OT.cranky old machinst's

OT.cranky old machinist's

we have a fella at work been there for 28 years.he's been grandfathered as the "shop foreman".
ten years ago this was one hell of a man.if i had a big job that needed a soft tire 10 ton
crane operator i ALWAYS looked for him..that man could pick a cigarette out my mouth with a piece of junk crane and never did i worry...one hell of a man.
i to this day have all the respect for Bill.
he was the shop "get er done guy"..worked 60-80 hours a week for years.
mostly on greasy nasty repair jobs that NOONE else wanted.
about 5 years ago we got into repairing huge boat drive shafts.
weld up the stuffing box journals and remachine.some jobs took 40 hours of autoweld.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c25/fix55it/larrymcveigh004.jpg

while doing those he worked on all the other greasy jobs.
...anyway..he's a hell of a man.

back to the story..i went to the shop saturday to get some bolts for a home job i'm working on...theres old Bill working on a screw auger for a seafood plant here in town.
i come in today and saw a woreout drive end shaft for the auger laying on my work table.
soooo i spun up a new one knowing he'd need it.and believe me when i say..some times in the repair world the part is so F'd up it's hard to make heads or tails of the dimensions.
now the real boss shows up and he and i are talking about every thing and nothing.
here come Bill...'this F'n shaft wont work GD it..i blast back.."why dont you tell a person WTF you want instead of just throwing it on a table with no notes"
Bill shoved the owner out the way and is all in my face screaming ( i'm 6 years younger than him) and dont take no shit.
the owner is trying to pry us apart (still laughing about that).
Bill is now yelling soooo loud his false teeth fly out and hit the owner in the eye with them.lol
after lunch i whip another shaft up just to have a reason to go back to the cave and
apologize to him.."Bill sorry i barked at you".
he starts it all over again..i had to just walk away.
the way i figure,,i did the right thing even tho i did nothing wrong to start with.
just a question?? at what point do men like Bill..a hell of a man...need to be put in there place?
i actually feel bad because we had this argument.

They all get more ornery as they get older. I don't think there is a cure.

You are in a bad spot , he has paid the dues and knows the trade, you might have to hide him in the back room away from people for a while..........Phil in Mt

fix:

When a good/great employee has taken all the "jobs nobody else wanted" and done them successfully,with a good attitude, for 27 plus years--lots of ignorance and mistakes have been witnessed and tolerated by him. This has built up and he just unleashed it on you. Give him as much time as you can make yourself--you too will be there soon.

Grumpy Old Farts

Having a little experience in this matter I offer the following:

I think Mr. Bill likes what you have to offer the company. I'm not sure if its your work, drive or ability to learn. He likes something.

I would try asking him to be your mentor... Ask for his guidance, talk with him and pick his brain... He's getting older and wants to be remembered. I'd bet that he was thinking you were the one to carry his banner or legacy on.

I would talk with the shop owner and see if there is any chance of starting an Apprentice program that Mr. Bill could manage. I'm confident that the owner would benefit greatly.

Thanks for allowing me to share.

JR

Phil in Mt said:

You are in a bad spot , he has paid the dues and knows the trade, you might have to hide him in the back room away from people for a while..........Phil in Mt

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Just put up with him ,it is part of the job,but when it is just you and him , after you apologize, tell him he made you look bad in front of the boss when you were trying to help him out.He may have health problems or problems in the family, I worked with a guy like that.

Ahhh, grumpy old machinists don't make good teachers. He just had his underwear in a wad over something, just let it pass and don't mention it unless he does.

The next time something is on your bench ask the one who laid it there some questions. Maybe he was expecting you to ask him before you started on the shaft.

I'm sure you have been picking his mind all along so keep on asking his opinion as needed but don't over do it. You don't want to seem patronizing.

Let me tell ya'll about Larry

Larry was the shop crank. Must have been in his 50's when I hired on at 22. Real pain in the butt and none of the younger guys wanted to work as his helper in the field. One day our "young" engineer went pocking around Larry asking him this and that (Larry was working nights and this engineer was pocking around every morning) and larry pulled out his gun and laid it on the blue prints. Bad side of town and all (working nights). The engineer got the message.

I wound up working with the crank on a few field jobs and after about 6 months (and sharing a little blackberry brandy on the drives back to the motel) larry actually began to talk to me. Soon after that he actually began showing me things.

Fast forward to '97. Larry is retired, we are busier than heck and call Larry up and he comes out to work on a job I am running. Find out after 15 years we have the same birthday so we share a cake on the jobsite. Larry tells me later it is one of the best birthday's he has had in a long time. Seems retirement was driving him nuts and the fact we called and asked for his help made his day.

Couple of years later Larry passes away. I'm about the only non-family member to show up at the wake. His wife tells me how much Larry talked about eating his birthday cake with the "youngun" he trained. Even his sons knew who I was and knew the story.

You just never know. Out of all of my "interestin" jobs that day eating cake with Larry and watching that big rotor turn goes down as one of the all time best. I think the best feeling was here I was sitting with a real machinist and feeling like we were equals.

My opinion is there is something eating at him, family member sick, maybe someone died.

I would steer clear for a while, you will know when it is safe again he will come see you.

My wife say's most Machinists are cranky & they get worse as they get older!

