On Sun, 14 Dec 2008 20:49:23 -0500, "Eisboch" wrote:


"Vic Smith" wrote in message
.. .
On Sun, 14 Dec 2008 08:17:37 -0800 (PST),

wrote:


There is no way in the world the American worker of present day works
harder than the guy in my dad's day. I have been victim to being told
to slow down by a union. In all fairness (which we won't expect from
the other side) I was also told to slow down while on piece work at
Standadyne, a non union shop...



Piece work is sort of a special deal. When I pushed pieces I was
aware that I was in my 20's and strong as a horse.
The guy on the next shift might be 50 and not so healthy or strong.
If I was being timed I had to go slower. Still worked hard, but
shortened my break times. Didn't want to screw up the older guys.
They did plenty of work.

--Vic


Many of us have never had the type of work experience where you had to be
conscious of how productive you are compared to your fellow worker.

Don't agree with that. I always want to excel at what I do, and I
think most others do too. It was no different with most of my union
mates when I was UAW. You'll always find slackers, no matter
what occupation, but most people like competition.
Whether it was pushing pieces or management/customer feedback in IT,
I've always measured myself against others.
Besides being human nature, it shows up in your pay, and how others
treat you.
What many have trouble doing is getting outside their own skin.
They think they are the cat's meow. Get a few of them together
kissing each others ass and they create their own reality.
GM management might be an example of that.
I've worked with guys who were sharper than me, and guys who were
duller. Everybody has value. The trick is to extract it.
The big difference with factory piecework is the limitations of the
job process itself.
A process dependent on a machine's speed and the operators'
coordination and strength is a special kettle of fish.

The
closest I ever came to that I guess is 9 years in the military, but nobody
pressured you to hold back in doing a good job, or even a better job than
others. The benefit of doing a good job was learning your job code,
advancing in rank and earning more money. Everyone had the same
opportunity. Some did, some didn't. In the military if someone was noticed
to be purposely holding back, he/she would be in a world of hurt.

Sometimes, and some skated for their entire tour. Especially the
cooks (-:

In my civilian experiences of almost 30 years now, the companies I've worked
for were too small to have a cast of thousands all doing the same kind of
work. The motivation to do a good job was the fact that your performance
contributed to the overall efforts and if you slacked off, it would be very
noticeable. Often, I was the only one doing a particular function, so
screwing up, performing well or being lazy had an immediate impact on the
company and was usually noticed by the management.

So, you people with other experiences have to realize that the concept of
"backing off" in performance is totally foreign to some of us.

