Monday, April 8, 2013
The Dowty Stress Office 1991
We had a lot of characters in the Stress Office at DAT back in 1991 and I tried to capture their characters in the following cartoon. I'm surprised it has survived all these years.
You might be in an Aerospace Stress Office if...
1. You plan your escape every day and make lists...
2. You yearn for a hardbound copy of Roark's fourth edition.
3. Someone asks you what you do for a living and they think you're a psychologist.
4. You get really excited about an unknown lookup feature you've discovered in Excel.
5. You sit in a cubicle that wasn't yours six months ago and has less reference and drawer space.
6. The fun really starts when the "bad monkey" is someone else.
7. Communication is something your "group" is having problems with.
8. You see a good looking woman in the office and know for sure she's not in your group.
9. You're happy that the component that failed on test was analysed by someone else.
10. You don't know what you're doing, even so, you think you know more than anyone else.
11. Your bosses favorite lines are...
"We've lost another guy to the competition, so we have to work smarter..."
"My Hands are Tied"
"I'll get back to you on that"
"If anyone else is thinking about leaving, let me know"
12. You think that thread undercut related jokes are funny.
13. You think that weights engineers are very silly and only need simple math skills.
14. Manipulating numbers to satisfy someone else's needs is considered a living.
15. The report you were working on four years ago is sitting, unreleased, in a box at Iron Mountain.
16. You reply to design engineers questions confidently, without knowing the real answer.
17. The guy who sits in front of you makes odd peeps and pops all day. Smells of cabbage.
18. You make assumptions that are good sometimes, other times they're very, very bad.
19. You know at least ten people who don't work in your group any more, and several are still in it.
20. You have a posture problem, yearn to ring bells and douse invaders with boiling oil.
21. You laugh hysterically when someone says that Tim O'Shenko was an Irish guy.
22. You've heard of, or maybe even understand RPN and know someone with a HP calculator.
23. One of your colleagues has only one eyebrow.
24. You know at least one person (besides yourself) who has plotted the death of the chief of stress.
25. Jokes about hoop stress, column stability and internal pressure are hilarious in relation to sex acts.
26. At least one other person in your group has lost the will to live.
27. You read this entire list and understand it.
2. You yearn for a hardbound copy of Roark's fourth edition.
3. Someone asks you what you do for a living and they think you're a psychologist.
4. You get really excited about an unknown lookup feature you've discovered in Excel.
5. You sit in a cubicle that wasn't yours six months ago and has less reference and drawer space.
6. The fun really starts when the "bad monkey" is someone else.
7. Communication is something your "group" is having problems with.
8. You see a good looking woman in the office and know for sure she's not in your group.
9. You're happy that the component that failed on test was analysed by someone else.
10. You don't know what you're doing, even so, you think you know more than anyone else.
11. Your bosses favorite lines are...
"We've lost another guy to the competition, so we have to work smarter..."
"My Hands are Tied"
"I'll get back to you on that"
"If anyone else is thinking about leaving, let me know"
12. You think that thread undercut related jokes are funny.
13. You think that weights engineers are very silly and only need simple math skills.
14. Manipulating numbers to satisfy someone else's needs is considered a living.
15. The report you were working on four years ago is sitting, unreleased, in a box at Iron Mountain.
16. You reply to design engineers questions confidently, without knowing the real answer.
17. The guy who sits in front of you makes odd peeps and pops all day. Smells of cabbage.
18. You make assumptions that are good sometimes, other times they're very, very bad.
19. You know at least ten people who don't work in your group any more, and several are still in it.
20. You have a posture problem, yearn to ring bells and douse invaders with boiling oil.
21. You laugh hysterically when someone says that Tim O'Shenko was an Irish guy.
22. You've heard of, or maybe even understand RPN and know someone with a HP calculator.
23. One of your colleagues has only one eyebrow.
24. You know at least one person (besides yourself) who has plotted the death of the chief of stress.
25. Jokes about hoop stress, column stability and internal pressure are hilarious in relation to sex acts.
26. At least one other person in your group has lost the will to live.
27. You read this entire list and understand it.
The Bunker, April 1991
Until the reversal of my fortunes I was hunkered down, wearing the wife's clothes, down in the basement in our townhouse and cutting coupons out of flyers to make ends meet.
To the far left the mighty Commodore Amiga A500 complete with disk drive, next the Commodore 64 and at the end, the soon to be, suitably attired, Permy Wanker.
What a plonker!
Permy Wanker
Almost a third of 1991 had gone by and strangely I found myself sitting back at Dowty with most of the old familiar faces around me once again.
As though I'd bonked those ruby red slippers together and returned back to Kansas.
Well, Ajax.
The Chief of Stress, Barry Levoir, had asked me at the interview "I hope you're not going to run away and leave us for jobshopping again as soon as the market turns around" and I had said, hand on heart, that I would stay for at least a few years.
Looking back, I am happy that I made that promise, even if within a few days of starting back at Dowty my words would start to cost me a thousand bucks or more every week.
It was like some evil plot turn in the film of my life the April Tuesday morning that the office phone rang.
It was a familiar Lancashire voice on the other end of the phone, like a favorite Uncle the man began with "Hello me old fruit" and asked if I wanted to go jobshopping once again down at Brand-X.
The other landing gear emporium.
Unfortunately, I had made my daft promise and for some even greater daft reason I told Larry that I would honour it and had to decline his invitation.
Thus, with the knowledge that my panic shopping for a salaried position hadn't been necessary after all, I began my three year term as a born-again permy wanker.
