To all,
Seems a lot of you are interested in my experience
working at the old Dodge Main plant in 1949. I'll
start by explaining that the plant, now defunct, was
an old one even then -- but it stayed in production
for many years after 1949. Built on the Hamtramck
site in 1910, it was torn down finally in 1980.
My father started working there in the early 1920s as
an assistant yardmaster in the railroad freight yards
that served the plant. After several short
interruptions, he went back to work there circa 1933
and retired as Head Yardmaster in the '60s.
I worked there during my summer vacation from the
Univ. of Detroit (between Soph. & Jr. years), where I
was a journalism major, English minor. The job was a
killer, the hardest I ever had. Which surprised me,
because when I was interviewed they offered my
several choices & I selected "Trim Dept." How tough
could that be? I reasoned. I soon found out!
First, you must understand that Dodge Main was a
vertical plant, built one floor on top of another, so
car components had to be moved from floor to floor
during assembly. More modern plants, of course, are
essentially horizontal so the assembly process flows
in an uninterrupted manner.
Second, massive automation & robots were only a gleam
in production engineers' eyes at that time. Manual,
physical labor built cars of the day.
Okay, it turned out that the Trim Dept. was partially
sited directly above the Paint Dept. ovens. And the
part over the ovens was where I worked. Most of the
floor there was sheet steel, not a great insulator.
Car bodies rolled out of the 4th floor paint drying
ovens and were raised by an electric hoist to the 5th
floor through hatches cut in the steel plate floor.
Another guy & I had to position a dolly under each
body as it was hoisted in place (by a big Polish guy
operating a hand-held control), then guide the body
down so that pegs on the dolly matched up with the
body mount holes.
Next, we pushed the dolly forward about 15-20 feet
and up an incline until cogs on the Trim Dept.
assembly line contacted a plate welded to the bottom
of each dolly. Then we ran over about 20 feet,
grabbed another dolly and maneuvered it into position
to receive another body. When I started, we were
running at 45 bodies per hour. About July 1, they
jacked the rate up to 55 bodies per hour -- almost
one a minute!
We worked 8 hours, with a 15-min break at mid-moring
& mid-afternoon, plus 30 min. for lunch. Meanwhile,
heat blasted up through the 2 floor hatches every 70
to 90 seconds as two more bodies rolled out of the
paint drying ovens below. Add that to typical Detroit
summer weather (80 to 90 degrees, 90 to 95% humidity)
and you can get awfully uncomfortable. I only weighed
about 128 when I started, about 120 when summer
ended. I was the only one who stuck out the job for
the whole summer; I had 5 or 6 different partners
during the 3 months. Toward the end, the foreman took
pity on me and used me as a break replacement on the
actual Trim Line -- about 10 days before I quit to go
back to school! Can't remember the hourly pay rate,
but I think my take-home was about $50-54
It certainly made me determined to finish college so
I wouldn't have to work in an auto plant for 40 years.
Next time I'll tell you about working at the Chrysler
Highland Park plant, and how job titles can fool you.
Quite a few of you have written to request that you
be added to the mailing list for my Ken's Korner
column computer articles -- which is great. I forgot
to mention that I will supply them free to any
computer club or non-profit organization that would
like to use them in a newsletter or on a website. All
I ask is that I be sent a copy of any newsletter in
which an article is printed
===
Ken Fermoyle, computer columnist & publisher
FERMOYLE PUBLICATIONS
22250 Capulin Court
Woodland Hills, CA 91364
In the beginning was the word...
and don't you forget it!
_________________________________________________________
DO YOU YAHOO!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
|
|
Back to the Home of the Forward Look Network