Not at all. And unless you always worked 60-80 hour weeks and avoided
vacations there are others who operate that way - some very
successfully - who would consider you a slacker.
"Performance" is often a moving target.
Once "taking care of business" is defined, some can simply do it in
less time than others. There are more paths to success than there are
to failure.
Regarding piecework though, it's very easy to understand if you ever
watch 3 people do the exact same job on different shifts. Unless they
are clones there will be very noticeable differences.
Companies time these type of jobs to determine reasonable productivity
expectations. Work, safety and quality are all considered.
How it worked at IH when I was there is the timer would set the 100%
base rate. He would watch you work for a shift and expected a good
day's work or he'd squawk. It's easy to see if somebody is slow and
inefficient, or dogging a job.
If you took a new job you had 3-5 days to perform at the 100% rate.
Otherwise you couldn't get the job.
If you were capable of it, and the job process itself allowed it, you
could hit 120% every day and make some extra cash.
Incentive.
Some couldn't do that. They weren't physically capable.
Didn't make them bad or unproductive.
I never personally saw a job that could exceed 120%, so the timers
knew what they were doing.
Here's something I never forgot. I left the U.S Steel mills to go to
IH because a mate got laid off and went there. He told me the pay
was double, so I applied for a job there
When I get to the interview with the personnel guy at IH it starts to
drag it out after the normal pro forma chatting.
He starts hemming and hawing with me about job availability, and
thinking he's playing with me, I got ****ed off enough that I just
said "You've got my phone number," got up and started walking out.
He jumped up and stopped me, and took me on the floor to meet Al Fask,
the gen foreman of Dept 27, heat treating.
I was 5'9" and 160 lbs then. 21 years old.
We walk in to Al's office, and he raises his head from some paperwork,
looking at the personnel guy and then me.
I still remember his face, sort of a "Now what?" expression.
The personnel guy says "I got somebody for the shoe press."
Fask looks at me again, blows up, and yells "WHAT THE ****!"
The personnel guy says, "Hey, he says he's strong."
Fask is now reduced to slowly shaking his head back and forth.
He says to me, "You got 5 days to qualify."
Never talked with the guy again to my memory, but I remember that.
Next day I show up for second shift on the press.
The guy I'm replacing is a lean black guy named Roy. About 6'3"
Sort of a younger Morgan Freeman as I recall.
Patient and matter of fact. All business.
He's already working, and the yellow hot track shoes are floating
through the air on his tongs. It was dark in that old plant, and it
was a pretty sight.
Grab from the furnace, pivot 180, thrust in the press knocking the
last one out, hit the switches, pivot back for the next one.
Piece of cake. Lots of BLAM BLAM of the steel and the press, but as
Roy pirouettes from furnace to press it's all smooth and those shoes
float through the air, so they must be light.
After all, they're yellow too.
He finishes pulling the heat, and the furnace has to recover.
He gives me the lowdown on how to do the job.
Furnace recovers, and it's my turn.
I hit the wide foot pedal to open one of the 3 heavy furnace doors.
It doesn't budge.
"Put some weight on it!" Roy yells.
I muscled the door open then, and the heat goes on, flame knocking me
back. My eyebrows, eyelashes, and a chunk of head hair disappear.
Roy grabs me and says, "If you hear those burners click on, duck."
Allright.
I pop the door open again and clamp the tongs on a shoe - think they
were TD-18's - and pull. Nothing happens. The shoe is stuck to the
next shoe. They lean against each other on the rails.
My hands and arms start getting real hot. The tongs are about
a yard long.
"Give it a jerk!" yells Roy.
I squeeze the tongs hard and jerk. Two shoes start sliding off the
furnace rails and onto the table, still stuck together.
Roy grabs the tongs and says "Watch. Jerk up a little to unstick,
that's all. Then it'll slide off." He does the shoes for that door.
They float to the press.
Gives me the tongs, and I open the next door, do the jerk and slide
that shoe onto the table. Now I got it.
Imitating him, I start the pivot. Hey, it's only ballet.
However, as the shoe leaves the table it doesn't float.
It almost hits the floor and I stumble to recover, almost falling.
This thing is HEAVY. That yellow color don't mean anything.
Anyway, think I did 3 shoes before my arms gave out.
Only need about 700 a shift. 18 tons for 120%.
Uh-oh.
Think I didn't even manage a push of 12 shoes that first night.
Roy did about 70% of the work.
He was helpful but non-committal the first 2 days.
By the end of the 3rd day, he warmed up to me.
Said I was going to make it, and he could get off that
job and on to a different one that was easier on the bones.
For a few weeks I spent an hour in a tub full of hot water after each
shift, and slept at least 10-12 hours. Ate like a horse.
I was doing 100% after the five days, and 120% by the end of the
second week
It wasn't until then that my crew would give me the time of day.
My loader, quencher and unloader/grinder were hungry. They had looked
upon my arrival with doubt.
But I kept them happy, and made the shoes float.
My weight went to 185 inside a month. My waist size stayed at 28"
Damn, being 21 was GOOD. And so was that job.
Guys on break would come over and watch me work.
Never forget finishing a pull and an older guy who had been watching
says to me, laughing, "Son, just watching you work makes me tired.
OoooWee!"
Frankly, I'm plain proud of that work, more than any job I ever did.
Worked hard to be able to do it, and it was a nightly grind to keep
doing it. I've gotten plenty of kudos for various IT accomplishments,
and a hell of a lot more salary, but it all pales in comparison.
That's might sound strange, but there it is. Probably something to do
with the "manly" bull****.
Left it after less than a year when they killed the shift, and I
didn't want to go first shift. Besides, it was boring as hell when my
body made the shoes float without pain.
Wore out 3 right shoes, the pivot shoe.
The only guy who did it more than 2 years had ****ed up knees.
It was soon automated, and anybody could do it.
My press crew was young too, but I had other jobs there where I had
an older or weaker helper, and I would pace myself to his
capabilities.
That's simple teamwork, and it happens everywhere I've worked.
I never felt any less of myself for making those adjustments.

--Vic