I was killing myself 60 hours a week working on these Projection Systems. I'd have a soldering iron, an oscilloscope, a DVM and probably a one pound bag of M&M's or something there. I had to wear anti-static clothing and a bracelet that connected to Earth Ground via a special wire of a particular resistance.

I went to this friend of mine and was like, "Why are you wasting time in assembly? You could make like, ten bucks an hour more than you make now. I can get you into Engineering. It'd be awesome."

He told me, "'cause I don't have to do anything here. I can just space out and not have to think about work. I go to school all day", he said. "I don't want to do any more than I'm doing right now. It gives me time to think about things I need to be thinking about"

It really hit Home for me. I began scheming. I wasn't going to kill myself at this job for ten bucks an hour "extra" any longer. But I still wanted the additional ten bucks an hour.

I was working Evening Shift at the time. The Owner of the Company thought "Swing Shift" sounded too, I dunno. He didn't like the sound of it.

I realized there was a bottleneck with a project we had there for like, eight months. I suggested to the Owner that a graveyard shift could be really helpful getting out the seventy-two-boards-a-day quota at 7 am. It was always like, 7 am came a round and only forty boards or something would go out the door. Then there'd have to be an Afternoon shipment which was always a Bitch. For everyone.

Following?

The Owner agreed, I chose two of my favorite dudes to assist, and we started the, what we agreed to call the "Sunrise Shift" at the request of the Owner, 'cause he thought "Graveyard" sounded morbid and didn't want to talk to customers touting the fact that we could accommodate them better with the aid of our "Graveyard Shift".

We would go in at eleven at night and leave at eight in the morning. We would start on Sunday, which, in exchange for us agreeing to call it "Sunrise Shift", the Owner, who regarded the Sabbath highly, agreed that we could begin on Sunday night at eleven, to ensure a Monday delivery, 'cause who wants to work on a Friday night? It's only one hour of the Sabbath, After All.

From that point on, we studied the time restrictions on the projects and chose the projects that would benefit us best, for instance, on a video projection board that was missing a pixel, or a row of them or something, they estimated it should take 23.216 minutes per board or something like that. It was strict. To the thousandth of a second. Funny thing is, no matter how strict it was, I could still find and repair a problem in like, three minutes.

That means that if I were to try to look like a badass, I could write down ten minutes per board on my "Time Study" and I would be thirteen minutes less than the average, with Seven minutes to spare. Since the "Day Shift" had supervisors, they had to look busy all day and would stretch the work out. They would sit there and fake it, just getting the time under the restriction so the Company was still making a profit and wouldn't bitch at them. Or maybe they just weren't that Good.

We had no supervisors. Who wants to work Graveyard? They (luckily) could never convince anyone to take the job as supervisor before they agreed to give me a "supervisory" position, where I did nothing, differently than before, and got an additional like, buck thirty three an hour... People really thought we were taking One for the Team.

The only drawback was that twelve times a year, I'd have to attend a Day Shift Company Meeting. No big deal though since it was usually to tell people how to be more productive by showing them some little Magic Tricks, usually the ones we wouldn't be able to implement in our scheme anymore, and look like a Hero.

So we'd go in there, me, GZ, and CD, a team in a way I'd never experienced. More or less criminals.

In an eight hour day, the Company expected twenty boards a day, at roughly 23 minutes per board. And there was usually overtime "available". It took me three minutes per board, which means that to produce 20 boards, it would take me sixty or ninety minutes to complete my work. I'd do it while the remainder of the Evening Shift poured out to the parking lot and drove their cars home via 7-Eleven for some nachos and Jay Leno.

Pretty much as soon as the people were gone, I was finished with work and only had to wait maybe an hour or two before G and C were finished.

We would then spend the rest of the night/morning seeing who could throw orange pylons the furthest in the parking lot, Glen would bring a paintball gun every once in a while... We'd go to Shari's Restaurant and drink coffee and Pepsis. Maybe have some hash browns or something. We'd buy Swisher Sweets at 7-Eleven and listen to Art Bell and fax funny fucking things to him so we'd hear it on the Air.

I'd go to the stockroom and take parts to build miniature modular synths with like Five Oscillators or something else completely fantastic I'd come up with and start building on a whim.

All the parts were there, and I'd find ways of Accounting for All of them, over Time, writing them off as defects or damages.

By the end of three years, we had thirteen of us on the shift. All chosen by us. Just friends during the dayshift that acted all "Company Minded" in front of the Owner, and agreed to move to Sunrise Shift, for the Good of the Company hahahaha. Of course, since it was "taking One for the Team", they usually got a Raise off the Bat.

G, C, and I remained the only Three in Engineering, the rest were Assemblers.

Just about that time, I got really tired of working. I called one day and told them I got hung up. Then I practically faked my own death for the next three days. My 'condition' got worse as the week progressed. I mean, I was fine. I was just playing hooky.

I stopped calling in and never went back. Not even for my last check. The Company became part of a conglomerate about a year or so later.

I had already quit that job once to return a couple of years later. That was it... I was done. I went away to work for the Family Company, for my Father, which is a whole other story... Maybe I'll write it down soon.

And now I'm drunk, stoned and writing things that seem mildly entertaining to a drunk, stoned person.

What? You weren't stoned?

Ugh...

Gimme Five!

LOVE!
Brian James "coatsie" Coates "I"