Widget Wars

I briefly mentioned in my April 30, 2014 post (The Tom Tom Thumper) that I worked at Olsen Tool Company, a Richfield tool and die shop, for two summers during my college years.  (I also worked there during my two-week Christmas break sophomore year.)  Having been either a student or a teacher for many years, I had a plethora of summer jobs, but none was more physically demanding than my esteemed position as a plastic injection molding press operator at Olsen.  It also was the scene of a cautionary tale about cutting corners.

Olsen was located in the 7400 block of Logan Avenue, a few blocks north of what is now the Best Buy corporate campus on Penn & I-494.  I worked the second shift, which meant reporting for duty at 3:00 in the afternoon and clocking out at 11:00 p.m.  Olsen Tool was a manufacturing enterprise whose main business was the production of small plastic parts which were used in a variety of medical devices and other equipment of various sizes and functions.  We employees referred to those parts as "widgets," because one could not tell by simply looking at the finished product what possible purpose it would serve or what kind of apparatus it would someday be incorporated into.  Business was so good that Kenny Olsen, the owner, employed three shifts of workers, and nary a beat was skipped as one shift ended and another began.  It was almost like the passing of the baton between relay race teammates for each machine at shift change time.
 

The usual process was that the engineers would determine the requirements of the job, based on the specifications of the customer.  This included designing the mold which would be inserted into the press and into which the molten plastic would be injected.  The temperatures of the presses would typically be set at somewhere around 740 degrees, enough to make the sweat drop off of the worker bees like me even if we were merely sitting on the adjacent bench.  (As I will elaborate below, we were never merely sitting.)
 

Olsen Tool used two types of injection molding machines.  The larger ones were about the size of a small bus. They appeared extremely dangerous because the huge metal plates inside the press closed against each other automatically when the operator removed his arm (after inserting the mold) from the machine's interior and slid the protective front glass door closed.  What if those plates didn't wait for the glass door to close? The operator's arm would be obliterated by the crashing red hot steel.  Thankfully, that never happened, and equally thankfully, my job was to operate the smaller, manual machines.

The smaller injection molders resembled a heavy metal rectangular box, approximately 30 inches long, six inches wide and four inches high.  The right half of the box slid on a metal track, which in turn was affixed to a table three feet off the ground.  The left half of the box was stationary at the end of the track  The operator sat sideways at a bench next to the table, with his left elbow facing it.  For eight straight hours he went through the routine of attaching a plastic insert (the mold) through the box's top aperture onto the back (left-hand) wall of the box's interior, then closing the aperture by tugging on a long rubber-coated handle which slid the right side of the box backwards (toward the operator) several inches until it collided with the left side.  When the left and right walls came together, an extra stiff yank on the handle clicked the box into a locked position.  This routine was very similar to using both hands to pull the port side oar of a row boat.

There were two devices, besides the press itself, which the press operator manually controlled.  One was a timer, the other a counter.  At the beginning of each shift, the foreman would advise the press operators exactly how long the press needed to stay in the locked position for each widget.  This amount of time varied anywhere from thirty seconds to, say, sixty seconds, depending on the widget being created inside the press.  The necessity of precision timing was drilled into our little noggins, even if we had been making the same product all week.  If you had to leave your machine for any reason, you never left it in the locked position.  Once the designated time elapsed, the operator would pop open the press from its locked position by delivering an open-handed hard punch to the handle.  This unlocking method did not come easily.  Even with a thick work glove, the heal of my right hand would be bruised half-way through most shifts.
 

Once the press was unlocked, we would slide the right half of the box back on the track to its original position, extract the finished product from the interior of the left side, toss the product into a basket near our feet, click the counter once to record completion of the part, and then start all over again.  It is hard to say which was the toughest part of the job, the mental fatigue from the monotony of the work, the physical drain of sitting next to a machine set at an extraordinarily hot temperature in a small non-air-conditioned factory, or the straining to lock and unlock the box time after time throughout the shift.  One benefit, besides the pay which was very good, is that I could eat and drink like a horse all summer long.  I could get away with doing so because I lost anywhere from six to nine pounds almost every day on the job.
 

