My Time at Barfield Mfg.

When I turned 18, I got a job working through a temp agency at Barfield Manufacturing. I started on the afternoon shift on the assembly line. At first I really hated the job. Part assembly is the most boring work I have ever done. The hours seemed to drag on forever. As I got to know my co-workers it became a little easier since I could at least talk to people, but even that was pretty limiting. I needed the job though, so I stuck it out. 

The way the temp agency worked, you had to work for them for six months, and then if the company wanted to hire you, they could without paying a penalty. At the six month mark, I got hired in as a full employee. This gave me a bit of a raise and benefits. Once again, I had my own health insurance, and once again it was better than what I have today. I also moved to the midnight shift.

The midnight shift was pretty cool because we did a lot of changeovers when we were switching out the parts that we make. I volunteered to do any changeover, and I got to the point where I could do all the setups better than anyone else. Of course there weren't many people who wanted to do changeovers because when the machine was down, it was like an extended break. I liked doing anything that wasn't repetitive. 

I had very few interactions with co-workers outside of work when I was at Barfield. I remember going to a couple of parties, and I would go out for beers with a couple of the guys every now and then. I did however work with a woman name Micki Chavis. We worked together for several months, and I really liked her, and I eventually asked her out. We went out on a couple of dates, and they went pretty well, but things never worked out. We ended up on different shifts, and just didn't keep in touch. A couple of years later my friend Steve told me he knew her, and that she had been murdered. She had been stabbed to death by her boyfriends ex-girlfriend. I had always hoped I would reconnect with her. 

The supervisor of the midnight shift ended up transferring to another department, and they promoted a guy that was just a little older than I was to the new shift supervisor. Since I was able to do all the changeovers, I got along well with him because that was supposed to be a big part of the job. He spent most of his time in the office and really didn't do anything. I assumed I would eventually get his position, but when the upper management decided to get rid of him, he told them that he was too young for the job, and they decided they were going to bring in someone else. 

At the same time, two operator positions opened up in the cold heading department where bolts and screws were made. I applied and me and one of the other guys got the job. Unfortunately the other guy who applied started two days before I did, and in the union world seniority trumps everything. We both started as operators which meant that we kept and eye on the machines, checked the parts against a blueprint, coordinated moving full parts bins and raw material. 

The next step up was the position of Setup B which meant you could setup the machines for different sized bolts, and perform adjustments when the bolts would start to drift out of spec. To get promoted, you had to be able to do a setup on each of the types of machines. There were four different models. Three of the models were American made, and there were two really large machines that were Japanese. One of the models was from the late 1800's and had been converted from an overhead belt drive to an electric motor. This machine was nicknamed the "Pig", and it was the hardest machine to setup and keep in tolerance. 

When we were hired for operator positions, the goal was to get us trained for setup, so we could be promoted because there were no setup B operators. I worked really hard to learn every machine as quickly as I could. I really wanted that promotion. The other guys name was Ross, and he tried really hard, but he just didn't have the aptitude for it. My time working on cars and doing setups on the assembly line made this work very simple for me, but Ross had no previous experience, so he really struggled.

Unfortunately, since Ross had started two days before me, he had seniority, so I couldn't get promoted until he got promoted. I was really frustrated by this, and it is my biggest complaint of unions today. I think the seniority system is complete garbage, and I would never work in an environment like that again. It finally got the point where I was doing the setup B job, and I was fixing all of Ross's setups, and they finally decided to promote both of us, so I could get my promotion. This really did work out in my favor because there was no competition for doing setups. Ross was more than happy to keep doing the boring operator work and let me do all the setups. 

There were three other guys in the department. The guy I worked the most closely with was  Tim who was a Setup A, and he is the one that I learned the most from. There was also the supervisor named Dave who used to be a setup A before he became the supervisor. I didn't learn as much from him because he was doing more supervisor duties than setups. There was also a guy across the aisle who did bushings. He was technically in our department, but we didn't work on his machines and he didn't work on ours. I don't remember his name, but he was a Master Setup which just means that he was a setup A that had been there for over ten years.

One of the really cool parts of my job was that I got to work closely with the machinists. Since I had taking classes in machining and also assistant taught at the high school adult ed program, we had a lot in common. When doing a setup, I would often have to go to the machinists and have them change the angle on one of the dies or grind more clearance on one of the cones. If they were busy, most of them would be happy to let me use the lathe or grinder myself and make the modification. 

There was one time I went in to get a change made, and everyone in the tool room was at lunch. I took my die, set it up on the lathe, and went about making the changes myself. One of the maintenance guys who worked in the tool room walked in and asked me what I was doing. I explained that I needed to make some changes and no one was around. He knew that I often did these things myself, but he had recently been elected as shop steward in the union, so he filed a grievance against me. I ended up getting written up and had to be a part of a big meeting with the plant manager where it was explained that I was never to do a job that was no in my job description again. After this incident, I hated the UAW and everything it represented. I hated that they took union dues out of my check every week, but then turned on me for purely political reasons. 

When people talk about unions, it is usually a political discussion that is really abstracted from any real world experience. Very few people that I have ever debated with have ever worked in a union. I understand why the unions exist, and I think they have done a lot of good things for the working class. The biggest problem I see is that they haven't evolved. Instead of trying to protect the weak employee at all costs, they should be working on training and incentive programs. They need to get rid of the seniority system and work on adding value to both the workers they represent and the companies where those workers work. Like everything else that is politically charged, this situation will never change which is fine, I will never work in a situation where someone else negotiates anything for me.

I had been taking classes at WCC part time while working at Barfield, and my dad suggested that I quit and go to school full time. I really didn't want to quit, but I also didn't want to spend my whole life making bolts, so I put in my two weeks notice. I was immediately offered the job of Setup A if I would stay. Ross had quit a while earlier, so there was no issue with him anymore. I declined and left to continue my education. 

There is no way I would have wanted to work in a factory my whole life, but I am really glad I had the experience that I did. As my career changed over the years, I have been involved in a lot of manufacturing processes where my previous work gave me additional incites into how to improve processes. I didn't stay in contact with anyone after I left, and the factory has long since closed.