being evasive for some reason. I let it go.

William didn’t know any of this past background between his sister and myself. I finished another beer as William quietly looked me in the eye and said, “I think I know why Autumn acted weird that night in Napa.”

“Really?” I asked dryly.

He said, “When she was working that late night job she was seeing a guy who lived out that way, by Napa somewhere. He dumped her, Autumn was real spun out about it. Took it bad. I think maybe she was kinda following up on him… you know.”

I got what he meant. Maybe Autumn took it so badly that she was stalking the guy, but William wasn’t going that far by actually saying it. Interesting. The thought never even crossed my mind. Later in the afternoon as I rolled it around in my mind it made more and more sense. More than ever I felt like Autumn hadn’t really wanted to be with me. I was second best, not what she wanted at all but slightly better than nothing. Things between us had been strained lately, this made it all seem worse. But it was plausible. It figured, like one of the long missing pieces of my Autumn jigsaw puzzle was finally located and placed correctly in the picture.

Underground Shindig

Driving over to Autumn’s place after work I experienced an ominous sense of gloom. I wasn’t looking forward to the evening’s planned outing. We were going over to San Francisco with Autumn’s obnoxious pal and her husband to hit one of those underground clubs where you can drink booze after hours. Get your freak going on the dance floor to stupid electronic music only candy raver retards could love. I cared less about going out. My job beat the shit out of me this week. All I wanted to do was sit someplace quiet, drink beer, and kick back. That wasn’t about to happen this night. Fuck. Also, I really wasn’t looking forward to spending the evening in the company of Miss loud leathery skin handbag luggage chick. She grates on my nerves every time words come out of her mouth.

Arriving on Autumn’s block I parked the car on the edge of a mall parking lot. Her street dead ends at the mall. I dragged my feet up two flights of stairs towards Autumn’s apartment, meandered along the balcony walkway towards her door and let myself in. As I shoved the door past me Miss Samsonite was hovering next to the kitchen table blocking the hallway beyond which lead to Autumn’s bedroom. Her mangy hair hung off her head like a tightly braided floor mop. She was already babbling non-stop before I could put my bag down on a big white chair. I caught her in mid-bubbly happy rant. I was so completely turned off at the sight of this woman. People like her bug me partly because they are too happy all the time, and partly because they can’t ever shut the fuck up. It’s not natural to be like that, it’s like they are on Prozac or some shit and that raises red flags. I’m wary. Autumn was nowhere to be seen in the apartment at the moment. She wasn’t in the kitchen, or living room. I peeked past her friends to look into her bedroom. She wasn’t there either. Uninteresting conversation continued for a few minutes. Then I heard Autumn’s voice coming from the bathroom.

This couple Autumn had befriended brought dinner with them for everyone. It was thoughtful, I had to admit. On the kitchen table there was a bunch of little white paperboard boxes filled with a variety of Chinese food. Both of them encouraged me to eat whatever I wanted, but I wasn’t hungry at all. While I stood close to the table looking downward at all the grub in front of me, Miss obnoxious grabbed me by the arm. She said something to me about herself; admitting she is annoying as fuck to be around while laughing it off like it’s all a big cute joke. I wanted to punch her. I told her I hadn’t noticed her obnoxiousness, which was a straight-up fucking lie. I was trying to be nice. While the woman was holding my left arm all the skin below my shoulder began to crawl. The moment she let go I walked away from a corner of the kitchen table to Autumn’s bathroom. Looking inside I saw Autumn busily doing her makeup in front of the mirror. She was wearing one of her revealing low cut latex tops we custom ordered from Skin Two. It had been a while since Autumn got all dolled up like that. A long time. It seemed sort of strange- and then I had a sobering realization. Autumn wasn’t getting herself decked out for me which was pretty much always the case until now. She was getting ready to go out on the town regardless of me being there or not. I suddenly felt out of place, like the world was somehow askew and I didn’t know how to put it back together. Autumn looked good. Inside I bristled because this situation reminded me of my final days when I was still living with that dunce, Jennifer.

