Read Online Now and on Earth by Jim Thompson - Free Book Online Page B

company gives you a transfer, you know, you don't lose your seniority. But if you demand it, they can start you in in a new department at a beginner's rate. That's pretty hard to take. When you've been in a department four months, you draw twelve and a half cents an hour above the minimum-a dollar a day more. A man with a family is going to do a lot of thinking before he gives that up."
    "But most of these fellows are just kids," I said. "They're not old enough to have families. I should think-"
    Moon gave me one of his solemn looks which, some way, have the effect of making me feel even more the idiot than I am.
    "Ever hear of the draft act, Dilly?"
    "Yes. Of course, I have."
    "Well, where do you think these young fellows would be if the company didn't want to have them deferred?"
    Well…
    I didn't have any suggestions that time.
    We went out to the carpenter shop where the wing spars are made, and then we came back inside and started up the sheet-metal forming line. It's called a line, but it's actually four, each about fifty yards long. Each line consists of possibly a hundred benches and workmen; practically every operation is done with handtools. At the beginning of the "line" is a metal-crimping machine, from which the parts come in rough form. From this they go from bench to bench, each man doing his particular little task, until the last bench is reached. There, the move- boys pick them up and trundle them off to the paint and dope shops.
    That is as far as I got. In fact, I didn't get quite that far; I progressed only far enough to reach certain conclusions. Midway in an explanation of one of the processes, Moon abruptly excused himself and hurried off. And in something less than five minutes a company guard had me by the elbow and asked me what I was doing.

10
    "I'm a new man," I said. "My lead-man has been showing me around."
    "Who is your lead-man?"
    I told him.
    "Where'd he go to?"
    "I don't know."
    "Let's take a look at your identification card."
    I gave him my card, and he studied it carefully, looking now and then from it to me. Rather reluctantly, I thought, he handed it back.
    "I guess it's all right," he said. "But don't waste any time. We're all here to work."
    I went on by myself, and the fifteen minutes or so I spent wandering around before I returned to the stockroom were, of course, absolutely wasted. I didn't take time to see very much, and what I did see meant nothing. I was that badly frightened. I naturally told Moon I'd made out all right; I didn't dare risk another interview with a guard.
    So, as I say, I've had to pick up little by little what I should have known at the start.
    Only a relatively small number of the parts which I saw being made that day reach us. Hundreds of them come through as parts of assemblies. Others are being made for other plants. For instance, we make manifolds for several factories; we have the men and equipment to make them with and they don't. For the same reason we have to buy stuff from them. No aircraft factory is self-sufficient. The items which we sell or buy vary from day to day, depending upon the availability of labor, equipment, and materials.
    I have, in all, four types of parts to keep record on: assembly, sub-assembly, and regular assembly-line issue. The fourth consists of parts such as cowling and firewalls, which, because they are bulky and difficult to handle, go direct to the assembly line-a fact which does not excuse us from keeping track of them. When a plane reaches a certain stage, it has a definite number of parts. We-I-am supposed to know what those parts are, regardless of whether I have seen them, and to show them as having been issued.
    There is something screwy about this. When I think of what it is, I will tell Moon about it. I am also going to find out why we are constantly short on some parts and invariably long on others.
    We issue, or try to issue, parts in units of twenty-five. Not twenty-five pieces of each part, but enough for