Factory Tales 1 22/06/2005 My last two posts were somewhat of a departure for this blog, being only a day or so short of being topical. To return to business as usual, I needed to put up something today to hide Gone Away's flouting of stated policy of never being first with the news. In searching for a suitable subject, I realized that I have a whole series of stories on a theme that I have not touched upon before - what I might term "Factory Tales". This is the first of them.When the decision to leave Africa and return to England was made, the one place I never intended to settle was the city of my birth, Coventry. I knew that it was the center of the car industry in Britain and this caused me to picture it as a grim, grey and gloomy industrial town, an appaling vision for one who had grown up in the open spaces of Africa. It was inevitable, therefore, that circumstances should dictate that we move to Coventry within three months of our arrival in England.It was a pleasant surprise to find that my imagination had been completely wrong; there were no factory chimneys pouring forth palls of smoke to blacken the landscape. Coventry's car factories had been powered by electricity from the first and so damage to the environment was minimal. The factories were not clustered together into one vast industrial area but were dotted throughout the city and hardly noticeable. It was in fact a fairly pleasant and typical English town with a compact and defined central area surrounded by high density suburbs, but green with trees and surrounded by fields.Inevitable, too, was the fact that my first job should be in one of those car plants I had so demonized in my imagination. It's in the blood. Both of my grandfathers had worked all their lives in the car industry, during the war my mother had been employed in factories making parts for tanks, and my uncle still worked for one of the car plants, just as he always had. A Coventry kid at heart, I answered the call of my roots and went to work as a machinist in a factory making engines for cars.This was Morris Engines, a very old factory that existed by taking cast off machinery from its big brother in Birmingham, the Longbridge works. We would refurbish these ancient machines and then work them hard to produce the engine parts that were then assembled for transport back to Longbridge. I was assigned to the con rod section.It is hard to describe the noise produced by a car factory. Picture a long warehouse building, so long in fact that to stand in the center was to lose sight of both ends in the mass of machinery, cables, pipes and roof supports cluttering the distance. Then imagine those hundreds of machines all working at once, chewing and ripping at metal, each one producing its particular sounds of mechanical monsters at the feast. The effect was like standing next to a Boeing 747 as it revs up for take off. Into this I wandered as an innocent from backwoods Africa.I had thought that I would have problems in understanding the accents of my workmates but I need not have worried. I couldn't hear a word they said in the constant roar of the place. In time, I became able to hear conversations, just as they all could. Somehow one develops an ability to shut out the noise and speak without raising one's voice. And then I found that the accent was not a problem - I could understand quite easily.My compatriots in servitude found my accent mildly interesting. In my chameleon fashion, I learned their accent quickly and eventually became quite good at it. But they could always tell. Most guessed at Australian but a few would try to be clever and venture New Zealander. But what impressed me most was how they happily accepted me into their ranks. My education into the English working class, so different from our stereotypical idea of the Englishman, was beginning.As a newcomer, I was given the easiest job on the section to start with. There were two reamers and I was assigned to one of them. It was a simple machine, a cutter on the end of a long upright axis, above a basin that caught the lubricating "suds" that were directed on to the job by a movable nozzle. Place a con rod cap in the jig in the basin, haul down on a lever and the cutter would descend to ream out one of the two holes in the cap. Release the lever, whip the cap round, ream out the other hole and that was it.So the job was not difficult apart from the fact that every machine in the place had a quota assigned it, a standard number of items that should be produced in a normal day. At first, I found this quota impossible to achieve. I would slave away as fast as I could and still not make the required number by the end of the day. But the body learns quickly. I found that on any machine I would need only a couple of days practice to achieve the required speeds. A week, and it was easy.We had our tricks to get faster as well. Basically, these consisted of ignoring every safety measure supplied with the machine. There