Just a Pair of Pliers

Manufacturing today is all about “team” with sometimes little regard to what is practical, logical or simply the right thing to do.

Over the years, I have made several trips to a particular out of state factory to assist with mechanical problems of one kind or another. On one such occasion, having finished with the designated business at hand, I mingled around the production work areas exchanging ideas and discussing procedures.
It was then that I noticed the operators were using the same pliers as was used in our processes, but with one small difference. I had modified our pliers to make them spring return after closing, a convenient feature not available in this particular type of pliers at that time.
I mentioned this to one of the operators, who thought this might be helpful and less fatiguing in the long run. She produced an extra pair which I carried to the maintenance shop and proceeded to install the spring feature.
The maintenance people I had been working with, had retired to their perches in the shop, leaned back with feet up on the work bench, awaiting the next reactive call. Blatant, I thought, but still, none of my business.
Anyway, it was a simple task. I drilled a small hole through one handle near the hinge and halfway through the other. I inserted a small compression spring through the hole and drove a spring pin in behind it. In ten minutes I was done.
The operator liked the pliers and two other operators requested the modification. I added the spring to these and later, at the hotel, drew up instructions for the maintenance guys to follow-up with pliers on the other shifts.
Months later, on a return visit for a different mechanical problem, the operators informed me that the maintenance people had opted out of making the pliers modification. Fine, I thought, however, I was completely perplexed when they told me of their reasoning.
It seems they had formed a team of people to evaluate the conversion. They had produced parts estimates, man-hour estimates, with full color displays on charts and graphs, all meticulously prepared to convince themselves that this modification was a total waste of time and resources, unlike, of course, the time spent fabricating the detailed report itself.
Furthermore, they believed they could purchase the pliers, with this feature, cheaper than they could make the change.
Remember, this is just a pair of pliers, but of the type that wasn’t going to be found on the market with spring return, and they knew that. We had already looked and I had told them. But the issue, as far as they were concerned, was closed.
The team had spoken.
Unbound by this impediment, I reworked several more pairs of pliers before I headed for home, knowing that this team directed workforce was destined to litigate itself to a standstill.
The factory later closed for unrelated reasons.

Adventure in E.R.

Yesterday, while working on some kind of crap from the production area in the maintenance shop, I ran into a little problem. I had just put a purely professional weld on something and was moving around the end of the table when my hand snagged on something.
You know all those little weld wires that tend to accumulate on the table from every body's little "habitual pre-test" before welding? Looks like a porcupine from hell, right?
Well, I found one. At first I figured that I just had another cut. Cuts help form calluses. My hands look like feet. So big deal, another cut.
Not this time. Sticking out of my right hand little finger was about 1/8 inch of MIG wire. "Hmmn," I thought. "This is different".
I walked back to my wood carry-around box in the production area and fished out my needle nose pliers to perform an extraction. Wouldn't budge. Then I noticed that there was a little protrusion on the opposite side of the finger, almost through the skin. Entry was just below the second knuckle on the palm side and would have come out between first and second knuckle had it passed through. I felt like ignoring this would be inconvenient at times as it would snag on most everything and generate an instant and appropriate audio response.
So, it was 1pm and I decided to take the afternoon off and visit the local hospital. After some expected show-and-tell amongst my constituents, the plant manager took me to the E.R.
I got checked in and placed in a small room with more than enough provisions to explore body cavities, deliver babies, and put eyes back in their sockets. I hoped they would stick to this one little finger.
They sent me to get a few 8 X 10 black and white glossy pictures on their gamma burst machine, interesting, but really couldn't see the pictures very well from across the hall where it looked like a railroad spike through a stick of bologna on their screen.
Went back to the little room with all of its torture devices and the babies screaming down the hall, where they told me that there was no barb on the wire and that it had not hit any bone.
The nurse came in and washed my hand and commented, "Is this as clean as you hands get?" My lips were fighting to contain a colorful metaphor, but I wanted a sucker, so I kept quiet. I’m a mechanic, I thought, not a pastry chef.
The Nurse Practocator came back in and presented me with the options. We could take the feeling out of it, (which really wasn't an issue as long as they left it the hell alone) by injecting it full of Don't-know-don't-care, which upon entry would feel like having your digit ripped off by hungry piranha... or she could just take her pliers and jerk it out. I had tried that but I figured that this was a "maybe" on the pain scale where the other was sure to peg the needle.
"Well, just pull it out," I said, "And I apologize now for what I may say in the next few minutes."
She left the room to get her toys...and back-up.
These two ladies took my hand and laid it out on the delivery table, latched on a small pair of hemostats to the wire just under the small weld stubble and before she could say...or think...
She popped out an inch long piece of straight weld wire.
"I want that", I said. "That's my souvenir". They thought this was funny but I had not thought to get a picture on some one's cell phone, so this, I thought was the best I could do. The Proctocator then offered the small hemostats along with 2 more pliers, a nice pair of tweezers, and a small specimen bottle with my wire sample inside.
I took 'em.
They said that's it and I prepared to leave. I asked for a telephone to call the plant to come back and get me...
That's where I goofed up.
"Oh wait, we have one more test for you". Again I struggle to keep the automated response system from kicking in.
I had not studied for the urine test but felt I had a good chance of passing it. They don't tell you your score, it's simply a pass or fail thing.
When they finally let me go, I made the phone call and sat outside in the much warmer 45 degree breeze and waited for deliverance. It was nearly 5 pm.
I have worked 38 years without a lost time accident. Oh well...
And you know, this was the second accident I'd had that day.
Oh yeah, I'll be back...