The four of us drove across the Bay Bridge in darkness towards a location off South Van Ness. Areas of the city that were previously industrial had been taken over by developers trying to attract young hipster crowds to trendy restaurants, coffee shops, and tiny loft apartments with an expensive monthly rent. We arrived in front of a brick faced building to find a man blocking a doorway where a handful of trendy nitwit twenty something year old kids stood in line impatiently waiting. When it was time to enter, Autumn’s friends forked over cash paying our cover charge as well as their own. Inside, we were confronted by loud techno beats. People were shouting to get drink orders into the ears of a lone bartender. Off to the right there was a medium-sized dance floor with overhead movie screens. Hidden projectors filled each screen with stale 1970s stock film footage or low-res computer graphics that jittered in sync to the DJ’s music mix. Past the main dance floor I spotted a couple of people darting through thick black curtains into another room. Crossing over the area where dozens of idiots were acting like Mexican jumping beans I shoved a heavy piece of dark cloth aside to reveal a chill room. Losers were lying around sparsely strewn on the ground like discarded boards at a construction site. Hopeless stoners. I left and headed for the bathroom to take a leak.

Autumn danced with a dozen strangers who were trying too hard to be cool as I walked by and entered an empty restroom. Electro-beat shit thundered through the vacant, darkened room as I stood in front of a stall pissing away. This music was too busy, I decided. It gave me a god damned headache. Before I finished my business, two guys walked in and complained to each other how “commercial” this underground club was. I laughed at them when I turned to wash my hands at the sink. Why bother? Stay home and read a book, I thought to myself. The whole concept of after hours clubs is dumb, these underground hipster bar scenes are so stupid to begin with.

Returning to the club mayhem I sat myself down on a couch in a far corner of the main area. I didn’t want to be in this place. Intermittently I cast my gaze back and forth from Autumn dancing away near the DJ booth to the rather poor quality visual assault being served above our heads. Time was moving slowly. There wasn’t anything I could do for the moment except sit, stay out of the way, and wait to leave.

Chinese Customer Feedback

Every week Top Cat sends out corny e-mails. He’s trying to keep us factory peasants motivated while informing employees about company business. Usually Top Cat is sent on overseas assignments to meet with customers or business partners concerning their complaints and suggestions. Investigating customer issues in person appears to be necessary because we as a test and measurement electronics company are fucking up so badly. Top Cat frequently writes his e-mails to us from the comfort of a first-class seat on an airplane while he is probably sipping a chilled glass of champagne and munching on a cracker covered in Russian caviar. He’s actually an adept writer, going into rich detail about each on site customer visit. He doesn’t realize though that employees back in our product divisions who have not received a merit wage increase in years are even more disgruntled by his lack of understanding. Top Cat’s e-mails seem condescending to employees who have survived a dozen rounds of deep job cuts while having to tighten their belts at home over the last couple of years.

Writing from China, Top Cat interviewed dozens of companies gathering their feedback. To my amazement he actually forwarded word for word many of our Chinese customers’ complaints which were quite harsh. As I read many of their grievances a common observation became clear. When we broke up Bill and Dave’s company into two separate entities our product reliability rapidly dropped off. The computer division kept Bill and Dave’s names and the test and measurement core was spun off into a new unheard of company. Chinese customers noted how poor our quality was immediately after the company split. I completely agree with them. Top Cat asked all employees what we thought about the situation and he openly solicited suggestions from us to solve our problems. It’s always risky using the open door policy to communicate with upper management here, but I decided to go ahead and write a response to Top Cat. I’ll probably be blacklisted by management now. Yeah!

———-

Top Cat,

I just finished reading your email containing the customer feedback from China. Sadly, I can’t say I am at all surprised by their dissatisfaction with our products. Many of our customers are extremely unhappy with the reliability and performance of our units. While I’m certain you have much more access and visibility to our customer feedback than I do, I’d like you to take a few moments to look over some of what customers are saying about the products I currently work on.

“Customer has had many quality problems with their EXXXXC and EXXXXA … on verge of terminating any business relationship with Bill and Dave’s company.” -ZTE

“EXXXXC High failure rate; long Turn Around Time for repair parts; no loaners available.” -Global PCS

“We have a severe quality problem that this customer has been experiencing with the EXXXXB and C’s. The customer has had 8 separate failures and believes its a design problem. They just received a new EXXXXC - Dead On Arrival.” -Motorola

“EXXXXC Up to now, we have had 3 sets of ESG (2 EXXXXC, 1 EXXXXB) get broken. All had the same failure mode.” -Global PCS

“EXXXXC Customer is very frustrated about several instances of long product shipment delays, product specs, and overall operational issues at Bill and Dave’s company that affects him and his work. He’s tired of hearing excuses and wants results.” -Powerwave Tech

“We have received a customer complaint about the smoke from the EXXXXA.” -Epson

“Our service center received another burnt capacitor in the EXXXXA.” -Toyo Technica

Unfortunately there isn’t much that I can do directly on a daily basis to help remedy this general situation. Every day when I show up to work it seems like everything is always worst-case scenarios. I frequently feel overwhelmed, and I try to go the extra distance for our customers but it really is an uphill battle. We have laid off so many employees, there is hardly anyone left here. Our materials supply is extremely inefficient. Work coming to us from various subcontractors is generally shoddy.