Before I conclude with the cautionary tale to which I alluded in the first paragraph, I must write a few sentences about our second shift foreman, John Damon.  John was in his late thirties, a big guy with dark curly hair.  I'm sure he was under a lot of pressure from the demands of the job, including order deadlines. He knew how to read the complicated designs issued by the engineers, and how to operate every piece of equipment in the shop.  He had a surprisingly good sense of humor, all things considered, but he was at his funniest when he wasn't intending to be.  John had a favorite saying whenever he was demonstrating to a newbie how to work a particular machine.  He would say, "Do you see what I mean? Do you get what I'm driving at?"  Sometimes he'd replace that with, "Do you follow my drift?"  Of course we all picked up on that, so throughout the day my fellow laborers and I would ask each other, "Do you see what I mean...?"  (I have found those expressions to be useful in parenting.  My kids can attest to that.)  Whatever glimmer of fun we had on the job, almost all of it was either directly or indirectly attributed to Big John.
 

And now to the promised cautionary tale.  Some parts orders were for a small quantity, requiring production during only a shift or two.  But most of the time we dealt with huge orders, which found us cranking out the same pieces on every shift for the better part of a week, or longer.  Since Olsen Tool ran three shifts, there was a lot of competition among the workers of those shifts as to which operator on a given press could produce the most widgets.  Most of the people working the first shift were veteran adults who set the production bar high.  The folks on my second shift were younger, so what we lacked in experience we made up with being (generally) more energetic and in better condition.  The third shifters were kind of a combination of the two groups, although as I recall there was much more turnover there than on the first two shifts.

One of the first things I would do when I arrived at the shop would be to check the production numbers on "my" machine for the guys who ran it on the first and third shifts.  That gave me an idea of how my output stacked up against my colleagues'.  Some factors beyond our control, such as maintenance, repairs and the productivity of our break time replacements, affected our numbers, but if you looked at a large enough sample size, it was clear who was pulling their weight.  Most of the time the numbers for the three shifts were fairly close.  But then, about two-thirds of the way through the summer, a new third-shifter, "Darrell," arrived, and his numbers left me and my first shift counterpart in the dust.  That's when we had Darrellgate.
 

Darrell was about my age (late teens/early 20's) who worked my press on the third shift.  He was a lanky, laid back dude who strongly resembled Peter Fonda.  The only times I'd see him would be at 11:00, when my shift ended and his began.  As mentioned above, we did not miss a beat on the hand-off of the press between shifts.  As soon as Darrell took my place on the bench, I was outta there.
 

One afternoon at the end of a week during which we'd been making the same product throughout, I reported for work shortly before 3:00, and there was a lot of commotion in the front office.  Kenny and the office manager (Sylvia?), along with John Damon, another foreman and an engineer, were huddled around several boxes of widgets.  It was clear from their agitation that there was a problem.  Of course I was not invited to participate in the discussion, but by the middle of my shift that day the scuttlebutt was all over the shop. What allegedly happened was that Darrell, presumably in a misguided effort to beef up his production tally, had intentionally been "cooking" the widgets for less than the instructed time for that particular product.  For example, if our instructions were to keep the press in the locked position for 45 seconds, he was only keeping it locked for, say, 25 seconds.  Obviously by doing this, he was able to produce significantly more finished goods in an eight hour day than the rest of us.  His methods also enabled him to take longer breaks, and when he wasn't on break, he didn't have to work as hard; he'd still end up with an acceptable (if not splendid) number of finished units.  He probably never figured that finished products would be weighed and measured with a caliper to ensure they met the customer's specifications.  The upshot for Olsen Tool was that all the product produced by Darrell that week (and maybe previous weeks) had to be scrapped.  Bye bye, Darrell.   

Arbitrary And Capricious Traditions

The eighty-fifth All-Star Game is now in the books, and Major League Baseball is taking a two-day break until tomorrow.  How to fill the void?  Easy peasy; you write about it.

It strikes me as ironic that the sport which has been statistics-driven for the longest time is baseball, and yet some of the rules which govern how those statistics are compiled and calculated don't always make the most sense.  What follows below are five examples of typical situations where you have to question the logic of the rules makers.  I believe what is often the case is that the only reason for keeping a rule, versus modifying it, is that "we've always done it this way!"  As Tevye from Fiddler On The Roof exclaimed, "Tradition!"