Moonlighting on the 23b

I am off work now from my regular day job till after Christmas, so my friends think I will be kicked back taking it easy. The semi-truth of it is that I will be on call Christmas Eve and the early part of Christmas day. I know several fellows around the area who do the same, working for a certain manufacturing company, specializing in seasonal overnight deliveries. This is “off the record” work, so most of the other guys try keeping it hush-hush.
While I am a small subcontractor for the company, filling a few overflow orders in my workshop, my main function for the 24th and 25th will be any late night service calls for the primary delivery system.
Kris, owner of the company and its principle driver, is for the most part, pretty self-sufficient. However, there have been a few times in the past when the equipment just breaks down and that’s when we get called.
I’ve been getting my tools ready and a few spare parts loaded up in the 23b service vehicle, mostly team harnesses and replacement runners.
We use the second and third string reindeer for the service sleighs, and this year I again drew Rude and Nasty for the 23b. Distant relatives to a few on the main delivery team, these two, unfortunately, live up to their names. Among other little tricks, they like to step on my toes while I adjust their harnesses. That little huffing sound that reindeer make is their way of not laughing out loud. Lucky for me, I need only two of these jokers for the service sleigh.
I got a call last year, not far from Adsmore when Kris snagged some power lines and hit a small TV dish, badly bending one of his sleigh runners. The runner was a quick fix but it took me some time to straighten the dish. The boss insisted that I leave no trace of damage, work in the dark and make absolutely no noise. This was not easy with Rude trying to push me off the roof and Nasty dropping my tools down the chimney.
“Now, look here, Kringle…” I started to say, but was interrupted by a half dozen picketing members of the E.L.F Union Local #1 who were still unhappy about me making toys in my shop, as the 23b began to slip off the roof right above somebody’s new car.
I quickly pulled Rude and Nasty back from the edge just as the boss cleared the treetops with his usual “HO-HO-HO!” He always has a positive outlook while doing an impossible job.
Well, I’d had enough reindeer games for one night so I picked up a grape soda at the Ideal Store, with a couple of moon pies for Rude and Nasty, circled the courthouse once and headed for home. Aside from a near miss with a flight of geese over Cadiz Street and running over my mailbox, spilling my soda, it was an otherwise ordinary night.
Anyway, I am in hopes that this year is a little better as I hear some of the B team reindeer have undergone behavioral therapy, the E.L.F. members were satisfied after reviewing a particular Claus in their contract and I now have a cup holder on the 23b.
By the way, if anyone should find a 10-inch adjustable wrench in their fireplace, it’s mine.

For the kid in all of us,
Merry Christmas!

