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.

Lonely

I want more of Autumn’s time. She isn’t willing to put in much effort to make that happen. Everything about our relationship is on her terms. I suppose I am hopelessly hanging on, waiting for Autumn to change. I did that with Jennifer too, the results were disastrous. I fail to learn from my past mistakes. During the week when Autumn and I are apart, I become lonely. Thinking about the situation between the two of us is entirely frustrating and it reminds me of some aspects of my relationship with Jennifer which makes me angry. That was far worse though, I lived with Jennifer for two years under the same roof and ended up experiencing long periods of time feeling lonesome. There is nothing more aggravating to me than being in a long term relationship with a woman who continuously acts distant, who relegates me to a low priority in their life. I must be nothing more than background noise to Autumn.

Autumn told me once she was grateful to Jennifer for getting rid of me. Autumn was happy to be in a serious relationship with me then. That was in the first year or two we were together. She wanted to send Jennifer a flower bouquet as a thank you for setting me free, allowing Autumn and I to eventually be together. Ironically I see a few bad similarities between Autumn and Jennifer now. The two women are more alike in some ways than I would care to admit. A major difference however is the sex. With Autumn sex is always fun, and adventurous.

Sometimes on a slow day at work I will hop on the Internet and do a little private investigation, searching for past girlfriends. Usually Autumn has done something stupid or said something insensitive to me that triggers my curiosity in the whereabouts of an old lover. I wonder what things could have been like with each ex-girlfriend if they were different. If I made completely alternate choices in certain situations or if I was treated better what would the outcome be? Would I still be with Jacinda after all these years? It’s like dwelling on the past as if I was in a science fiction movie where I could step through a doorway time-traveling backwards to a point in my life where I might do things differently and take an uncharted course from the one that lead me here today.

Jennifer is a case where if I could do things all over again I would never have gotten back together with her. She’s rotten to the core, absolutely boring in the bedroom and manipulative as hell. Sleeping with Jennifer was like lying in bed with an old two-by-four fence post. I haven’t bothered looking for Jennifer online. I figure she became a dumpy-frumpster of a housewife someplace doing little more than sitting on a couch growing extra chins, living her life through shoddy night time soap operas on television. Jennifer is a woman who most likely is someone else’s problem now, another guy is taking a hit for our team. He should be thanked for stepping up to the plate for the rest of us like that.

I search for Jacinda online every now and again. Maybe a few times a year, pushed by Autumn’s bullshit. Guilt plagues me when I think of Jacinda. I probably shouldn’t blame myself for her downward spiral after I broke up with her, but I do feel bad just the same. Infrequently I find a little piece of the mystery concerning Jacinda’s current whereabouts. The trail usually goes cold rapidly, except for this time. I found a phone number in Oregon listed to a Jacinda that fits her age and full name. Whatever little tidbit of new information I do manage to scrounge up about Jacinda, I file away. Maybe I will summon enough courage to dial that number and see if it is really her or not. There are a few things I’d like to say, things I want to get off my chest and apologize for.

Loose Screws From Overseas

I was convinced after reviewing photos sent by Symtx that the loose hardware had to have come from the RF microdeck. The possibility that extra hardware floating around inside the instrument chassis somehow got past final inspection was unlikely. We would have heard that screw rattling around bouncing off of the frame. Both the Bossman and I talked about this embarrassing situation. He concluded I was probably on the right track, that the item dislodged from the RF deck.

Shitfoot discovered a bunch of microcircuits in the assembly area that had the center retaining screw in their outer covers completely loose. We don’t build or test any of our microcircuit packages in the United States anymore. They’re all shipped from our division in Malaysia. For U.S. Government rated orders and some defense contractors we are required to build and test one hundred percent of those instruments here Stateside. The reality though is quite different. Everything is built and tested overseas, from sub-assemblies like front panels to the microcircuits and PC boards. We don’t even have the sheet metal fabrication done in the U.S. anymore. We place a U.S. serial number on each unit that ships out of this facility and make a rather dubious claim it was “assembled” here, what we really did was just integrate each box and then force it through mostly automated test processes.

