Worst job
One of the worst jobs I've ever had was working quality control on a frame line for a double glazed window frame manufacturer. It was simply awful. There were meant to be five of us on the line - two checkers and three 'runners'. I was one of the checkers. I would pull the job details up on the computer, quickly check over the dimensions, check the frames for defects and also that they had the right amount of 'holes' for the actual windows etc. The runners' job was to place the checked frames in a storage area and make a note of the storage location, tell me where then I'd update the computer records so they could be pulled for delivery. Simple enough.

This is the only job in my life I have ever walked out on. I was about 20 and had worked there for quite some time on the lines welding the frames quite happily before I got promoted into QC due to my 'knowing a bit about computers' as my line manager put it. The job had an evil reputation and had seen the sacking and quitting of quite a few people who had been there longer than myself. I didn't want anything to do with it. I was told by our line manager, a typical beancounter that I was working this job or I wasn't working at all.

Great...

Now the line would pump out anything between 40-80 frames an hour, these things would be anything up to 12ft by 10ft and anything that size had to be steel reinforced as well, so these were bloody heavy, cumbersome things and also the storage area was about the size of a football field, full of numbered racks to slot the frames into. (We also had a sash line where all the windows came down, this was also the storage place for all of them, then the orders went out together, frames and sash - you get the idea...)

I was given two people, me checking and two runners. To say we got behind was an understatement. On the very first evening I didn't get home till about an hour and a half after the line had finished. Conscientious as I was back then and eager to please in my new post - We'd worked over our breaks and most of our lunchtime to try and get caught up. 'No problem' I thought - I'll get quicker as I get used to it and with a few words of encouragement to my work mates and on the line supervisors say-so we filed the overtime for that evening's work and went on home.

The same happened the next night, and the next. So on the Thursday I went to see the line manager and expressed my concerns about (a) not having enough hands and (b) therefore not having enough time to do my job properly. We then proceeded to get off on the wrong foot.
He said that all the other people could do it fine, why couldn't we - to which I reminded him that the longest anyone had stayed in the post previously was just over a month and that previous to that 3 of the guys working there had eventually got sacked for letting dodgy frames get through. 1 bad frame through = 1 warning. I explained that we just didn't have the time to do all of what the company wanted well with just the 3 of us on the frame line.
To cut a long story short - it got quite nasty, he didn't want to take another couple of blokes off the line to assist and I refused to back down. I eventually declared that perhaps, due to his lack of forethought and willingness to get someone to help out in QC, that was why the factory had such an evil quality control reputation?

He got rather angry and started yelling. I was an 'upstart' and 'how dare I tell him how to run his line', you know - all the classics. This screaming brought the factory boss in. Who naturally enquired what the fuss was about. I politely explained whilst said beancounter stood, fumed and sputtered in the corner. After I was finished I was politely asked to leave the office as they had things to discuss. Now - I'm not sure what was said in there - but the very next day I had another two men to help out. Things were on the way up!!

However - I'd made an enemy. This mean little bastard then started taking an unhealthy interest in our work, pulling jobs 5-6 times a day for inspections, pulling my team off the QC point as he wandered round fault finding with a tape-measure, questioning jobs that were well within limits, ordering re-welds on the frames despite there being nothing wrong with them them that the installers couldn't fix on site in two minutes with a stanley knife. He would of course naturally pick the busiest times of the day to do this, then leave the frames in the middle of aisle for us to repack and re-process. Another favourite was to pull us all into QC 'meetings' for 20-30 minutes as the line rolled on, usually biting into our lunch or break times. This went on for a bit but we just grinned and got on with it.

The week before the Christmas shut-down he wandered up with a sickeningly smug look on a Monday morning and said he needed both of the men back on the line and that 'I'd get them back ASAP' - At this point everything was in a rush to get all the frames and orders ready for delivery straight after the two week holiday. The QC and storage bins were spilling over, frames, windows and orders everywhere, the lines were going full bore - the place was in absolute chaos.

We worked like that for a week. We had to stay late every bloody night to get things squared up. I had the line manager prick from hell riding my arse like a horny goat, pulling us at least once an hour for the build up of frames on the QC point. I got my first ever warnings for missing some transoms that had been welded in the wrong place and also one for screaming back at the cock faced little twunt. Myself and what remained of my team clocked up just under 20 hours overtime in a 5 day week just trying to keep on top of the work coming down the lines. At least it was all overtime I thought.