Top Cat, Bill and Dave’s company is no longer an industry leader. We have become an industry “follower.” Our company has become a “How little can I give, for all that I can get?” company. This needs to stop. We have made many shortsighted business decisions for the past few years that have placed us in this appalling situation. To be honest I’m skeptical we will be able to turn this around anytime soon, if at all. In order for us to restore customer confidence in our products we have to stop talking about Quality, and we have to start taking direct action. Otherwise our problems as a whole will continue and worsen.

We need to either find higher quality and performance from Subcontractors or we need to pull that work back in-house and do it ourselves. I feel the more direct control we have over our work, the more direct control we ultimately have in the timeliness and quality of that work.

We need to be more realistic in what our overseas divisions can be tasked with, and what they can handle.

We need to streamline our internal processes and make them more uniform. Instead, generally we have been doing the exact opposite.

I felt a need to voice my personal opinion directly to you after reading your email. Please understand I care tremendously about our company. I started here in 1992 and over the years I’ve put a lot of effort into what we do.

Thank you for your time,

Factory Peasant

Autumn’s New Friend

The office where Autumn works recently hired in a new person that Autumn has taken quite a personal liking to. The new-hire is a woman Autumn’s office was somewhat familiar with already due to the fact that she worked for a colleague/competitor in the same field. The business they are in is a niche corner of the financial world. Socially Responsible Investment is what Autumn calls it. I think of SRI’s business people and customers more as Financial Conscientious Objectors though. It’s like they’re a bunch of little kids who are sore losers. They don’t like the way the game is played by everyone else, so they confiscate the ball and go home with it. Basic gist at Autumn’s office is they find *politically correct* investments for customers to put their money into that fits each individual’s moral or ethical views. Have customers put their money into companies that focus on renewable energy sources instead of Standard Oil, for example. Helps some people sleep better at night I guess, knowing that their cash isn’t going to perceived evil corporations. Problem is though, some of these alternative businesses and companies are not successful. I sometimes think of SRI as selling modern-day Snake Oil, or twenty-first century Carpetbagging.

I’ve read SRI started near the tail end of the Vietnam War. Most people I have talked to never heard of it before which means they haven’t exactly done a very good job promoting themselves over the past three decades. Socially Responsible Investment doesn’t seem to me like it has accomplished much in the thirty or so years it’s been around, either. Bottom line is it’s just hippies managing other hippies’ loot. Hippies are a small but vocal crowd of investors. In addition to channeling customers’ funds away from politically incorrect investments SRI as a movement attempts to sweeten the deal through shareholder activism. SRI targets sympathetic investors with large shareholdings in major companies and corporations then asks these individuals to introduce resolutions at annual shareholder meetings. Rabble rousing tactics. Listening to Autumn talk about the success these methods have had on making the world a better place for everyone to live in, I am rather skeptical. Sometimes I think hippies give themselves far more credit for their actions than they deserve.

Anyway, Autumn doesn’t have many female friends. Of the few women she is close with most of them live far away so she doesn’t get to see them often. Her new friend they hired in at the office sounds like she caused some hectic personal conflicts with her former employer from what little details I’ve overheard Autumn mention. This past weekend Autumn arranged a get together with us, her new pal and her pal’s husband at Cesar’s for drinks. Things were pleasant enough during cocktail time but holy shit is that woman obnoxious. She can’t shut up. Non-stop jabberjaw action that really got on my nerves in no time. She’s also kind of clingy which makes my skin crawl. Tough to look at, too. Her skin is leathery and wrinkled from spending years in the sun, she’s got a long narrow face and her blond hair is in tight braids which looks entirely retarded on her. White folk cannot get away with doing their hair like that.

I’m not going to say a damn thing to Autumn about how detestable this lady is even though she was making fun of my glasses. If Autumn digs her and wants to hang out all the time with her, that’s Autumn’s deal. It’s important for her to have a female friend so Autumn can go out and do girl stuff instead of being with me on weekends all the time. Maybe it will do Autumn some good. I can already tell I am not going to jive with this obnoxious chick though. She’s super annoying. Being around her for more than five minutes is going to be difficult. Real unpleasant, like sitting in an empty classroom while someone drags their fingernails across a chalkboard.