My understanding for the past few years has been that U.S. military orders of our products are not supposed to be coming from Malaysia. The loophole is to either send it through Singapore where it is re-serialized as a Singapore built box with a ‘SG’ prefixed number or build all the components in Malaysia and then ship everything into the U.S. where we slap it together and place a ‘US’ serial tag on it. As I mentioned before, when I tried to raise some concerns about this in the past with the DoD Inspector General’s office they had no useful information to provide. Their reaction at the DoD IG was one of indifference, they could care less.

Reacting swiftly, we re-torqued screws on our entire in-house supply of microcircuits. Working our way forward through the assembly department we also opened up every single instrument in WIP discovering more loose screws and torquing them down. When we completed that task, the focus was shifted to root cause of the problem. It didn’t take long to sort that out.

Apparently, Malay assemblers on the microcircuit line were installing outer cover screws and then torquing them down in clockwise order. You know when you go to change a tire on your car the proper procedure is to alternate tightening down the lug nuts rather than wrench them in a clockwise pattern. Malay assemblers placed the center screw in a microcircuit’s clamshell case first, then hit it with a torque driver. Next they put in the rest of the screws torquing them down in order rather than using an alternating pattern. When the electric driver came to a dead stop, Malay operators assumed their work was complete. They failed to go over each screw a second time checking for proper torque. Had assemblers taken a few extra seconds of time to make a simple verification with their torque driver none of those center screws would have shipped off the production floor loose. Is this a training issue? Probably. But, we’ve had other frustrating issues with the Malaysian microcircuit assemblers before, like when they decided to use red fingernail polish to secure microcircuit hardware instead of approved red colored Loc-Tite adhesive.

On A Short String

Hello,

Here is a message from Symtx in Texas on an OBD. When you look at the pictures look at the screw sticking out the side of the instrument. Needless to say, the customer is really upset getting this extra hardware after having several other Bill and Dave’s instruments fail in the last 2 weeks. Symtx has instituted a pre-inspection of our instruments because of the quality problems they are experiencing and this was found in that pre-inspection. The manager I talked with stated that Bill and Dave’s company is on a short string as far as Symtx is concerned. To the Field Engineer and me that means we have a really good chance of losing this customer if quality problems continue.

The manager prefers not to return the instrument because he has a deadline to meet, so we need to determine if this screw could have come loose and fallen out or if it was just something extra. If we feel it came loose, where could it have come from. Once you get back to me, I need to get back to the Field Engineer to discuss further action. I need to have an answer.

Regards,

D

———-

Peasant,

Take a look at the photos let me know your thoughts. Thanks,

Bossman

———-

Chris,

An XXXXXX with SN USXXXXXXXX was received within the last few days. Since we have been experiencing so many failures of Bill and Dave’s equipment, our end customer, Lockheed Martin STS, demands that we power up and BIT test all instruments before they can be transferred to a system. When this unit was removed from the box, a loose screw was found to be sticking out of the ventilation holes on one side of the instrument. See attached pictures. Per your instructions, we pulled the case back about 1″ and removed the loose screw. Once the case was re-installed, the system was powered up, and it passed BIT test. We will test the instrument in an LM-Star system tonight, and I will let you know if any other issues are found. The loose screw that was removed from the unit is a flat head, torx drive screw. I don’t have a thread gauge handy, but the thread diameter is about .114 inches, and the screw length is about .712 inches.

During the second half of last year, Symtx experienced about an 8 to 10 percent failure on Bill and Dave’s instruments for the LM-Star program. As you know, within the past two weeks, Symtx has experienced two out-of-box XXXXX failures out of four units that were received and opened. What is particularly troubling to me, is that these systems passed power up and BIT tests, but failed tests at the instrument connectors. This means that even with the power up and BIT tests, I can’t be assured that the instruments will perform when installed in LM STS systems in Orlando.