Jackmo

Coming up; I was thrown in the same cage with all the old bastards. Everyone of them was a short tempered somfa$itch, on their best day. They had been beaten hard and screwed over since dirt was clean. I was a college boy and everyone wanted to see me get my head ripped off.

Every one of those old bastards growled, snarled, barked, and pounded on me. I overlooked their shortcomings and followed along. Many a day I got jacked up because they were having a bad day. None of them ever caused me permanent harm. Most of them took unnecessary heat to make sure I kept my job. I was always wrong and they took the whipping for my errors. I had to always talk loud because they are all deaf. I had to do the detail work because their eyes were so poor. I did all the math and read all the right pages, out loud, from the Machinists handbook.

The good days far outweighed the bad ones. To a man they all were sorry for the day before. One old boy, Jerry, took the cake. He buried all his family; parents,wife, siblings, inlaws, kids, and every dog he ever had. He walked around with a cigarette in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. They took bets on how many minutes before he would knock me in the corner. After I served six months apprenticeship under him; he did not want to let me go on. He wrote a two page letter, praising me. He always requested that "a$$hole Biler" for every job when he needed a "trained monkey". I would give up some serious wampum to go back and crawl in a compressor cylinder for Jerry.

I was told, in my youth, that the lion that knows "the end is near" is the most dangerous. Steer clear of the old lions when they are on the prowl. They are just getting in practice. Somebody has gotta whip Old Nick, and they will soon be in there.

All of my old lions are gone.The places we haunted are fields, or fallen in shells. I can not remember a bad time or cross word they said. Look kindly on your old sods. Soon they will be gone and you will have to take their place.

It really may have had nothing to do with work. Although teeth flying out is pretty funny.
Tomorrow is another day, no point worrying about such things and certainly don't back down. Although yelling is pretty pointless, usually stating the facts in a calm but firm tone quickly shows the upper hand. Usually when I raise my voice its to make sure everybody gets the point and if it comes back to bite someone, everybody heard what I had to say(French people tend to be loud anyway). I doubt it has much to do with age, but repair work can really be a frustrating PITA. I don't know how you guys can do it every day for a whole career, couple months of it was all I could take.

"All of my old lions are gone.The places we haunted are fields, or fallen in shells. I can not remember a bad time or cross word they said. Look kindly on your old sods. Soon they will be gone and you will have to take their place."

Charlie - that was really well said and I enjoyed reading it.

OK - so waaaaay back in the day I was an apprentice. Dave Emory - his real name and may he rest in peace - was the instructor. He comes up to me one day and says - "Hey, I caught you talking earlier today so now you owe me" (He was ex NAVY so I, as former ARMY, understood the "you owe me" part)

I was not talking but I went along with it anyway as I knew what was best for me.

Of we go to the instrument shop where I am instructed in the art of welding band saw blades. Half inch for the 2 Do All's we had.

80 of 'em.

80.

A day later and I'm all done. They all run true with the welds all ground flush. Teeth are aligned so you don't get that "CHUNK" at the exact same rotation of the blade (you know the one where you back off the pressure so you don't take a tooth with you!)

Dave says to me that I did a good job. I knew this was my in. He would not say anything good about an apprentice. So I say to him " Dave, if you needed 80- saw blades welded why didn't you say so. I would have done them for you. It's all part of the job." (I never accused him of false accusation)

He gave me my next assignment and never another shitty job came my way.

From him at least.

My point.... let your work mark your position in your shop. If you are competent, talented and diligent it will be noticed.

Maybe not rewarded.

Go to this cat in the not too distant future and wait for that "in". if you have his respect you will get the chance.

"All of my old lions are gone.The places we haunted are fields, or fallen in shells. I can not remember a bad time or cross word they said. Look kindly on your old sods. Soon they will be gone and you will have to take their place."



Very well said

I'd say if the old guy put it on your bench, it's a compliment. He knew you'd tackle it. It's your fault if you snapped at him. He was just standing up for himself. If the boss was there, it was a show. That's all it was to him. He's fine. WWQ

Keep in mind the old cranky guys often have a very different perspective of the job than you do. Therefore their motives will be different, too. For example, you might view your job as the way to feed your kids or keep your electricity turned on and he might view it as something to do because he wouldn't know what to do with himself if he retired.

rockfish said:

They all get more ornery as they get older. I don't think there is a cure.

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There is a cure, but not many of us are looking forward to it, as the bottom side of daisy's aren't nearly as pretty.
David from jax

Good seeing you back, Ray!!!

Charlie b,
Extremely well put, Charlie. Twenty years ago I was plagued by Grumpy Old Machinists and now I are one.
lwbates

Far as I can tell, grumpiness comes from a (possibly subconscious) feeling of weakness or inferiority. That "old saw" about "having paid your dues" is a cheap cover for a sense of inadequacy or having been left behind. I see it a lot in my trade, and it's clearly the province of those who have not received the accolade they feel they deserve considering their own feelings of their contribution to the community.

The truly great practitioners of my craft that I know tend to be modest, patient and confident.

CharlieBiler said:

The places we haunted are fields, or fallen in shells.

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This line is truer than anybody wants to know. I know Charlie, by my count he has out lived 8 plants that shutdown and his current employer is going to make number 9 very soon. Thus are the fortunes in SW PA, where the New Deal never stops giving.

As for why 'fix' got barked at - could it be a 'rice bowl' issue, aka job security?

Ted