Then I got called over to Margaret's desk. She wanted to talk to me. I thought I was in big trouble and about to get fired. Getting laid off is bad but getting fired is so much worse. Thankfully I was getting neither.
I was already working nights instead of days. It was more pay and I got to work in a small room in the back of the plant with 3 other women. The day shift had a guy who did the job I would be doing. I think he wore a hair net, too. We had to wear different uniforms. Before this we were all assigned white smocks to wear over the white uniforms we had purchased with our own money.
Now I had to wear a navy blue smock and I could wear whatever I wanted under that. I wore jeans mostly because I was doing messy jobs.
I was now a machine operator. I would run a dipping machine.
I wasn't supposed to take these photos but I did one night when the other girls were on lunch break.
That above is the dipping machine. Those hanging rack with blue things on them are the mandrels. They are aluminum. You pressed a button and the rack came down to dip in the liquid plastic then went back up again to let the excess drip off.
As your level of plastic got low you refilled it from the white bucket below. Those clocks on the counter in the background were for timing how long the now dipped mandrels were "baked" in the oven.
The thermos is there because we could do what we wanted here. Sometimes, especially the girls who "blew pilots" would have to wait for more to come out of the ovens. They could read or do what ever they felt like. They sometimes ate candy or cookies even but nobody was supposed to know that only now I've told.
You could always drink water or coffee or whatever in there because of the heat of the ovens making you thirsty. It was easier than shutting off the ovens and going all the way out to the front of the factory where the lunch room was to get a drink.
One girl brought knitting in and when we were out to lunch or dinner as we were second shift, she'd sit there and knit. The mandrels and dip were covered so there was not much chance of anything getting in it but I'm sure we would have got hell if we'd been caught.
When the heat got too much, we had a back door we could open to let it outside. We were way in the back of the factory and the back faced the woods. Nobody ever bothered us or caught us doing it.
We did have an quality control inspector who made rounds about two or three times a night but we knew when to expect her. We were model workers at those times.
The racks of wet mandrels were hoisted by the operators into these ovens where they were baked for a certain time.
Thing with the blower hose attached was a tub of cold water that you dipped the fresh out of the oven rack into before placing it on the hanging racks under the counters for your helper who would then "blow" them off with an air hose. The boxes on the far wall were used only for temporary storage. You kept count how many went into each box before it traveled on its way to the next stop. The QCI would take a balloon or two out of each box and measure it with her calipers to be sure it was cooked right and the right thickness.
We all had heavy heat resistant gloves that we lifted the hot racks with but still we would get burned a lot. It was part of the job. Your assistant would lift that rack up and slide it onto the rack above on the table. Then she used a small piece of something hard to loosen the ends of the balloons a little. just enough that the air house could blow air under it to make it fly off the mandrel. She would capture them with her other hand and put them in the open box in front of her. You worked as a team and you had to work well together.
The front of the oven.
The only one here I remember is the one in the middle. That was Robin. The one on the right was a temp and I just don't recall the one the on the left.
Mim Barnes was my helper. She was older than me and divorced. Robin helped the other girl in the room. Mim was quiet on the surface and a good friend. I don't have a photo of her.
Robin was sweet and kind. The gal she worked with was a real bitch. Its not the girl on the left in the photo. I can't even recall her name either but she was snotty and mean like we were all in her way and she wished we'd disappear. She couldn't stand our laughing and joking. She never reported us but she sure didn't like us. Once I went with Mim to the Dew Drop Inn and she was there acting like she was a floozy and apparently not noticing we were there.
Robin was sick a lot and at first didn't know why. She knew she was pregnant but she didn't think the sickness should last that long or be that severed. It turned out she had gallstones and had to undergo that operation while still pregnant or maybe she had to endure it until after the baby was born. I don't remember that either but she did have a normal healthy baby boy.
The four on the day shift changed a few times. The guy I mentioned here somewhere was pushy. He could get nasty when he wanted to do that. He was dating his helper. Ok he was living with her. She was married to someone else and getting a divorce. I think it was the same with him, but it didn't sink in at the time.
It was winter and she came in one day with a fantastic story. I think she was living with her husband at the time. Maybe it was before she started up with the dipper. It was so cold the night before when she got home that she thought her car wouldn't start in the morning. Her husband went out and put an old fur coat over the motor, thinking he'd take it off in the morning before she went to work. He didn't tell her he did it.
Ready for work she dashed out the door and into the car. She turned the key and the motor started up but it made a heck of a noise and died. She lifted the hood to see fur all over the place. He ran out of the house about then to tell her about the coat. The battle of wits was on or would that be the battle of witless?
I think they were both cheating on each other by then but I'm sure this incident had a lot to do with the final break up. She moved in with the dipper shortly afterwards.
Some time or other while I was working in the dipping room, I came out for my break and I walked by a bunch of ladies who were pulling stickers off a roll and putting them on the sides of cardboard boxes. The boxes were empty. They just sat there and pulled the labels off the roll and slapped them on. It didn't take my brainwork and it sure didn't take any muscles. New employees still got paid a lot more than the minimum wage so the job was a good one.
There was one snooty little bitch who suddenly stood up while I walked by and threw the box she was holding on the floor. She stormed out of there saying, "I quit! I don't have to work this hard for a living!" For years, whenever I had a tough job to do I would think back to that event and how stupid that girl was.
Maybe she was some rich parents little darling but if you work you have to expect that nothing is perfect. Label sticking sounds pretty darn easy. She sure wouldn't have lasted anywhere else.