MidiMike

In another time long ago, I made my living in injected molded plastics.  Long history but the memory I told a co-worker the other day was worth posting.  As you probably guess, I am not a conformist.  I have a hard time understanding why simple things are done wrong and I have a nasty habit of pointing it out sometimes.

As a supervisor of a night shift crew, we manufactured large panels of plastic for assembly in auto plants.  The machine operators were opening huge metal doors, pulling out heavy molded plastic panels and would trim excess plastic with blades and pack the parts in boxes, to be taken away by other busy bees.

When I started working there, I watched what they were doing for a long time.  I had time and motion training from the old days and I was really curious.  One night, I went to the machine operator with a tall stool.  I suggested he do a few changes in the layout and process and suggested he sit on the stool to be more comfortable.   He responded well to my suggestions but told me he could not sit down.  I stopped for a second and asked why.  He was told the could not sit down at his station.  When I asked the long of it – the owner/manager did not think you could work hard if you were sitting down.  I pondered this for a few days.

Then the following week on the evening shift I went into the offices and took out all the chairs and put them in the warehouse.  When asked about the incident I replied that I thought I was doing as instructed and making the company more efficient since I was informed that you cannot work hard sitting down.

In retrospect, I should have been fired and should have thought of that possibility,  I did not.  But the next day there were tall stools by each of the molding machines.