Consider this Scenario # 1.  The Twins are batting in the bottom of the fourth inning in a scoreless game versus Detroit.  Brian Dozier leads off by hitting a gapper and ends up on second base with a double.  The next batter, Joe Mauer, lofts a deep fly to right field, caught by Tigers' right fielder Torii Hunter.  Even though Hunter still (at age 38) has a cannon for an arm, Mauer's fly ball out is deep enough to allow Dozier to tag up at second and move to third after the catch.  The third batter of the inning, Trevor Plouffe, sends a medium deep fly ball to left field.  Dozier tags, and beats the throw home by Tigers' left fielder Rajai Davis for the first run of the game.  The next man to bat, Josh Willingham, gets called out on strikes to end the inning.
 

The Rule: Even though Dozier would not have scored had Mauer not hit the ball deep enough to move him from second to third, and even though Plouffe's fly ball out was not hit as well as Mauer's fly, Mauer is charged with a time at bat whereas Plouffe is credited with a sacrifice fly and accordingly is not charged with a time at bat.  Thus, Mauer's batting average sinks but the Plouffer's stays the same.  What is the reason for this (arguably silly) dichotomy?  Tradition reigns!  It has always been thus.  See Baseball Rule # 10.08(d). The only fly ball which can potentially be scored as a sacrifice fly is one which directly enables a base runner to score.

Another scenario (Scenario # 2) involving sacrifices results in more puzzlement brought on by tradition.  Let's say the Twins' Sam Fuld is on second base with nobody out in the third inning of a scoreless game against the White Sox. Chris Parmelee, a left handed batter, steps up to the plate.  Bert Blyleven, the Twins' TV analyst, announces to the viewing audience that "Parmelee's job is to get Fuld over to third base." (Heaven forbid Parmelee should accidentally drive in Fuld with a single!)  Sure enough, Parmelee manages to pull the ball on the ground to Sox second sacker Gordon Beckham, who throws out Parmelee at first while Fuld glides easily into third.  Parmelee, even though he "did his job" and gets attaboys from his mates upon returning to the dugout, is charged with a time at bat.  However, if Parmelee would have bunted the ball to Beckham with the same outcome (Parmelee out at first, Fuld moves to third), he would not have been charged with a time at bat.  Instead, he would have been credited with a sacrifice and therefore not charged with a time at bat.

The Rule:  See baseball Rule # 10.08(a).  Once again, tradition dictates. 

Scenario # 3.  The Twins are playing the Royals, who have runners at the corners and one out.  Phil Hughes is pitching to the Royals' designated hitter, Billy Butler, a fine ball player but probably the slowest guy in Kansas City's lineup.  The Twins need a double play to get out of the inning.  Butler proceeds to hit a tailor-made double play ball to shortstop Danny Santana.  Santana gives second baseman Dozier a perfect feed for the force out at second.  But Dozier, momentarily forgetting that the batter, Butler, runs like he's carrying an anvil on his back, rushes his throw, pulling first baseman Chris Colabello off the bag.  Butler is safe.  Had Dozier delivered a strike to Colabello, Butler would have been out by three steps.  The Twins' failure to complete the double play does not end the inning, thereby allowing the runner from third to score. Surely the run is unearned, right?  Wrong!
 

The Rule:  See Baseball Rule # 10.12(d)(3).  Successful completion of a double play cannot be assumed. Since the out was recorded at second, Dozier's errant toss at the tail end of the potential double play does not constitute an error.  Therefore, the run scored is earned.  If you were Phil Hughes, what would you think about your earned run average going up following a play like that?  (Note: If Dozier's throw was so wild that it enabled Butler to reach second base on the play, that would be an error.) 
 

Scenario # 4.  The Brewers are playing the Cubs in Miller Park.  Right before the first pitch, Wisconsin weather radar shows a storm front heading south toward Eau Claire, so the Milwaukee honchos decide to close the roof.  (That last sentence was a joke, although based on personal experience.  You're supposed to smile, if not laugh.)  In the second inning, Jonathan Lucroy leads off with a double, and speedy Carlos Gomez beats out an infield single as Lucroy takes third.  The next man up, Mark Reynolds, hits a deep drive to left center field.  The ball bounces over the outfield fence for a ground rule double.  Lucroy easily jaunts in from third, but what about Gomez, the fastest guy on the team?  If Reynolds' ball had merely hit the fence but did not bounce over it, Gomez would have easily scored from first on the double, but because the ball bounced over the fence, he is allowed to advance only to third base.  See Baseball Rule # 6.09(e).
 

I find this rule to be ludicrous, especially when there are two outs and thus the runner at first does not have to wait to see if the outfielder is going to catch the fly ball.  All but the slowest runners should be able to score from first on a two-out double. 
 