The LM-Star program is under a very tight schedule for multiple systems during the next few months, and instrument failures are going to cause missed shipments and lots of downstream fallout for both Symtx and Lockheed Martin STS. This is totally unacceptable for this defense rated program, particularly considering the millions of dollars of instruments that Bill and Dave’s company is selling to this program.

Please instigate a Customer Feedback System report on the above issues.

Regards,

D

Damage Control

Lockheed Martin’s Star program was a huge deal for us. LM-Star is a new series of comprehensive test stations for supporting the Joint Strike Fighter (F-35). In order to streamline and cut costs, Lockheed designed the LM-Star primarily around our equipment and from the onset it was made to be easily configured depending on the necessary end use. Give the user exactly what he needs to do the job, nothing more. For example, a US Air Force depot would more than likely get a fully loaded LM-Star test station so technicians there could handle almost any kind of contingency such as calibration or troubleshooting on the Joint Strike Fighter’s systems. One of Lockheed’s subcontractors on the F-35 program may need to have an LM-Star station however it would only have a minimal amount of test gear in it’s racks to handle a specific aspect of JSF avionics testing. Stripped down versions of the full test stations would ensure consistency throughout the life of the program while ultimately saving both Lockheed and the Government millions of dollars.

Because we have experienced an increasing amount of hard failures in our new generations of test instruments it is causing a ripple effect in our customer’s delivery schedules and product development cycles. Every time one of our boxes fails in the field, the customer has to contact us to get the item returned and repaired. Customers have no choice but to suffer through an excessively long turn around time. Meanwhile they are losing days that turn into weeks of downtime, leading into months. Our customers also incur extra costs thanks to us. Our reputation for producing reliable gear has eroded considerably in the past few years, directly due to rushing immature designs out of the lab too soon, subcontract manufacturing, and offshoring to Asia. It’s a collective problem that was bound to creep up on us sooner or later.

I care deeply about all my customers. Whenever they have a concern or are unhappy with our performance I do whatever I can to ease or rectify the situation immediately. All our customers are important to me, but when I am dealing with Lockheed I go even further putting in extra effort to meet their expectations. Lockheed is one of my favorite defense contractors, since WWII their company has continued to serve the country well. I have a tremendous amount of respect and admiration for the people who work at Lockheed. During the past ten years I have been supporting a variety of their programs in all branches of US military service, from building and testing carrier wave signal generators for systems in attack submarines to gear for fighter aircraft.

The first thing we had to do was give Lockheed technicians a procedure for removing that damned loose screw without causing any further problems in the unit. Working with the Bossman we decided the best thing for them to do was remove the instrument’s bottom feet, rear feet, and side strap handle. This would free the outer instrument case so it could be gently slid backwards on the frame a few inches giving easy access to pluck that screw from the box. An investigation was already underway both at our site and in Malaysia to determine the cause of the loose hardware. We had to figure this out and report back to Lockheed, pronto.

Pissing Off Lockheed

Near the end of my shift today I was slaving away in MI/EI getting a large amount of warranty units ready to ship back to their owners. For once I had a fairly trouble-free day which is unusual. Software in my test racks didn’t act up or barf on me, instruments passed electrical tests and mechanical inspections flawlessly. We had plenty of parts in stock so nothing was slowing me down. It was a productive day on the job, one of the best I’d had in quite a while. I should have known it wouldn’t last. Most of the dayshift team had already split to go home. The production line was almost quiet with the exception of high speed humming noise coming from banks of cooling fans in dozens of test stations. Infrequently, the distant sound of a pneumatic torque driver broke through the air. Somebody was still working over in the Spectrum Analyzer group I guessed.