Tape Measuring The Test Stations

While testing a unit this afternoon at one of the EI stations facing reverse flow I happened to notice Big Dog crawling around on all fours with a tape measure in one hand. I didn’t say anything for a minute or two. I watched what he was doing which seemed entirely weird to me. He crawled to a test rack, measured the distance between it and the next one, then repositioned them on the floor. Grabbing a test station with both hands Big Dog wiggled it around until he was satisfied with it’s position. Eventually he wrenched each of the safety supports underneath the stations back into contact with the floor and moved to another spot. Those supports are on long threaded studs. We wrench them snug against flooring to keep each station exactly where we want it. Can’t roll around free when they are engaged along with a support bar that is placed in front of each station for an added measure of safety.

I called over to Big Dog asking him what he was doing with his tape measure and those racks. As he looked over in my direction he scowled and shook his head.

He said, “Project Showcase.”

“Huh? What’s that got to do with moving test stations an inch or so on the floor?”

Big Dog said, “Miss Axeman wants every one of our racks positioned with the exact same distance between them so they will ‘look good’ when she brings customers through the area on a tour. It’s bullshit. Not like I don’t already have enough on my plate to do without any help.”

I laughed at his explanation as he shuffled off towards another row of test stations with a length of yellow tape measure scraping along floor tiles. That’s so stupid. What an incredible waste of Big Dog’s time, too. He’s pretty much the only person in our entire department making sure every piece of test equipment in our racks is calibrated and functioning properly. Junk like this will put him further behind schedule while accomplishing absolutely nothing. I could tell Big Dog was angry about being assigned such a dumb Project Showcase task.

What next? Maybe Treehead’s Niece will clean dust off the overhead light fixtures for us. Boeing’s engineers will undoubtedly take note of our immaculate overhead lighting during their ensuing visit and place a billion dollar order with us because of it. Not.

Movie Nights At Jerry D’s

Sitting around at home by myself every day after work has become mundane. I drink bottle after bottle of beer, staring at the same dozen websites going in circles looking for something new to read. If I am not staring at my computer screen I’m staring at the wall just behind it. On swing shift when I came home from work it was generally too late in the evening to go back out to do anything. Most people are asleep by then. I decided I needed to get out more and be social. Not far from my place two friends, Devil-T and Jerry D share a small two-story townhouse together. Talking with them a few weeks ago about my desire to get out and hang with people we decided to start a weekly movie night on Wednesdays around 9pm. They offered to host the gig at their place which was mighty cool of them.

Jerry D, The Devil known as T, and myself all have similar tastes in film. We really dig zombie movies, Sci-fi, and Japanese Anime. We’re huge geeks. Each Wednesday more people have been showing up over at Jerry’s place making the whole deal more fun. Stash-Tard-O is usually there as soon as he gets off work along with Rick & Anna, Jeff Speewack, and Anson. Anson always passes out cold on the floor minutes after coming in though. At least he doesn’t snore. There’s plenty of good beer going around and lots of snacks to grub down on. It’s been good, I should have thought of doing this with friends a long time ago.

Near Autumn’s place in Berkeley there’s a mall only Asian-owned businesses are allowed in. One of them specializes in bootleg DVDs from Japan, China, and Korea. Lately I have been buying anime and horror films from that shop to bring over to movie night. Some of the stuff is surprisingly good, but it’s always a crap-shoot because most of the time I have no idea what I am picking up. The official versions of these DVDs probably won’t hit retail shelves in stores until next year though. It’s fun watching television shows and films you’re not supposed to have and that nobody else will likely get to see until many months later.

Pop Goes The Miss Auschwitz

Another instrument failed in Customer Sim this morning. The sheer amount of brand new boxes dying over there just before shipping out to customers is staggering. Olaf called my extension asking for help with an electrical failure on a Sig Gen. He also mentioned there was something else he wanted to show me, but he didn’t elaborate any further. I’d have to wait until arriving at his desk to find out what the mystery item was. Most of the time when I receive calls from Customer Sim I end up wasting my effort on false alarms unless the call is placed by Olaf or Marc. Those two guys are the only employees in their area catching real problems. That Android guy constantly calls to complain about stuck front panel keys on our boxes. When I test them they work properly, when Mr. Android jams his fingers into the front panel buttons like a jackhammer they’re tucked behind the metal front panel frame. He’s too stupid to realize the problem is being caused by himself even though we’ve been arguing over this issue dozens of times. I’m sick of him. And of course Five Watt calls us far too often about random dumb shit that supposedly failed. She’s retarded.

