Ch 35: Fired.

         Soon after NPG took over LOF Glass, a delegation from our plant was sent to Japan. They came back excited and discouraged, seeing how far behind and backward our plant was. A windshield is too heavy to be handed by one person so moving it was always a two-person job at our plant.  In Japan, sleek robots were handing windshields, with human hands hardly touching them.  The plant’s management decided that it was time for our plant to enter the robotic age. It budgeted one million dollars for the next fiscal year to install our first robot and the project was assigned to me. Until now projects of that size were handled by the LOF Technical Centre in Toledo, in many cases with poor results. The most logical place for the robot was the loading station on the Final Line where two men put windshields on a peg conveyor to be washed, inspected, and then packed into racks to be shipped to different GM plants.  I did the preliminary cost estimate and calculated that the robot would replace two men on three shifts and pay for itself in four years. This was a big disappointment. NPG required a three years payback for projects of that size, and the project would not be approved. 

       An Annual Industrial Exhibition opened in Toronto to demonstrate what was new and I wanted to see if there was some equipment our company could use. In one section a “one man loader” caught my attention. A small hoist running on an overhead track was operated by one man, who would clamp, lift and move heavy boxes that would otherwise require two men to move. It occurred to me that a similar installation could be used to handle windshields. I asked the salesman for the company to come to Collingwood to see our operation. We went to the final line where two men were packing the windshields into racks. “This is a perfect use for the “one man loader”, to lift the windshield off the conveyor using suction cups and move it to the rack” said the salesman. Our curiosity was dampened by the foreman of the final line. “Every GM plant wants windshields packed in different ways. One plant wants them concave side in, other concave side out, third one upside down. There are twelve different ways of packing and the loader would have to manage them all”. The salesman asked if we could send a rack of windshields to their shop, they would work on some quick release, universal clamps. Three weeks later six people from the final line went to see a demonstration of the one man loader that was equipped with the quick release clamp, picking and packing windshields as each GM plant required.
       The plant manager called a meeting to decide if it was feasible to use the one man loaders in junction of the robotic loader. The manpower savings was obvious. Using the one man loaders, each operated by a single person, could reduce our manpower by sixteen jobs and the payback would be one and half years. Could the loaders keep up with the robot? The robot could load 250 W/S per hour onto the conveyor and on the end were three loaders; each one could pack 300 W/S per hour into the shipping rack so if one loader was down in case of breakdown the two remaining could easily keep up with the robot. 
  There was some concern that the loader had not been tested on the production line but I assured everybody that the loader would work.  It was therefore decided that the project should go ahead. I was relieved and excited but a little anxious, knowing that I had   stuck my neck out and if it didn’t work as expected, I would be in deep trouble.  

       The next job was to sell the project to the Union. The company had a meeting with the Union and guaranteed that nobody would be laid off. A review committee was formed including the union rep and people from the line that would have input into the project. Their main recommendation was that every packing station should have an emergency stop switch. It was a reasonable suggestion and the switches were included in the project. Six months later the project was completed, on budget and on time. The robot and loaders worked well and people on coffee breaks gathered, watching the robot operate.
     However after few months there were problems with packing W/S to meet the scheduled shipments. Each station was supposed to pack 300 W/S in an hour with the whole line packing 9 000 W/S in 24 hours. Our company was operating according to a “Just in time “system and missing a shipment to a GM plant would be a serious problem.   
 I kept checking daily packing reports and noticed that one shift was falling behind on afternoon and graveyard shifts. I had shown the reports to the shift foreman and asked him what the problems were. He was very negative about the new line but could not give me any reasons why his shift was falling behind, commenting “It is all fucked up.” I had spent hours watching his shift but could not see any problems. 
       Then one day I hid behind some empty racks and watched the packing stations. After a while John from another line came to see his buddy Bill, probably to talk about fishing. Bill hit the emergency switch and the line stopped. They talked for five minutes, John then left, Bill hit the switch and the line was running again. A while later, Mary from another line was on a break and brought coffee to Jane. She again hit the emergency switch, the line stopped and they had a little chat. So this was what was causing the problem!! When nobody was watching them, packers were stopping the line for chitchat. 
        I reported the problem to my boss and he brought it up at the production meeting. The Line foreman who was at the meeting reluctantly admitted that he had one packer who was behind most of line stoppages. He was the Union shop steward who didn’t liked the new system and put in many grievances, some trivial, about the line. He threatened that the Union would walk out if the grievances were not resolved. This was very bad timing for the company. The Japanese auditors were coming to inspect the plant’s operations and a union walk out was the last thing management wanted. They decided to ignore my complaints. The Japanese came with clipboards in hands, observing, making notes, and left again without telling anybody anything.
       
    Each year in early October the Collingwood Yacht Club booked a crane for the annual boat lift out. Before the lift out, it was necessary to take down the boat’s mast, using the small Yacht Club’s small crane. There was always lots of demand for the crane, boats sometimes had to wait their turn. This year I had procrastinated and waited until the last week. Then came a strong wind, making it too dangerous to take the mast down. Finally on Friday, the day before lift out, the wind died down. I decided to skip morning work and called my brother-in-law to help me take down the mast. It took us only two hours to tuck in the mast, and that accomplished, I went to work. I was late for work but that wouldn’t be a problem, I had been late many times before.                                                                                                                              
        When I came into the office nobody kidded me about being late, and my boss grabbed me right away. “Where were you? I have been paging you the whole morning. Let’s go to the Plant Manager’s office.”  Plant Manager’s office? For being late? Besides the Plant Manager and my boss, the HR Manager was there. The Plant Manager began to talk but I could catch only a fraction of what he was saying. “The Japanese audit… unfortunately staff reduction…  your severance package based on years .”  Then it hit me, I was being fired!!   “What the fuck…” I yelled, but then I realized it was too late to yell. The HR Manager finished his spiel about compensation; the security officer that was waiting outside took me to my office to clear out my desk and then escorted me to my car. It was slowly dawning on me what had happened but it didn’t make much sense. Just two months ago I had had my annual job evaluation and I passed it with flying colours. Then something dawn on me, today was my birthday…