Without warning the Bossman appeared before me as I was sitting sideways at my workbench with a half-gutted Signal Generator lying on a cart. He had a serious, almost worried expression on his face. I put my tools down on the table as he asked me a question. “Approximately how many long length countersunk screws do we have in the new model Sig Gen and where are they located in the instrument?”

I thought about that for a few seconds. The latest box is flimsy as hell, with it’s chassis made out of thin aluminum sheets stamp-cut and press-fitted together. Barely any hardware is used to put these things together anymore, instead we use a few rivets and plastic fasteners that are easily broken under slight amounts of physical stress. Everything else is built by subcontractors and shipped in-house. The only section of the instrument I could think of that had any hardware at all is the RF microdeck. It contains one main circuitboard mounted to a large heat sink. On both sides of the board we mount a series of microcircuits we refer to as the RF Chain. Essentially what it does is create radio frequencies and channel them to the front panel output connector. A few of those microcircuit packages are rather large contained in a metal clamshell with long screws placed in the top cover holding the whole item together.

That was about all I could think of off the top of my head. I told the Bossman that was the only area in the box that would most likely have long length screws but I would double check over in the assembly area. He nodded and asked me to come by his cubical afterward. As he walked towards the front end of the line I navigated my way through the test area to assembly. I sat down at one of the final assembly stations and pulled a rolling parts rack close to my chair that has every microcircuit assembly for the RF Deck in its bins. Plugging in an ESD wrist strap I began opening up opaque silver bags so I could inspect each of our microcircuit parts. I was trying to verify how many of them had those long screws in them. I narrowed it down by a process of elimination which only took a few minutes. There were two packages requiring that kind of hardware, less than a dozen total screws.

I felt puzzled about what the hell was going on.

Strolling over to the Bossman’s desk I gave him the lowdown on our hardware situation and asked what was happening. He said, “Two of four signal generators we just shipped to Lockheed for their LM-Star program failed. One of them was a hard electrical failure after Lockheed technicians plugged the unit in and powered it up. I don’t have all the details yet. The other one had loose hardware in it. When Lockheed opened up the shipping container, a screw was visible sticking out of the side frame by about an inch. They are treating that unit as a DOA. Right now Lockheed is very angry and they want an explanation.” He went on to say Lockheed had taken some pictures of the instrument with the loose screw and forwarded them back to us. The Bossman told me we needed to send Lockheed a procedure for removing that screw as soon as possible and we needed to investigate how this could have happened.

Oh fuck. We’ve already had a rash of recent failures at Lockheed. This wasn’t good.

Frisbee Girl

Last weekend Autumn and I bought a light-up frisbee for nighttime goofing off in the park. It’s one of those new kind of frisbee discs that has an ultra-bright LED in the center. The rest of the frisbee is made out of a clear plastic. When the LED is on, it floods the whole disc with an alien green color. I think it looks righteous in the dark but Autumn hates the color. She says it reminds her of new traffic signals that use the same lime green colored LEDs and she says it hurts her eyes. That’s a disappointment, but the only other color they had where we bought the thing was blue. I figured blue would not be as visible in pitch black like the green would be. Plus I am partial to antifreeze green colored lights. Oops on my part I guess.

The first night we tried it out I decided to drive around the corner from my house to a park with a big soccer field out front. It is only a couple of blocks away and I rarely see anybody out there at night. I think Autumn and I discovered why that park is always vacant after the sun goes down. A few minutes after both of us piled out of the car we walked into the middle of a scrubby-lawn filled field. As we spread away from each other I was suddenly startled by a loud droning noise next to my right ear. It sounded like a four-engine Hercules C-130 prop job was buzzing right next to my head. I reacted by instantly swiping at my ear with frisbee in hand. Something big got itself swatted, sounded like a pebble bouncing off a car’s front windshield. A couple seconds later, it happened again making me twitch and swing the frisbee like it was a disc of Tron and I was trying to deflect an incoming projectile. It the low light I could see Autumn also reacting to something dive bombing by her ears. It kinda sucked.