was a clamp to hold the job down on that reamer - we never used it, preferring to hold the cap down with one hand while we hauled on the lever with the other. A safety grille was supplied to flip around in front of the job before working on it - I never saw anyone use it. And we were not supposed to wear gloves when working but everyone did. The swarf (shavings of metal from the job) would cut your hands to ribbons otherwise.It was on the reamer that I found out why there was this prohibition on wearing gloves. My fellow reamer at the time was fairly new to the task and I was charging along happily next to him, bashing out the quota so that I could do nothing for the afternoon (we all aimed at that), when I noticed my companion had stopped working. I glanced round and saw that he was staring at his hand."What's the problem?" I asked.His face was a picture of surprise and wonder as he replied. "My glove. It's disappeared. It was there a moment ago and now it's gone."I realized that he was right; he was staring at a gloveless hand. For a moment we both stood there baffled as we considered how a glove could disappear so miraculously. And then I looked down at the job he'd been working on. There, scrunched into a little ball around the cutter, was the glove. The cutter had caught it, whipped it off his hand and compressed it so quickly that he had not felt a thing. The thought of what would have happened if the glove had not come off so easily made us both a little more wary that day.Although I continued to wear gloves, I became much more aware of the dangers in operating those old machines from then on. Although I learned how to get the maximum production from them in the shortest time, I treated them with respect and care. Occasionally we would hear stories of some poor soul who'd had an accident on another section; but on the con rods we were lucky - no-one got hurt in the five years that I worked there.Occasionally we would run out of con rods for one reason or another and then the powers that be would move us on to other sections and machines. In this way I spent some time in most sections and gained experience in operating all sorts of machinery. After the decision to close the factory had been made, my section was one of the first to get through all its remaining jobs. I was sent off to work a machine on the engine blocks section.As it happened, I had worked on that machine before so I knew how to get the best out of it. But I also knew that only two weeks before it had chewed up its operator's hand so badly that he had been rushed off to hospital. I had always expected that my luck would run out and I'd get bitten by one of those ancient machines before I left; now I knew that this would be the one to get me.It was basically a turntable on which three blocks could be clamped. There was a pulley arrangement that was provided to haul the blocks from the track on to the turntable but we never used it; in the quest for speed, we would just heft them from one place to another. Above the turntable was a drill operated by a lever and it had the job of drilling several holes, reaming them out and then threading them. This entailed changing drill bits several times during the process and safety guidelines directed that the drill should be stopped for each of those changes. Needless to say, we swapped bits with the drill still going. And I still wore gloves.But I was very careful in those last few weeks. There is a point in operating machines swiftly and repetitively where one becomes a part of the whole process. Man and machine blend into a blur of speed and efficiency where everything becomes automatic and the mind is left free to wander. There is pride, too, in cutting the time necessary for each job to a bare minimum. And that is the time when accidents are most likely, when the slightest mistake can have a painful outcome. I remained very aware of what I was doing as the days drew on to the appointed date for closing.On the last day, I completed the remaining blocks without mishap and shut down the machine. I was elated - I had done my time and escaped the place without a scratch.Working on the engine blocks we would get covered in iron dust and, with the sweat of a long day, this would quickly turn into red rust. So we would make our way to the washrooms and clean up before going home. I would wash my face down and then use a paper towel to rub it dry. As I dried my face that last day, one edge of the paper whipped across my eye. I did not think too much of it at the time but that night it became intensely painful. At the hospital they advised that I had scratched the eyeball quite deeply and for the next two weeks I had to wear a bandage over the eye.So the place got me in the end, just as I had always expected it to. It was from an unexpected quarter but I suppose that's where accidents always come from. Perhaps I should be grateful that it was such a minor thing compared to what could have happened.
