At the factory where I worked, we ran 24 hours a day. Three 8-hour shifts until 2330 on Friday night. Then weekend shifts began, which were two 12-hour shifts on Saturday and two on Sunday ending at 2330, when third shift began (Sunday night, which was considered Monday).
I thought, you know, it’s getting to the point where Mother is not going to be able to drive herself to the doctor, ear doctor, and grocery store and wherever she wants to go. As bad as I hate to, I might sign the roster to see if I might transfer to weekend shift. Weekenders also worked what they called a “third day”, usually day shift – so eight hours.
The roster maintained its prized position behind a lockable glass door on the wall down where all the notices and such were. When I went down to unlock the door, the roster wasn’t there. No problem.
I walked into the manager’s office and asked him if he was close to posting the roster so we could sign up. He said it was right on his desk and to go ahead and sign up.
There was a weekend shift operator right in my little film department who had a grown errant son with problems so she needed to work at night so she could be at home with him during the day. “Aha!,” I thought. “This will be crazy easy. I’ll just trade shifts with her and it’ll be a done deal.” Right. Stupid me.
Anyway, I was in the manager’s office and I told him about the other operator who needed day shift and we had both signed the roster. He simply said, “OK.”*
When it had all shaken down the other operator came to tell me that they had offered her a machine line and told her that she couldn’t trade with me because two people from our little film department couldn’t trade shifts. WHAT?
So here are the rules she shared: (1) A large-line machine operator can trade shifts with another machine operator; (2) a film operator can trade shifts with a large-line machine operator; (3) a large-line machine operator can trade shifts with a film operator; (4) BUT A FILM OPERATOR CANNOT TRADE SHIFTS WITH ANOTHER FILM OPERATOR. I thought “Well, she’s lost her mind ‘cause that can’t be true, even for this sad little place.”
I waited for the manager to come walking toward my end of the factory, which he did about the same time each morning. I quickly stepped out of my room and met him at the fire door. I repeated the above rules…”BUT A FILM OPERATOR CANNOT TRADE SHIFTS WITH ANOTHER FILM OPERATOR?”
“Yep. That’s exactly right,” he said. There was no rhyme or reason for this – and he certainly didn’t articulate any to me.
I have told people about this even after I was moved by management to a machine line. I told my poor, dear assistant supervisor and he said, “Oh, that can’t be right. Something was misunderstood.” What a sweetheart he was, poor thing.
*please make a note of his reply.
Tears and Catharsis 