Nearby, a man was walking his dog on a concrete path. Noticing that both of us were swatting at an unseen enemy the guy laughed and told us the field was full of big ass ground dwelling wasps that dig holes under the lawn. He mentioned they stay underground during the day because the summer heat is too much for them. As the sun goes down and the air cools, those suckers emerge from the dirt with a vengeance. So that was why few people if any visited this park in the early evening. Rather than stick around to do battle with wasps we decided to split and head across town to the neighborhood I grew up in. There’s a nice park lined with Eucalyptus trees that nobody goes to. We’d probably have the whole place to ourselves.

A short drive later Autumn was standing in front of me on soft lawn somewhere in the darkness maybe fifty feet away. My eyesight really is getting bad, I thought to myself. Guessing approximately where she was I hucked the antifreeze green frisbee watching as it glided through the air for a few seconds only to be snatched out of it’s flight path and sent back at me. It was fun. I was being eaten alive by mosquitoes, but that was cool. Better than getting hassled by giant wasps. While Autumn was jumping around catching the frisbee like an invisible force, off to my left a car slowly pulled up and stopped on the road. It sat there for a minute doing nothing, then a spotlight abruptly snapped on which caught Autumn in mid air snagging our disc. Her floral print knee length skirt and tight green top were immediately visible. I sure love it when Autumn wears those tight little tops of hers. Makes me all bugnutty crazy for her. Then the spotlight shut off and the car sped away. It was a police cruiser. I knew we weren’t supposed to be in this park after nightfall but the worst thing that could happen is we would get ourselves kicked out. Evidently the cop had better things to do. I laughed to myself, because I was accidentally saved from being hassled by the police thanks to a frisbee girl.

Not long afterward Autumn and I were sitting side by side in the grass, worn out resting. Autumn pointed out a passing satellite scooting along silently above our heads. At first I couldn’t spot it and I knew the reason why. I should get a updated prescription for my glasses. It’s been far too long since I last got my eyes checked. Autumn kept track of the satellite for me though, it caught sunlight for a moment glowing a bright brass color and I was able to see it clearly then. Another satellite came into view from a totally different angle. Autumn identified more of them floating by in different directions. We were shoulder to shoulder. I was happy being there with her. Moments like these with Autumn are what I want more of. If we lived together it sure would make things easier to spend time with each other doing simple, fun activities like this.

I wonder what she thinks about at times like that, when we are just sitting keeping each other company.

Treehead’s Niece

I saw some shameless kiss ass action today. Made me want to puke after the laughter faded. Walking through the building towards Sources department I passed by the environmental chamber area and made a left to go down the main aisle between our realm and the Spectrum Analyzer’s group. I spotted Treehead’s niece scrubbing cubical walls. She was on all fours hovering low to the floor with a pile of rags and a squirt bottle filled with blue glass cleaner. I laughed at the sight of her furiously wiping away. It was curious though, we have plenty of janitors available to do that kind of work. All anybody has to do is place a call with their desk and blammo they’re on it. Why in the hell was she out here performing such a menial task? I had no clue.

As I approached her I stopped for a moment to watch. Not being able to help myself, I inquired into the reasoning behind her playing custodian. Treehead’s niece mumbled something about “Project Showcase.” Ah, yes. Now everything became clear. I wandered towards my desk while trying to fight down the urge to laugh in her face. What a tool Treehead’s niece is. See, she’s been trying for so long to break into a management position here in the company. Anywhere. Treehead’s niece is overly ambitious but she lacks any real skill, schooling, or experience to merit a supervisor job as far as I can tell. So, she’s taken the K.A. path to success. Boot lick, brown nose, and butt snorkel your way to the top in the corporate board game of Chutes and Ladders. Right now I hear she has latched on hard to that scrawny mid-level manager, Miss Axeman. It started to make some sense.