A Lesson From Iris

My earliest recollections of Iris find her making her way down the row of school desks to find her place in the classroom. She was tall and thin in those early years of elementary school, with white-blonde poker straight hair that just touched her shoulders. I thought it odd the way she held her pencil to write, as if it has been driven through her clinched fist, as she labored to scribe her work.
Iris seemed an otherwise shy girl, speaking aloud only when schoolwork required it and never more than a few hard fought words. Her speech impediment revealed the struggles of a person fighting for the very control of every movement. With legs bracketed in hinged metal and brown leather straps, her walk was stiff, making small but noticeable balance corrections with every step.
Iris was shackled by polio.
For Iris, life on the playground was that of watching rather than playing with the others. On those rare occasions when she could participate, she gave it her best, but more often than not, found herself getting up off of the ground, brushing the grit from her bare knees. She was pretty tough in those early years, but then I guess she really had to be, because, unfortunately, kids can be cruel even when it‘s not intended.
She was in and out of school throughout the years, mostly out though, to parts unknown, only to return a year or more later.
At the end of our senior year there were three formal graduation events, one of which would pair the graduates in order of height. I was the third tallest guy in the male line-up and I could see that Iris had been situated at the other end of the girls line, having over the years been surpassed in height by nearly everyone.
At some point, it was realized that there were more girls than boys and the two lines randomly converged in a conscious attempt at a more favorable pairing.
When the shuffle had just barely settled, there, at the other end, standing alone with tears streaming down her face was Iris. It must have seemed like a cruel climax to a life long struggle to break free of her bonds and to realize the dream of being accepted by her classmates.
A hush fell over the group as the gravity of the moment quickly began to sink in, which probably seemed like a very long time for Iris, and it had been. Since the very beginning she just wanted to fit in, to be picked in kickball without being the last, to walk without being expected to run, to speak and know someone was listening because they wanted to.
At that moment, an average looking senior named Jack stepped up to her and said simply, “I’ll walk with you, Iris.”
If I learned nothing else in high school, it was that I am not the center of the Universe, that other people matter and that winning at anything is not nearly as important as simply being a part of it.
I have seen neither Iris nor Jack since school. I know Jack came out of school in good shape, as he demonstrated his firm grasp on being an adult with those few kind words.
I think often of Iris, and I’d like to think that there is a calling for everyone, and that no matter what their obstacles might be in life, there is a place of comfort and belonging for each of us.
And I hope that when it mattered the most, Iris was picked first.

Yardsale Bargains

Well, it’s been a long hot summer, and there were many times when I just knew what the hog felt like when he was about to render lard. For the most, part I’ve had to work every day of it, but on a few Saturdays, when I was off, I made it a point to go to the local yard sales. This is my favorite way of stimulating the local economy.
At first, I just expected to find a few movies on DVD or some rusty hand tools that I could put back to work, but by summers end I had acquired a wide selection of treasures.
I am a woodworker, so finding a barely used Deluxe Workmate for $10 had special appeal. From the dollar menu, I found a backsaw, a hayfork bent into a potato hook, a variety of new hinges and a few clock inserts for making table top clocks.
I saved a broken vanity seat from almost certain demise for one dollar. I reassembled it, refinished it and replaced the seat covering. It is now waiting to be “adopted” at one of the Main Street antique shops.
I found book bargains like the LIFE book Century of Change, America in Pictures 1900-2000, a $60 hardback, for which I paid one dollar.
One of my favorite finds was an issue of Scribner’s Magazine, dated April 1897, which features a detailed account on ocean crossings, 15 years before Titanic, with ads for typewriters, the latest tonics and the newest rage, the bicycle. I paid all of $.25 for this, as was the original subscription price.
Of course, there are always those little things that, as one lady put it, “You just can’t live without”, like small glass bottles with cork stoppers, a carousel Christmas music box, a 1920’s forgotten photo of a group of men standing on a raft, and a few small dishes that I used to find in oatmeal when I was a kid. My wife paid a one dollar ransom for a nice set of 4 Christmas mugs that will serve up steaming hot cocoa this winter.
I expect someday to find one of my oil painting from the 1980’s and buy it back for a fraction of my original commission. I’m not so sure that would be a good thing.
Sometimes the best part of a yard sale is the people you meet, old friends you might have lost tract of, or new friends with common interests. We exchange pleasantries, ideas on backyard décor and maybe a few bits of pocket change for things they thought was worth selling and that I thought was worth buying.
“How much you got on that box of hammers?”