Scenario # 5.  As someone who enjoys keeping score and as someone who likes to peruse box scores, I have always been annoyed by the manner in which the "Left On Base" ("LOB") statistic is calculated.  In my humble view, LOB should reflect how many runners were on base immediately before the last batter of the inning came to the plate. Unfortunately, that reflection is rendered incorrect when the inning ends with a double play.  As the rule currently reads, LOB is calculated after the third out of the inning is recorded.  The following example illustrates my point.
 

Let's say the Yankees' Derek Jeter comes up with one out and the bases loaded with Pinstripes.  If Jeter bounces into a 6-4-3 double play, the official scorer will rule that two men were left on base, on the theory that the runner on first got wiped out/forced out at second before the throw to get Jeter at first was made. Therefore the only two runners stranded were the ones who were on second base and third base when Jeter began his at bat.  In my little mind, the official scoring should state that three (not two) men were left on base, because that's how many runners occupied the bags when Jeter stepped to the plate.  I know some of the wonks will point me to the difference between an individual's LOBs and a team's LOBs, but I'm not buying it.  The LOBs you see in a box score are team LOBs.  Team LOBs, as currently constructed, do not accurately reflect the clutch hitting of a team --the main purported purpose of keeping LOB stats in the first place -- as well as would my LOB algorithm.  Maybe Commissioner Bud Selig could get that changed before he retires this year.        

Movie Review: "Words And Pictures"

"Words And Pictures": B.  Unlike many romantic comedies, the lead players in Words And Pictures do not "meet cute."  He, Jack Marcus (Clive Owen), is a too-sure-of-himself honors English teacher at Croyden Prep School, a high falutin' institution where the students wear uniforms and address their teachers as peers. The principal's office would make most Fortune 500 execs proud, and the one board member we meet (Amy Brenneman) looks like she came straight from the Lafayette Club.  Marcus' cockiness is not limited to the classroom.  It carries over into the faculty break room, where not all of his colleagues warm to his loud monopolization of the conversation.  He is sharp enough to sense this, which makes him continue the conduct even longer.

She, renown artist Dina Delsanto (Juliette Binoche), is a veteran honors art teacher who is new to Croyden. As she informs her students on her very first day, she is not there to acquire their friendship or become anyone's confidant.  Her sole role is to instruct.  She demands a lot from her students, and none of the prep schoolers object; they are serious scholars with Ivy League college ambitions.

Delsanto's strictly business persona applies equally to her faculty relationships.  It takes Marcus less than a minute to figure that out when Delsanto enters the faculty lounge for the first time.  He tries to engage her in his pet word game, but she will have none of it.  She tells him point blank that she expects to be able to lounge when she's in the lounge, without being inconvenienced or annoyed by small talk.  He does not back off -- ever -- during the entire story.

We know from the trailers, if not the title and movie posters, that a philosophical debate over the relative merits of language compared to art is a key element to the plot.  Before deciding to see this movie, I had my doubts as to how convincing any script purporting to stage such a contest involving an entire high school's student body could be.  Director Fred Schipisi and writer Gerald Di Pego proved me wrong.  Marcus and Delsanto are so passionate about their fields, so dynamic in their classrooms, and so good coaching and inspiring their charges that when dozens of teenagers are wrapped up in the discussion, it does not come off as phony.  The kids' general enthusiasm struck me as real.  Part of their enthusiasm is provoked by Marcus and Delsanto. He tells his students, "Words are your gods."  She counters with, "Words are traps."

Of course this wouldn't be a rom-com if there were no spark between the "warring" adults.  Owen gets the benefit of having the more dynamic character with the better lines.  His wit, humor and charm are endearing to a point, but all are counterbalanced by his alcoholism (which we witness early on) and by a surprise ethical lapse which turns the story on its ear.  As for Binoche, well, she is simply one of my favorite actresses.  I have seen many movies in which the chemistry between the two lead actors was more palpable, but any viewer of Words And Pictures would surely recognize that he was watching two accomplished masters of the silver screen.