Personally, I never liked Treehead’s niece since I met her last year. She’s homely looking and mean. I imagine she is covered in hairy moles and smells funny. I don’t think she has ever smiled once, at least not that I can remember anyway which puts her in the same category of weirdo as that android guy in Customer Sim. Every time she has appeared on my line asking questions on behalf of another department or she’s here trying to expedite an instrument through production she has been a real bitch. Seriously. The moment I see her heading my way with notebook and clipboard in hand it makes me flinch. Treehead’s niece is yet another reason why I hate working dayshift in this joint.

Kramden & Norton Award Winners

With each passing week lucky employees (losers) in Building 4 handed off the coveted Frost & Sullivan paperweight award thingy. Marketers, engineers, and managers appeared to be the only people who got the award. The first few times it was bestowed upon somebody the employee giving it away would write a letter in an email explaining why they felt this person deserved it. Those emails were genuine, and thoughtful. It would be quickly followed by an acceptance speech in a response email that also showered praise upon the Frost & Sullivan Award’s previous holder.

It was obnoxious and annoying after the paperweight made it to the third or fourth employee. I skimmed the emails announcing who had won the Frost & Sullivan beyond that point in time. Somewhere between the fifteenth and the twentieth person to have that useless consulting firm award dumped on their desk I deleted the emails heralding each winner’s individual achievements. Who cares. The whole Frost & Sullivan Award experience got old. Then an interesting thing happened. Some employees began responding via email demanding they be removed from the Frost & Sullivan Award distribution list. People were getting tired of the shit.

Shortly thereafter, JP launched his parody of the Frost & Sullivan which he called “The Kramden & Norton Award.” The Kramden & Norton is a small pewter colored, faceless, bobble-head statue of a cheerleader with a pom-pom in one hand and a megaphone in the other as if she was making an announcement to a crowd of spectators. At her feet an inscription reads, “You serve as a warning to others.” JP’s idea was simple: make fun of the Frost & Sullivan Award and at the same time hassle fellow employees for doing retarded stuff on the job. JP wanted each employee who received the Kramden & Norton to write in an email why a fellow coworker totally sucked real bad. Then everyone else in the department could join in on the beatdowns to follow.

The very first Kramden & Norton Award Winner was Knuckles. JP wrote:

Hi all.

I would like to christen the new Kramden & Norton award by giving this prestigious trophy to ‘Knuckles’ for his Persistent Dedication to the UNR Reference board. Knuckles embodies everything Bill and Dave in his dedication to the efforts he puts forward in Testing and Troubleshooting the UNR reference board. This is why Knuckles is MY HERO!!

Knuckles, it is now your turn to nominate the next recipient of the Kramden & Norton Award.

There are no specific requirements necessary to be nominated for this prestigious award. You may be as skilled as Knuckles here or as incompetent as Craig ‘I Want To Be A Tech.’ So yes, even you B-rad can be nominated.

This award is intended for all of the hard working Sources Production/NPI and Engineering staff who consistently work beyond their bandwidth, juggling multiple plates, to make this wonderful place such a win-win proposition.

JP

BTW: Craig ‘I Wanna Be A Tech,’ you will distribute this among the NPI and Production Engineering staff.

Joining Forces?

John,

http://billanddave.blogspot.com/

Enjoy the reading. Updated throughout the week every week. Here’s what it’s really been like working for Bill and Dave over the years…

factory_peasant

———-

Hi,

Pretty cool, and the descriptions of managers seem similar to others that I’ve experienced both here and other companies. Not necessarily evil, but not really as competent as you would like. The double dates of the old journal postings are somewhat confusing. So you’re back at Bill and Dave’s company? Want me to link the blog in my blog, or do you want to stay more or less anonymous? (I’m sure they could figure out who you were from the approx hiring date).