As though I'd bonked those ruby red slippers together and returned back to Kansas.
Well, Ajax.
The Chief of Stress, Barry Levoir, had asked me at the interview "I hope you're not going to run away and leave us for jobshopping again as soon as the market turns around" and I had said, hand on heart, that I would stay for at least a few years.
Looking back, I am happy that I made that promise, even if within a few days of starting back at Dowty my words would start to cost me a thousand bucks or more every week.
It was like some evil plot turn in the film of my life the April Tuesday morning that the office phone rang.
It was a familiar Lancashire voice on the other end of the phone, like a favorite Uncle the man began with "Hello me old fruit" and asked if I wanted to go jobshopping once again down at Brand-X.
The other landing gear emporium.
Unfortunately, I had made my daft promise and for some even greater daft reason I told Larry that I would honour it and had to decline his invitation.
Thus, with the knowledge that my panic shopping for a salaried position hadn't been necessary after all, I began my three year term as a born-again permy wanker.
End of Part Two
December 21st, 1990 marked the end of part two in the Canadian landing gear stress analyst employment story, the year had been surprisingly lucrative and, as time had shot by, surprisingly short.
It was therefore quite the time warp for me as the next twelve weeks dragged by, time spent cutting coupons, saving money everywhere I could, calling Larry every week to see if they wanted me back, which as the weeks dragged by became more of a daunting phone call as his patience wore thin.
What was I doing? - basically sitting around the house, keeping things tidy, a stay at home mother without any children (besides a pair of budgies) and I was literally going stair crazy.
Sometime in March someone called me and told me that Dowty were advertising for a stress analyst or two, something to do with a new project, I resisted for another week or so and gave Menasco a couple more phone calls, all of which were quite depressing, and I was more convinced than ever that Larry was tired of my calls.
So, I snapped.
One thing I never wanted to do was go back to Dowty with my cap in my hand, tail between my legs as a pathetic "tried and failed" jobshopper, but here I was, doing exactly that.
In retrospect, I did exactly the wrong thing at almost exactly the wrong time.
It was therefore quite the time warp for me as the next twelve weeks dragged by, time spent cutting coupons, saving money everywhere I could, calling Larry every week to see if they wanted me back, which as the weeks dragged by became more of a daunting phone call as his patience wore thin.
What was I doing? - basically sitting around the house, keeping things tidy, a stay at home mother without any children (besides a pair of budgies) and I was literally going stair crazy.
Sometime in March someone called me and told me that Dowty were advertising for a stress analyst or two, something to do with a new project, I resisted for another week or so and gave Menasco a couple more phone calls, all of which were quite depressing, and I was more convinced than ever that Larry was tired of my calls.
So, I snapped.
One thing I never wanted to do was go back to Dowty with my cap in my hand, tail between my legs as a pathetic "tried and failed" jobshopper, but here I was, doing exactly that.
In retrospect, I did exactly the wrong thing at almost exactly the wrong time.
Sunday, April 7, 2013
Omar the Mysterious
The generic "letting go" letter probably was on the 19th December 1990 as the Christmas party appears to have been right at the start of the month.
The Party's Over
The letters went out in the middle of December 1990 to quite a few of the jobshoppers at Menasco.
The 19th December rings a bell, although that may have been the date of the Menasco Christmas Party.
For some reason I thought I was safe and would escape, but that was not to be, my letter arrived from Mister Bruce Yamashita, it basically said "so long and thanks for all the fish" and made a point of apologizing for this, what will probably be, temporary break in my valuable employment with the company. After all, there was hope that the 777 wingfold project may be resurrected early in the new year (it never was) and that my services would be much needed with the vast amount of work that was incoming.
It wasn't.
In ten years the horrible feeling had not changed, I remember it well from the end of my eighteen month Gullick Dobson tenure and, shortly after that, my six month stint at Alcan. Yet those were redundancy notices and this felt more like being sacked or the lighter term "let go" which did not make things feel better.
There would be no turkey for Tiny Tim this Christmas.
The 19th December rings a bell, although that may have been the date of the Menasco Christmas Party.
For some reason I thought I was safe and would escape, but that was not to be, my letter arrived from Mister Bruce Yamashita, it basically said "so long and thanks for all the fish" and made a point of apologizing for this, what will probably be, temporary break in my valuable employment with the company. After all, there was hope that the 777 wingfold project may be resurrected early in the new year (it never was) and that my services would be much needed with the vast amount of work that was incoming.
It wasn't.
In ten years the horrible feeling had not changed, I remember it well from the end of my eighteen month Gullick Dobson tenure and, shortly after that, my six month stint at Alcan. Yet those were redundancy notices and this felt more like being sacked or the lighter term "let go" which did not make things feel better.
There would be no turkey for Tiny Tim this Christmas.
Long Days
The year was being washed away by long drives, long working hours, short weekends and at times we both contemplated jacking it all in. Karen had a good mental breakdown quite early in the year, around the middle of a very wintery February, as she says, before tax time, which at Bata was a terrible time. I still remember talking her down off the proverbial ledge on that one.
As for me, well, I was exhausted most of the time, energized at work but then by the time I had driven home there was little energy left for anything besides a couple of hours plonked on the sofa, watching telly and waiting for bed. At least the summer had offered the pair of us that extra daylight that made it feel like we were having a regular life, unfortunately the summer was consumed quickly, the days grew rapidly shorter and we found ourselves approaching winter once again.
The thoughts of driving through the snow again put a great fear in me, fortunately (one way of looking at it) something was about to happen to change all that.
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