TURNOVER, a fiction

Photo credit (c) 2006 Anchor Tool and Plastic Inc. All Rights Reserved

 

© 2009 Craig Chereek, all rights reserved

This may be a new millenium, a new age, a virtual universe, all information all the time, but somebody still has to build the things that support it in the material world. That’s me, and guys like me. I own a factory, we make the finest widgets money can buy.

I inherited an efficient, if not exactly modern plant, the easy part is getting my product out the gate. My employees really handle all that, and they’re pretty darn good. My real job is keeping my production line running, which is mostly about keeping those employees happy, but sometimes things break. I have some crack mechanics, my real headaches come from getting them all the random bits and pieces they need to keep the line working.

There are a lot of interconnected machines here, computer-guided pneumatic systems, actuators, servos, lots of sensors, relays, electronic subassemblies, hydraulic systems, each feeds the next and everything has to work for anything to work. When something breaks, the whole line turns itself off pronto, and even all the the indicator lights, bells and whistles in the world can’t always tell you why.

When that happens, we all climb around like monkeys until someone finds it. Then you just figure it out, you get whatever you need to fix it, you fix it, you turn it back on. It sounds so simple. You get whatever you need to fix it, there’s no outsmarting that. You sure can overthink it, though.

I once had a mechanical problem so troubling that I had to call my attorney.
I’d ordered an expensive tool that didn’t work, and it looked like I was gonna be stuck for it. I had concluded the problem lay in the statutes, the specifics of the law. In particular, I’d encountered a complicating unspecificity to warranties of utility, of suitability, and of durability. At first glance, simply answering two questions (Does it work? Does it still work?) would seem adequate to provide clear evidence of a breach, but then you have to ask,
How well does it work?
Did you correctly identify and specify the need?
How long will it work?

It’s a legal can of worms.

One of my machines is a big old #2 whambusker. Just at closing time, one of my foremen tells me that as a result of normal vibration over sustained operation, it has developed a leak in its 3” submersible rumkinbucker, my master rumpkinbucker is shaking loose. He thinks we just need to tighten the tension nut on the 3” submersible rumkinbucker on my #2 whambusker, but we don’t have a tool that can do it. And that’s exactly what I tell my long-time tool supplier.
“You say a # 2 whambusker? Your master rumpkinbusker must be what, over 120 feet out over the load. You have electrical power way out there?”
“No. I can’t turn it manually?”
“In the the #3 whambusker you can. It’s mounted external to the tank. In a #2, it’s located up inside the tank, you could get a hand rumbkinbusker wrench on it, maybe, but you’d have no room to turn it. You need a powered model. But that’s no problem,” he says, “I got just the wrench you need right here, its a four-inch propane-fired adjustable rumpkinbucker wrench, fits all your smaller rumpkinbuckers, too.”

I sent Bill from shipping to pick it up. When he got back, it was dark. I had my security guard send him home and bring it up.
“You want me to wait, sir?”
“Go on home, Lou, I’ll lock up. I want the line rolling in the morning, I’ll do this tonight myself.”
I unwrap it. Looks pretty keen. When I turn the thumbscrew back and forth, the jaws open and close. I push the button, it gets warm, it spins. Is it the best tool for the job? Well, he didn’t send me a hammer. Only one way to find out.

I turn the yard lights back on and head out the high-bay doors. After a brisk walk in the moonlight, I climb yhe ladder all the way up my old #2 whambusker, shimmy all the way out the boom, reach up, release and remove the master rumpkinbucker cover-plate. I then get up on my tiptoes, put the wrench up into the tank, fish it under the supply hose, and slide it around the suspect master rumpkinbucker tension nut. I tighten the jaws, press the button, it fires right up, and the tension nut starts to loosen even further. I soon can feel my master rumpkinbucker start to wobble, and the drip turns into a stream. I release the button, fish out and quickly pocket the wrench, and start tightening the rumpkinbucker with two hands. Finally, after much groaning and straining, I hear the stream turn back into a drip. Drat.

I pull out the wrench. Upon inspection, it has no reversing switch anywhere. I wipe my hands, pull out my cell and call my supplier. I explain my situation.
Laughing, he says, “If you wanted a reversible propane-fired adjustable rumpkinbucker wrench, you should have ordered one,” and hangs up.
I’ve known him for years, he’s always been a serious businessman, but this is a new low. I wonder, what is he trying to pull?

And of course, all that’s what I tell my lawyer. Good listener, she even listens for a moment after I’m done.
She finally says, “He’s right, you know. You should have ordered the reversible model. We’ll have to argue that nobody in his right mind would provide a propane-fired rumpkinbucker wrench for use in an enclosed space”
“It’s not an enclosed space issue,” I reply.
“I thought you said it was in a tank.”
“I did, and it is, but the guy using it here isn’t in the tank with it when he’s using it, he’s breathing open air, so it’s not an enclosed space issue. That’s not the problem, and the problem isn’t that it only spins only one way, either. The wrench spins only one way, and it’s the wrong way,” I tell her, getting a little exasperated.
She surprises me, “My sister taught me “righty tighty, left loosey. Your rumpkinbucker work like that?”
”Yup.”
“Wrench only goes Lefty Loosey?
“Yup.”
“I can sell that, but it won’t be cheap. You’ve already spent a hundred bucks. Before I ask you for a ten-thousand dollar retainer to start the case, do you want to try to talk to him again first?”
Seems like good advice.

I walk into my supplier’s warehouse with the wrench in my hand. As I make my way down the aisle, he sees me coming through the big plate glass curtain wall fronting his office in the back. He sees the wrench in my hands, and recognition lights his face. Then he leans back in his desk chair and grins at me. As he gets up, he waves me back, not at all the reception I’d expect.
“Come on in!” he says, holding the door for me. “How can I help you today?”
Showing him the wrench, I tell him, “I spent a lot of money on this. My family’s bought a lot of tooling from you over the years. I tell you this wrench spins the wrong way and you laugh at me! I don’t have time for this, I’ve a plant to get back online and I need you to make this right, and do it now.“
“I thought you were kidding. Now, huh?” and he grins again.
“Right now,” I say, pointing the wrench.
“Push the button.”
The button was on top, just like before. I pushed it. Lefty Loosey. I glare at him.

“Turn the wrench over,” he says.

Not following, I did.
“Now push the button.”
Now it was on the bottom, I pushed it. Righty Tighty.

As the sun came up, fastening the cover plate back on, I finally recover enough juice to think about calling my lawyer. Balanced on the end of that big old #2 whambusker, cellphone in one hand, and my trusty new reversible propane-fired adjustable rumpkinbucker wrench in the other, I call her office. It goes straight to voicemail.
“This is … blah blah blah ….beeeeep.”
“We worked it out, thanks for the good advice,” I say. “Oh, and send me a bill for the hundred.”

Feeling better, as I hung up, with the morning shift walking in and my whambusker humming, I realized that last part was unnecessary, she’d have billed me anyway.

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