Later,

John

———-
John

I’ve been wanting to tell you for a while I admire your effort in trying to rally the troops against management. Noble, but I’m afraid unionizing if it were to happen should have taken place in the company back in the 1970s. It’s far too late now. One of the things you’ve done I really enjoyed was your response to Scar Lip’s email after the newspaper article came out. Personally, I think you out-wrote the guy and smoked him with the facts. Our area really dug your work. That’s about all I should say for now.

I’m actually not too concerned about them figuring out who I am. They would be hard pressed actually to put all the pieces of the puzzle together and since I never actually mention the company by name they really have no power. I did put some thought into it and I’m going to write with impunity. The thing that could really snag me is model numbers of products or specific departments so that’s something I will completely avoid.

The blog starts in 1991 and the goal is to get it up to present day and time. This will happen soon. Blog entries with dates in the titles are straight out of my journals, everything else is from memory. This will eventually be explained once I begin present day and time writing.

I have a long history with the company. It’s been a wild ride and yes i’m still with the company. Maybe some day I’ll drop by your desk.

If you like the writing then sure, I’d be honored to have it linked on your site. I wasn’t aware you had a blog so kick on down br0. Where it at?

———-

Hi FP,

blog is at www.agilepeople.org Same link as my original page, but powered by wordpress and syndicated.

My worry is that they would terminate you for being even loosely associated with me, or having the nerve to post your own comments. My own circumstances provide me quite a bit of legal defense (they can’t claim they were unaware of my union organizing, so they pretty much have to prove gross neglect of my job to get rid of me. Anyone else they can fire at will and pretend they didn’t know they were activists.) Not that getting canned is the worst thing, but Bill and Dave’s is still a decent job.

I agree with you that I’m 20 years too late, or maybe 5-10 years ahead of the curve (if the trend continues). I’m just letting management run with the line for a while though, rather than reel them in. Seems like every move they make breaks one or another law, and I’m in no hurry to do anything. I’m enjoying telling my manager exactly how I feel about his and the company’s performance in the meantime. I expect to rank low this year ; )

Later,

John

Agilepeople Responds To Scar Lip’s Memo

As Scar Lip often noted in his coffee talks, the newspaper sometimes takes information out of context and can misquote. It is interesting that he chose to respond to the newspaper article, and not to the flyers that I have been distributing in break areas, or to my concerns raised on www.agilepeople.org.

The newspaper did not mention that I am in favor of a Leveraged Employee Stock Ownership Plan, and that organizing a union was the only way I could get legal protection to advocate a Leveraged ESOP. A Leveraged ESOP is a method for employees to take out a loan using the company’s credit. The employees then purchase a majority ownership in the company. The company pays the interest and principal out of profits, and the employees risk nothing. When employees retire, they have a large share of the corporation that will pay dividends. More importantly, while they are working they have a huge voting block and an incentive to work for long-term profit goals. I’ve asked Scar Lip if I could host a brown bag lunch for a speaker to discuss Leveraged ESOPs and their benefits, but he has not gotten back to me yet.

Scar Lip said a union means giving up your right to negotiate on your own. From personal experience, I can tell you that you would not be missing much. I spent months saying it wasn’t right that I was doing twice the work, but had not received a raise in three years. I did not complain while we were losing money, because I wanted to save our jobs. When it became clear that I was only delaying the loss of jobs, I decided I either needed to leave and find a new job, or act on my conscience. I chose to act.

The yet-to-be-elected leadership of Agilepeople will ask employees to sign a petition. Any negotiated labor contract will be approved by democratic vote. Personally, I trust my colleagues and coworkers to justly represent my interests. I do not expect to be the leader, but I will continue to lead the organization movement as long as necessary.

Bill and Dave’s company position on unionization is unclear. The company has wonderful relations with their labor union in Singapore. They still maintain an open door policy. Yet they fear U.S. unions so much that they discriminated against my right to publish information about Agilepeople on the electronic bulletin board. The law is clear: employers cannot publish information for some employee organizations, and then choose to exclude labor organizations. While this violation of the National Labor Relations Act makes it harder for me to distribute my message and gather support, I preferred to take the higher path and not publicize the violation until necessary. I believe that the employees of Bill and Dave’s company will see that employee ownership and a union are in the best interest of our company and sets an example for other U.S. corporations and high-tech companies to follow.