Clive
keeefer I always wondered what you did in them factories. I worked on machines in a shelving company for a while. There was one in particular that bent the sheet metal and welded the corners. The sheetes themselves were razor sharp on their edges where they had been cut down to size and i was forever getting razor cuts along my fingers and forearms from carrying them Its kind of odd that we accept this in the daily grind because we want that extra 30 minute break or bonus for over achieving. If it was written into your contract that cuts and burns were involved you wouldnt dream of working there. We also used to have to bake the paint onto the finished product and for a while i had to pack the shelves as they came out of the oven. I used to work as fast as possible, right up to the oven exit so i could gain a 15 min break while the machine caught back up to my packing station. The thing was that theses shelves were red hot so I carried them by holding my work apron out and cacooning them in the material. A few weeks in and i noticed one day that i had no finger prints anymore. They had been seared off over time as my fingers briefly touched these hot shelves.sadly they grew back so my life as a super criminal was put on hold before it started......damn foiled again Date Added: 22/06/2005
Gone Away Hey, I've noticed that fingerprints can be smoothed out by heat like that. So, just before we commit the crime of the century, we all gather round the oven, put it on a medium heat, and... Date Added: 23/06/2005
Keeefer If we also pull a few hairs out of random strangers and leave them at the crime scene we can even frame someone else as the only clue would be the dna sample! Do you reckon Mad can get 3 of us on his getaway bike? Date Added: 23/06/2005
Rusty Work like that can be very appealing for a while. Losing yourself in the rythm of work and throwing yourself into the sheer efficiency of it all can be elating. I don't think I could do it forever.As for the whole fingerprint thing you are talking about, when I caulked in newer homes we'd drag our fingers across the molding to evenly distribute the caulk. Not to mention splinters, but if you rubbed to hard you'd get a good friction burn. Needless to say, I lack fingerprints on a couple of my fingers from that. Date Added: 23/06/2005
Gone Away Maybe we could do the getaway in stages, Keef. Mad to take you to the corner, come back and take me to the next corner, come back for you and... Date Added: 23/06/2005
Gone Away Very true, Rusty. I enjoyed the sheer mindlessness of the job but sometimes used to think about how I'd feel if I were to do it for the rest of my life... And you could be the guy who cracks the safe! Just remember to only use the fingers without prints, however. Date Added: 23/06/2005
keeefer I like the getaway plan, we will always have a forward look out! Rusty can crack the safe.....but can i abseil down through the skylight. Thats pretty much the only bit i want to do. I dont mind opening the door and letting you guys in the easy way after that. Or we could take it in turns to abseil down while rusty cracks the safe Date Added: 23/06/2005
Gone Away Don't we get to dance over the pretty laser light show? Date Added: 23/06/2005
keeefer Gone, I hate to break it to you but i think our days of backflipping, somersalting and dropping into the splits to avoid the infrared alarms have probably passed us by. Maybe we should just build a tunnel Date Added: 23/06/2005
Gone Away A tunnel! I'll call out the dwarves! They'll be overjoyed! Date Added: 23/06/2005
Ned I used to handle worker's compensation claims. I must say you were extremely lucky. It is true that most safety measures that the company sets out as policy are often ignored in favor of measures that get the work the employer expects accomplished but often results in injuries. Of course, sometimes people just do things that are inexplicable. I will never forget the case of the worker whose job it was to stir a pot of hot glue used to dribble on boxes to seal them. The sign clearly advised not putting your hand in the pot as it was over 300 degrees farenheit. But just before he badly burned his hand, he was observed playing with the little unmelted drops that bobbed up and down in the glue. Date Added: 23/06/2005
Keeefer Im not convinced about the dwarves. The last time we involved them they came up short. Besides that, the share of the spoils will be much reduced. Still if you need a tunnel you need a dwarf so i guess theres little point in complaining. I guess they'd want to play a part no matter how small Date Added: 23/06/2005
Gone Away LOL That is so true, Ned. Stupidity usually plays a large part in accidents. The feller that lost his glove wasn't the brightest bulb in the box either... Date Added: 23/06/2005
