Candidalias

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

From Hell to Mayberry

What a wild couple of weeks! on the twelfth of January Himself lost his job.

It was a terrible job! and he wanted to quit the job for years, but he had three weeks vacation and medical coverage. They treated him bad, made all the men work 7 days a week and had just reduced the medical coverage to the worst imaginable (lets just say that welfare is better than the insurance we were on).

If any of you know anything about machine shops, the most efficient way to run one is to have the pace of the shop running at the speed of the slowest machine. However his shop was set up to run at the pace of the fastest machine, and all four lines of machines bottle necked down to two finishers who happend to run the slowest machines... so what do you have. Four lines of machines producing more than 300 wheels per day bottlenecking into two machines run by two operators who can only produce 400 wheels per day if they don't take any breaks.
So Himself has been producing 400 wheels per day, taking no breaks and working 7 days a week. He got into a fight with another employee (totally out of charactor for him or the other employee, they were friends up till this point) and they were both fired.


and here is the funny part... are you ready?

Himself was inspector number 12,
he worked for the company for 12 years,
he was fired on the 12th,
and 12 days later he got another job
for $12 per hour

Himself loves his new job, like going from Hell to Mayberry. It is a little shop with only a dozen or so employees, with a slower pace and absolutely NO SUNDAY work~! and on the occasions that he must work saturday, it will only be a half day. The company owner works right along side the men (he is the first one there in the morning, he unlocks, lights up, shovels the sidewalk, starts the machines and is working before the others get there and the last one to leave). The men take their break together, eat lunch together like a family, and like each other.

So now Himself has to learn the people, and what they are like, and how to relate to each one. And he has to live the Love of Jesus into their lives. For twelve years he has worked in a place where the people all know who he is and what he is like and now he has to start over and that is hard. And so I am praying for him to BE a gentle spirit toward them and to love them in Jesus.