In addition to the battles of the sexes and the subjects, there are a few side stories interspersed throughout the film.  Some are more successfully told than others.  For example, many minutes are devoted to the bullying and harrassment of one of the female students, Emily (Valerie Tian), by a male classmate.  This element's main purpose, I believe, is to furnish an opportunity for the usually bickering Marcus and Delsanto to join forces.  While there is no denying that bullying is one of the hottest (and most offensive) issues confronting youngsters today, the film's depiction of the related episodes, as well as the resolution, are poorly done. On the other hand, the scenes involving Marcus and his college age son, Tony (Christian Scheider), are extremely well written and acted.  Scheider is excellent as a young man who loves his father, notwithstanding the latter's worsening alcoholism, while at the same time being careful to protect his own space from intrusion and embarrassment at the hands of his father.

This movie has been playing in a first-run theater, the Edina, for almost two months.  The matinee I attended over the weekend was fairly well attended.  Apparently there are a lot of folks who enjoy rom-coms featuring two fine actors playing very smart characters with sometimes witty and usually clever dialogue. 

Quarterly Cinema Scan - Volume XVI

Last month it became painfully obvious that writing movie reviews on a blog does not qualify me as a member of filmdom's cognoscenti.  If I were, I undoubtedly would have loved, or at least pretended that I loved, Louis Malle's bold filmmaking experiment, My Dinner With Andre.  The late film critic, Roger Ebert, called it the best movie of 1981, and the only film he could think of which was "completely devoid of cliches."

The one hundred ten minute movie begins and ends using a first person narrative from the perspective of Broadway playwright and actor Wallace Shawn.  He explains to the viewers that he is headed to a New York City restaurant to dine with a former colleague and friend, theater director Andre Gregory.  Wally has heard, via the grapevine, some disturbing news about Andre's allegedly strange recent behavior.  Wally has not seen Andre in years, so he is curious to see for himself if what he's heard is true.

Once Andre shows up, the two men are quickly seated, and for the next ninety minutes we are "treated" to listening in as they discuss things as deep as the meaning of life, as well as the worth of experimental theater and Andre's exploits as a world traveler and philosopher.  Wally seems truly enraptured by Andre's monologues.  (I hesitate to describe the dinner as a "dialogue" since Andre does 80% or more of the talking.) But, I'm sorry to report, I was bored to tears.  I must have checked the TV clock to see how much time was left every five minutes.  It kind of reminded me of the Minnesota Twins post-game show on FSN, when host Anthony LaPanta asks Roy Smalley a simple question, and Roy prattles on without coming up for air.

When he introduced the film on Turner Classic Movies, Anthony Bourdain, famous for hosting CNN's travel and food program Parts Unknown, cautioned that Malle's film "may not be for everyone."  I can't say I wasn't warned.  Consider this post your warning.

1. The Basketball Diaries (1995 drama; Leonardo DiCaprio is a student and basketball player at a Manhattan Catholic boys high school, and rebels against the system by experimenting with, and becoming addicted to, hard drugs.) B

2. Key Largo (1948 drama; Edward G. Robinson leads a pack of gangsters who hold war hero Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall hostage inside a hurricane-battered hotel owned by Lionel Barrymore.) B+

3. A Man For All Seasons (1966 historical drama; Sir Thomas More (Paul Scofield), an English nobleman and Lord Chancellor, refuses to bless or condone the divorce and proposed new marriage of King Henry VIII (Robert Shaw), whereupon Thomas Cromwell (Leo McKern), the king's chief minister, uses his position and influence to have More tried for treason.) B+

4. The Misfits. (1961 drama; newly divorced Marilyn Monroe pals around with Clark Gable and Eli Wallach, both of whom fall for her in the sticks of Nevada, while she befriends rodeo rider Montgomery Clift.) C

5. My Dinner With Andre (1981 dialogue; Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory have a ninety minute conversation over dinner in a New York City restaurant, weighing in on such topics as the health of the theater and whether one should feel guilty over enjoying simple pleasures such as drinking coffee or reading.) C-

6. Stagecoach (1939 western; John Wayne is an outlaw who gets picked up on the Arizona desert by a stagecoach full of tenderfoots with a sheriff riding shotgun, all of whom are heading for Apache territory.) B+

7. Winchester '73 (1950 western; Jimmy Stewart is a sharpshooter who comes to the aid of the US Cavalry preparing for an Indian shootout, and then goes looking for the varmint who stole the prized rifle Jimmy won back in Dodge City.) B

8. Witness For The Prosecution (1957 courtroom drama; Charles Laughton is a London barrister who, against his cardiologist's directives, defends Tyrone Power in a capital murder case.) A