Best regards,

John R.
Agilepeople organizer

Examining Scar Lip’s Propaganda

Reading Scar Lip’s email, I rapidly came to the conclusion his comments were meaningless. It was obvious to me management was indeed very concerned about a union organizing effort coming from within our test and measurement division. Scar Lip did a poor job making an argument against a union. In fact, his whole letter was quite laughable. I suppose some employees who are suckers, who generally believe everything that comes forth from manager’s lips as truth would fall for Scar Lip’s weak ass crap, but I saw right through it. His writing sucked real bad and his points were outright lies or abstract touchy-feely garbage. This company doesn’t value anything about it’s Stateside workforce anymore and hasn’t for a number of years leading up to this point.

“This is a company whose core values are based on the principle that each individual employee has the right to express himself or herself and to make his or her thoughts, issues, and concerns known to any level of management through direct communication.”

That is true, we have a culture in this company founded upon what Bill and Dave called “The Open Door Policy.” That meant any employee could approach management at any time to discuss issues of concern privately, whether it was of a business nature or a personal issue. However, The Open Door Policy if not handled carefully can be dangerous to invoke. I have seen it backfire horribly on coworkers over the years, and more recently the whole concept of direct, open communication with managers has pretty much died altogether. I don’t believe for a second that anyone in corporate leadership here gives a shit about our individual employees nor do they care about direct communication with us.

“Simply stated Bill and Dave’s company opposes any activity that has as its goal to destroy or undermine the relationship between individual employees and the company.”

That relationship was destroyed by management a long time ago. This proposed union has nothing to do with that at all.

“Bill and Dave’s strength, and one of the values upon which the success of this company has been based, is individual achievement and contribution.”

I agree, our individual contributions were of paramount importance and of value to the company’s founders, but that faded away at least ten years ago. Now the only thing that is valued around here is offshoring to Malaysia and short term profit growth for the stock shareholder’s benefit.

“John says that he may be asking employees to sign a union petition. You should be aware that John may be able to use the document you sign in ways that may not be either obvious or explained to you. He could do so without giving you any further say in the matter.”

Oooooh, scary! I guess this is the ‘fear’ portion of the management propaganda email. Like I care. Sheesh.

“For example, by signing such a document, you could be designating John R. as your exclusive representative for purposes of negotiating on your behalf with Bill and Dave’s company on all matters that affect your employment relations including, but not limited to, your wages, hours or other terms and conditions of your employment. In short, you could be giving up your right to engage directly on your own behalf with Bill and Dave’s company as described above.”

Yeah, that’s right. I’m really glad Scar Lip brought up that whole bit about my wages. Let’s see, uh, I haven’t had a merit wage increase in years. And uh, that was due to a freeze placed on every employees’ wages. Hmmmm. And who imposed that freeze? Oh yeah that was the corporate office in Palo Alto. And if I remember correctly I didn’t have any recourse or say in that matter. There wasn’t any discussion at all. In addition I don’t have any input now regarding my hours, terms and conditions of my employment. So what exactly would I be giving up by signing John R.’s little document Mr. Scar Lip, sir? My guess is I’d be giving up NOTHING. Excellent point, dunce.

JP’s reaction pretty much summed up how many of us feel.

I agree that a union would be very counter productive here. You do need to acknowledge the environment in which this idea came out of and that all is not hunky-dory here in the test and measurement world. There is VERY HIGH distrust and lack of confidence in middle and upper management here in the county (at least at my level). The activities of the last few years will take a long time to repair. It will not happen overnight. The attitude among many I work with (including our top performers) is that we are disposable and wont be here next year so why care. Hey, it’s the best paying temp job in the County.

-JP