Gone Away I think I'll have to squat down with this time and hammer out a short written agreement with them, Keef. The problem has always been that any verbal agreement isn't worth the paper it's written on. We may have been shortsighted in allowing that. Not to put them down at all, but a dwarf can get up to some pretty low tricks, I grant you. Date Added: 23/06/2005
Keeefer Within this agreement can you please put: No songs that involve the word 'Gold' are to be sung during their employment and if they so much as utter the phrase Hi ho, hi ho its instant dismissal. They are also to remember that women who appear to be in a 'long magically induced sleep' are not to be bought home and used as domestic slaves. Do you recall the unfortunate incident with that coma patient? Not to mention the uproar in the dormitory of that all girls school Date Added: 23/06/2005
Gone Away Hmmm, yes, you're right. We're going to have to sew this agreement up pretty tight. Not that I mind the comatose ladies, it's the charming princes that arrive shortly afterwards, all wanting to kiss the poor woman and wake her up. And then there was that time we had all those frogs appearing and demanding a chance to be turned into princes. Do you think we could get away with taking on just one dwarf? I hear that feller Frodo did. Date Added: 23/06/2005
keeefer Thats a possibility, but it may mean acquiring the services of a wizard. Dont get me wrong Wizards are all well and good but have you ever seen one trying to eat through that long shaggy beard? Its not a pretty sight, not to mention all the hair in the shower when they wash. Then theres that big eye in the sky thing, that would be a dead giveaway you may as well just hire the good year blimp and hang a sign off it saying we went this way.I dont think shrinking the dwarves will help in the long run Date Added: 23/06/2005
Gone Away Looks like it'll have to be a gang of dwarves then. You can do the hiring this time - that bunch I had before got into so much trouble I had to leave the country... Date Added: 23/06/2005
Josh Oh! you think no fingerprints is bad? I lost my entire head in a bandsaw once! not so bad, I got a week off. Date Added: 23/06/2005
Gone Away Some employers are so unreasonable, Josh. :D Date Added: 23/06/2005
Keeefer You reckon you had bad luck with the last lot. By the time i got through the tunnel Mad was long gone and now im on the wrong side of the world and the dwarves have all been signed up for the roo races. You cant get one for love nor money nowadays (not that theres much demand for dwarf loving anymore, well not since the incident with the miners lamp). You ocassionaly see the leather flying cap and goggles of a dwarf jockey peering from the pouch of an accelerating roo but thats as close as you get. They seem to like it in towards the centre, probably all those opal mines for them to gad about in. I think we may have to resort to using gnomes for the tunnel labour. Date Added: 23/06/2005
Gone Away Hah, gnomes are more trouble than they're worth, especially if you have a bunch of them together. They'll spend more time hammering at each other with their pick axes than at any rock face. The best alternative is ogres, if you can put up with their disgusting table manners... Date Added: 23/06/2005
keeefer hmmmm you may be right about the gnomes. I passed some earlier, they seemed intent on fishing and lazing on these big toadstools. Plus they are only about a foot tall so the tunnel maybe a little on the cramped side. I questioned them about the silent G in their names but they werent saying anything. This leads me to believe that it could be some king of secret gnome movement.It may be related to G Force, G 8, or even G honey let it rest. Either way its somthing we should steer clear of. And on top of all that theres the bigger mystery of what exactly are they pushing about in those wheelbarrows that they seem so attached to????? Ogres are a distinct possibility. We really should select a target before hiring the work crew though Date Added: 23/06/2005
Rusty If we are going to be using ogres, I say we get back at those dwarves. We'll have to get a mole into the operation to find out where the raw minerals are taken to be finished. After that, it should be easy. We'll get the ogres to tunnel in right into the back of the operation. We will of course need a knowledgeable mole, and probably one that isn't blind... we could also get a few henchmen in to silence any guards or passing workers....But what am I talking about? I'm the safe-cracker, not the mastermind! I'll need another 5% of the loot do throw my hat into THAT ring. Have at it. Date Added: 23/06/2005
