Rivethead - Ben Hamper [22]
A pudgy, slick-dressed black guy directed us down the line toward our job setups. This was Brown, our foreman. As we tagged along behind him, the workers paused to give us the razz. We were fresh blood, ignorant meat. “Turn around before it's too late,” someone shouted. “Hey, Brown, let ‘em hang tailgates,” another chimed in. Hang tailgates? Christ, that sounded like a ball-buster.
Our foreman stopped next to a big red-haired guy and a man in a filthy welder's cap. He pointed at me and informed me that I would be replacing the guy in the welder's cap. The guy seemed elated. “It's about goddamn time you got me outta here.” The guy in the welder's cap looked at me and smiled. He had very few teeth. “My name's Gary and this is Bud,” he said, pointing to the big redhead. “You'll love it here, just love it.” Both of them laughed.
It turned out that my fellow rookie, the prophet, would be working directly across from me. His name was Roy and he'd come to Flint from Oklahoma to live with his brother and find work in the factory. It seemed like an awfully long haul just to wind up in this dreaded Jungle. Anyway, I felt glad for his presence. Having a greenie like myself across the line could only help during this assimilation process.
For the entire shift, I was asked to do nothing but stand back and examine how Gary performed his job. I was told that I would have three days to learn the job and then it would be all mine. Always the pessimist, I asked Gary what happened if after three days were up I still didn't have a handle on the job. “Then they give you the Van Slyke shuffle.” He chuckled. Van Slyke was the street the factory was located on.
“I'll have it down in a day,” I told Gary. “I've seen enough of the street.”
Gary and Bud worked their jobs together. They combined them so that one of them was working while the other guy sat out and read the paper or did a crossword. I figured the job couldn't be too difficult if one of them had the time to complete both jobs while the other guy lagged around doin’ nothin’.
This form of combo workmanship was termed “doubling-up,” a time-honored tradition throughout the shop that helped alleviate much of the boredom. Bud assured me that once I got my job down at a steady pace, he would teach me his job and we could survive much easier with a double-up arrangement. I nodded hesitantly, wanting only to conquer one detail at a time.
At the end of my first shift, I walked out of the lot with Roy. His martyr's grumble about bein’ stashed in the Cab Shop had quickly vanished.
“Fuckin’ A, Ben, do you realize we just grossed about $100 for standin’ around doin’ absolutely nothin’?”
“A $100 gross?” I repeated.
“Sure, this is Saturday. Saturday means time and a half. You can also include our night shift premium. A hundred dollar gross for watchin’ a bunch of dipshits tinkerin’ around!”
“Yeah, but don't forget starting next week you and I will be the dipshits.”
“Hell, those jobs they gave us are pussy detail. Once we get settled in, we'll be sittin’ on our asses half the time while bringin’ home three or four bills a week. It's a highway robbery. I'm gonna go get drunk. Care to join me?”
“I'll pass this time,” I told Roy. “See you Monday.”
Our jobs were identical—to install splash shields, pencil rods and assorted screws with a noisy air gun in the rear ends of Chevy Blazers and Suburbans. To accomplish this, we worked on a portion of the line where the cabs rose up on an elevated track. Once the cabs were about five feet off the ground, Roy and I ducked inside the rear wheel wells and busted ass. Standing across from each other in those cramped wheel wells always reminded me of the two neighbors in the Right Guard commercial who met every morning in their communal medicine cabinet. “Hi, guy! Care for a scoop of sealer on that pencil rod?”
Within a shift and a half, I had already conquered my new job. The foreman turned Gary loose and I was on my own. After