Olaf’s desk is a short walk from my department. I make a right in the aisle by my workbench, go past shipping and make another right into Customer Sim. They’re located directly across from four cubicles that make up our Warranty Service Group. Those poor folks have been completely buried in work for months thanks to a high volume of broken gear returning to the factory for extensive repairs. Warranty Service Group is a bad scene these days.

Standing behind Olaf I gave him a nod and asked what the problem was. Turns out as he ran a unit through some simple software tests the sucker came unlocked on a frequency and then completely barfed on him. The front panel display screen was covered in a weird black box in the upper left hand corner we have nicknamed “The Black Screen Of Death.” Inside the BSOD there’s a bunch of coded text mumbo-jumbo gibberish none of us can make any sense of. Usually I have Customer Sim take a digital picture of the BSOD and then simply bring the instrument back to my area. I call the code monkeys over in software engineering, and then dump the box on JP which makes him extra happy. As I disconnected the Signal Generator and slid it onto a rolling table to bring back into Sources, Olaf produced a tin box and placed it on his workbench.

The little metal cube Olaf had was covered in Halloween horror scenes. Monsters and gravestones were sparsely complemented by forlorn trees with a full moon in the background. A hand crank on the right side of the box had a little red ball on the end. Olaf told me to give it a whirl. I smirked and began to spin the handle with my clenched fist. Music erupted from the little box. I then realized it was a sort of warped jack-in-the-box meant for people with a dark sense of humor. As I continued rotating the little handle a door flew open and a female figure with greasy hair and a twisted face popped upwards at me. It seemed strangely familiar somehow, but I couldn’t place it. Olaf watched me intently. A few moments later I got it.

“That’s Miss Auschwitz,” I mumbled sarcastically.

Olaf jumped backwards in his chair laughing out loud while slapping his hands together. “YES!” He shouted.

Awesome. Fucking awesome. I giggled some more while staring at the horrible little witch sticking out of the lid of that novelty pop-goes-the-weasel toy. It really did look like her, the resemblance to Miss Auschwitz was uncanny. Very close to real life with her vacant menacing gaze, pinched scowl across her mouth, and bad taste in attire. Olaf hates her even more than I do because like most departments in this division whenever Miss Auschwitz shows up you are about to experience concentration camp-strength levels of pain that only she can deliver. She has repeatedly gone into Customer Sim intent on making life as difficult as possible for them with petty demands and by claiming a variety of minor safety violations. This gives Miss Auschwitz a form of control over other employees that she seems to crave like a drug addiction. I sure wish somebody in management would do us all a favor and fire the bitch already.

Booger Prince

On the front end of the line there is a skeleton crew of assembly workers. Compared to the army of employees we had leading up to round after round of deep job cuts the only people left are Shitfoot, EH, and The Mole. The Mole is a little runt of a man who somehow managed to dodge every layoff during the past four years. When I first started at Bill and Dave’s company in the PC Board division, I used to see The Mole working across the shop floor on PC board lines. Eventually he worked his way up into a Material Coordinator position, but like many here he was demoted in order to save his neck from the corporate axe. He stepped down, back to being an assembler and was drop-kicked into our department. The Mole has lingered on here with us since then.

I call him The Mole mainly because he is a weaselly-looking short shit. His tiny face is pinched up and he’s got a massive overbite which always makes me think of ground-dwelling rodents whenever I see him walking through the building’s hallways. Even his voice seems rodent like. He would make an excellent cartoon voice actor, no doubt about it. The Mole is also rather shifty, he has earned a nasty reputation for being difficult to work with as well as being a back stabber. Generally, I stay away from the guy only talking to him when I must.

This afternoon Olaf burst into my area hopping around laughing, while at the same time on the verge of being visibly disgusted. He made quite an entrance coming from an aisle of test racks over by B-Rad’s workbench. I swung around in my chair to find out what he was so tweaked about just as he was telling a story to B-Rad and Deep who were both sitting nearby. From the sound of things, Olaf was over in assembly stuck in a work related conversation with The Mole. While the two of them were talking, Olaf noticed a big gold-green booger was hanging out of the end of The Mole’s hook nose. Shortly thereafter the green gob of hardened goo popped out of his nose and dropped onto his lower lip. As he continued lecturing Olaf, The Mole inadvertently ate his own booger without realizing it. Olaf watched unable to say anything meanwhile on the verge of gagging. So of course he had to immediately come over here and tell us about it. Heh.

From now on I hereby and henceforth decree that The Mole shall be known as The Booger Prince.