On the Friday before the shut-down, just after break-time as the pay was processed by the main office, he called us all into the office (the line was still running of course) and he was sitting with our clock cards. He said that the company wouldn't be paying for the overtime as we were simply 'below par performance wise' and we had to 'pull our socks' up. He then proceeded to start and lecture us on how he was ultimately responsible for all the frames in QC etc...

One of my guys felled him, right there and then. The little bastard loved it,got up, bled over everything, then got the police involved and had his twenty minutes of overbearing smugness as he poured out his tale of woe to the police and then looked on with a self satisfied smirk on his face as one of my workmates was carted off in the back of the police car. He was then was allowed home early, taking great delight in telling everyone who was listen how he was going to push for GBH / assault / attempted murder charges and claim thousands in compensation.

This was the final straw - Gary and myself went back to the QC point and decided that we'd had enough. We quietly worked through till closing time and then we stayed behind yet again. Security were used to seeing us trailing frames round QC till late at night and that night - we excelled ourselves. Every single order that was packed and ready for transport after the holidays we broke up, moved, peeled the identification labels off and buried as far away as we could get from the original locations. We stayed from 5 until just after 9. I then deleted all of the updated frame and job location files from off the Q.C. Pc - just before I updated the main records on the server with the blank file (that was the last thing we had to do at the end of our shift). The last thing we did was to write the little git a Christmas card and leave it on his desk before we left for the pub.

Nothing fancy - Just "Merry Christmas - from A & G"

I really, really hope he got the message.

As a side note I was offered another job over the Christmas period - so it all worked out quite well. Never looked back since.

Length / girth etc...
(uk_viper stopped lurking on, Thu 22 May 2008, 22:11, 7 replies)

clicky click click click
too many of those people about...
( Gerbilinafishtank Gerbil in a fish tank...TURTLE POWER!, Fri 23 May 2008, 0:33, closed)

*Click*
A long 'un but a good 'un
(Fuckarma was masturbating into your handbag, Fri 23 May 2008, 9:42, closed)

I note that your vandalisnm was directed only against the factory,
when your adversary was the beancounter alone.

Indeed, you vandalized a factory whose boss took YOUR side against the beancounter.

I imagine that the beancounter could easily have blamed it all on rogue employees, and survived quite happily (assuming the factory itself survived your actions).

This does not reflect well on either your intelligence, or your ethical or moral standing.
(haberman is singing in the changes, Fri 23 May 2008, 10:58, closed)

@ Haberman
Quite true. At this point I'm not exactly proud of it myself. It was the first time I'd ever walked out on pretty much anything or done something like that to any of my employers.

Though in my rather shallow defence I - and others - had raised our issues quite a few times with other managers, I was met with everything from complete indifference though to comments like 'well you know what he's like'. I had appealed quite a few times to be moved off the QC line to what passed for HR in the factory, only to be fobbed off yet again with, in my mind, rather pathetic excuses and inaction.

The combination of this and the fact I was dealing with such an officious little prick daily left me with quite a big axe to grind and not much regret about my then behaviour.

I wouldn't do it now, but at the time (over 12 years ago) I felt that I was left with very choice. Not that it excuses my behaviour in any way, shape or form - but that's the story.

I later found out that our efforts had set them back about two hours or so - they still had all the paperwork. The beancounter was dragged over the coals and had to permanently keep six men in the QC dept. The factory is still there and doing well. The beancounter lasted another 6 months before someone else felled him and he was advised by management that it would probably be best if he was gainfully employed elsewhere.
(uk_viper stopped lurking on, Fri 23 May 2008, 12:12, closed)

drives me mad this...
...in our place, every line has a set of 'traffic lights'. If they are on schedule, it's green. If they are getting behind but are on top of it, it's yellow. If it's red, they're waayy behind and the line is fucked.

I'm a manufacturing engineer. If I'm not on the case solving problems within 5minutes of a red light going on, i get a warning.

The operators themselves control the lights. It puts the control in the hands of the people who actually know what's happening, the people on the line. You're old boss would be out in 10mins, no question, at our place.
(inflateable, Sat 24 May 2008, 13:50, closed)

@ inflateable
The Firm was at that point family owned. The supervisor in question was a family friend of the owners. I don't think he'd managed to get the job on the merits of his management skills or working background. As stated - they did eventually have to get rid of him. I don't think he would have lasted anywhere else for a fraction of the time.
(uk_viper stopped lurking on, Sat 24 May 2008, 22:59, closed)

The Armstrongs
Was it anything like this en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Armstrongs?
(Fully Goyle what?, Wed 28 May 2008, 12:01, closed)