prying1 Nice piece of writing Clive. As a still working blue collar worker I say the best advice I ever received was from a printing shop foreman, Bob Dryer, who said, "Always know where your hands are." That bit of advice has allowed me to put my hands around many kinds of machines but never with impunity. I have yet to see a metal that is softer than my body. I've had close calls when doing the repetitive, don't need to think, easy to get distracted type work. But, praise God, I still have 10 fingers. I can relate to the scratch on the eye too. Had a metal chip come off a drill bit and bypass the edge of my 'safety' glasses. Painful little buggers those metal chips are. Please count me out of the job you'se guys is pullin'. I still have my fingerprints and no sense you having to split by an extra share. I'll just collect a tad when the reward for capture is offered. .. Date Added: 24/06/2005
Gone Away The job's getting a bit overcrowded anyway, Paul, what with ogres and henchmen and evil overlords. I thought I'd appoint Keef as da Boss and quietly wander off... ;) That was wise advice Bob gave you. I know that I was lucky to get out of the place relatively unscathed. But there is a satisfaction in doing that kind of work that is not so easy to achieve with office work. The job had its compensations and I might well write about that in later articles. Oh, excellent post, your latest, Paul. It's political so I didn't comment but I think you really nailed it. Date Added: 24/06/2005
Mad I remember very clearly when you worked for The Morris, it was one of those parts of my life that has a nostalgic glow about it. Hot summers larking about with Keef and you coming home from the factory smelling of swarf, machine oil and suds. It's one of those smells that has an instant effect on me, wooshing me back in time. Date Added: 24/06/2005
Gone Away Ah, olfactory memories... Hey, look at that: I have factory memories and you have olfactory ones. :D Date Added: 24/06/2005
prying1 That is funny Clive - I think you have the subject of another blog there. - I remember one spot a few miles from where I currently sit that did casting for turbine engine parts. Long closed so all that is left are olfactory memories. The smell of molten metal and burning oil as I zipped past Van Ness Ave. on the San Diego Freeway. My brother-in-law worked for the place before I e'er knew him. On occasion I would make deliveries at the east end but never had the opportunity to go inside to see the processes. I pass the spot now and olfactory memories knock a few years from my body and allow a bit of my youth to flitter through my brain. Only for moments but that is long enough. Date Added: 24/06/2005
easywriter There was a hammer mill in the small village where my Mother grew up. It was just about the only place to get work around there if you weren't farming. They closed it down eventually due to the alarming number of deaths and injuries incurred by the employees in that unfortunate place, They were whipped up and consumed, in much the same way as the glove in your post by the awful appetite of the machinery. The hammer mill still stands to this day but no one feeds it any more. Date Added: 24/06/2005
Way Again, our paths cross in a similar fashion, Gone. After my stint in the Marines, I went to work for Torrington -- a South Carolina ball-bearing manufacturer, with all the attending noises plus oil-permeated air that you might wish to inhale. First day, as a co-worker and I walked toward our assigned machines, we passed a woman who sat at a small press, one hand resting on the control knob of the device. Of course I noticed the huge bandage she sported on the same hand -- my fellow worker told me she just lost a finger the day before. I lasted 6 weeks at that job, and most thankfully, left with all my original parts. Date Added: 24/06/2005
Gone Away The coolant we used was a combination of oil and water, mixed by the addition of a detergent. It had a very distinctive smell that I know would take me straight back to those days were I to smell it now. Isn't it strange how one of our weaker senses, smell, is so powerful in resurrecting memories of long ago? You may be right, Paul, that there is a post in this... Date Added: 24/06/2005
Gone Away It was a harder time than we have become used to I think, Easy. And the generations that worked those dangerous machines were a tougher bunch. We have a lot to be grateful for... Date Added: 24/06/2005
Gone Away Sometimes it almost seems that we've been living in parallel universes, Way. If I may paraphrase an old saying: Where there's a Way, there's Away. ;) Date Added: 24/06/2005
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