Radio Bye-Bye

I was probably around 10 years old when my older bother and I were introduced to the then expanding world of radio communication. Our Grandfather, who operated the local John Deere dealership, was in constant communication with his mechanics when they were out on service calls via CB radio.
In those days, the CB craze had not yet caught on and it was important to maintain the correct etiquette of professionalism of the day. There was no “Rubber Duck”, no “Pig Pen”, no “Smoky” and no “Bandit”. Grandpa’s call letters were KLK6645 and that’s what he answered to, along with “base” when talking from the shop.
One Christmas, Jerry and I received a pair of walky-talkies. This was a prime example of modern technology and a real handy gadget for two boys prone to playing “army” around the neighborhood. On days when the weather was just right we could sometimes hear the local CB people with their usual numbers coded banter.
We marveled at what great fun it would be if only we could only talk to Grandpa, just up the road using our walky-talkies. All we really needed was just a little more power.
One of us, and it may never be known exactly who, decided to replace the 9-volt battery in the back of one of the radios with a significantly increased power supply. We used an old cord and plug and wired into the battery terminals and we were “go” for launch. Jerry pushed the plug into the wall receptacle under the desk in our bedroom.
The house system quickly pointed out our folly by sending a series of supernovas dancing across the floor followed by a scaled down model of a hydrogen bomb explosion rising above the radio and rolling off of the ceiling. We had not officially learned to cuss at that time, but new words were definitely forming.
The wall plug had already self-ejected and the smoke was beginning to clear when we noticed that the small fan in the room had stopped. We tried the ceiling light and then the lights in some of the other rooms and found that half of the house was down. We knew this would mean big trouble.
We quickly got the fuses replaced, got the lights back on then cleared the remaining smoke out though the bedroom window. I picked up the non-radio active remains and discovered that the radio that was just sacrificed to the Gods of 10-4 was, in fact, mine.
I don’t remember feeling particularly bad about this though, I think largely because I knew that the other radio might just as well have been vaporized too, since one walky-talky has almost no use without the other one.
Though we never did get the chance to hale Grandpa’s call letters, somewhere during that white-hot instant, the faint sound of two boys yelling is thought to have crackled the airways on a radio in a capsule named Mercury.
Of course, NASA would have called this a “glitch”.

Backyard Ups and Downs

In my teens, I climbed to the tops of trees to enjoy the view and to feel the world swinging in the wind. I was aware of the presence of gravity and, of course, felt immune to it. It was a special moment to be alive.
Now, at age 55, the physics have changed. Last fall I leaned a ladder against a tall maple in my yard to cut down a hanging limb leftover from the ice storm. The distance from the ground to the top rung was twenty feet, but the view from that top rung to the ground was closer to 75 and I certainly wasn’t interested in the swaying effect.
I climbed up the ladder and stood precariously on the rung second from the top. Putting a chokehold on the tree trunk, I nervously sawed through the limb with a small handsaw. I watched the limb fall away, like Wylie Coyote, disappearing into the desert floor. When the limb bumped the bottom of the ladder, I dropped the saw and went for the double chokehold on the tree trunk. Visions of insurance policies and long-term recovery flashed through my head.
Despite my initial unwillingness to release the tree, I did eventually manage to climb down. It occurred to me that there, standing on the ground looking up, while pulling the bark from under my fingernails, was yet another special moment to be alive.
It’s springtime now and most of the significant busted limbs are down from the trees and I am concentrating on more “down to Earth” projects.
I decided to repaint an old metal yard chair, a veteran of many a back yard campfire and a dependable step-up for a guy who’s sometimes too lazy to get out a ladder.
This chair had the peelings of maybe 26 different coats of paint, the colors of which, none would be considered for this particular facelift as I decided to go with a nice bright safety yellow, something festive for my classic “Whatever‘s out there” yard décor collection.
It’s a little rough in texture, but looks good with my John Deere windmill and red painted bluebird house. And though it may someday be the finest piece on the scrap wagon, it’s safe for now and waits near the ever-extending ladder to see if I want to get dangerously up in the world or just hold on to my iced tea and simply sit down.
Well, right now, the chair sits pretty good.