Chapter 95

9/13/09 update route #15 truck just on left out of picture

This is a tribute to John. No, not Johnny Cash although I’ve already cast my vote for the current superlative movie out there for the Academy. The second album I ever bought was Walk the Line, just after Stereo sound was invented. This is a tribute to fellow line (staging line) worker, John, pictured in the red circle. He is on light duty now, using the scanner to read the package bar code. He then writes the home delivery truck route number 1 up to 53 now, along with the drop off sequence number. I then take the package off the line ( http://www.lewcoconveyor.com/ ) and stack em on the pallets shown.

John and I did a record 6200 packages on Thanksgiving morning. On Saturday a poorly packaged metal sub frame unit shaped like a car fender with metal shards sticking out sliced his wrist in the heat of the battle as we were inundated with packages. He ran screaming and bleeding to the office where he was transported to the Emergency Room for 7 stitches. His thumb is still numb. John told me today he works 3 jobs. As a HVCC Civil Technoloy  2 yr graduate he works for Sage Engineers during the day. Then at night he is a bartender at the exclusive downtown Ft Orange Club. He was supposed to work at his son’s party that night but couldn’t.

My photos are a little blurry as I went against the rules, smuggled in my camera but turned off the flash as to not raise suspicion and took quick shots. I showed the flow of packages with a red line as they approach my line. They originate further to the right from the off-loader workers in the semi- trailers. The guy next to John, is Bill another golden year retired metallurgist from the US Arsenal http://www.wva.army.mil/ in Watervliet where cannons are made for the worlds armed forces. If the packages are high numbered (28-53) the guys dump em into the high conveyor and go to another line.

Most of the shots were taken at 4:30 am at the beginning of the shift to minimize witnesses. The lower left was at 8:30 am showing some of the P&D (pickup and delivery) vehicles. The guy in green is a driver with his scanner logging in a package so they can account for everything. Our president says the information about the package is just as important as the package itself. It takes Ivy league guys to come up with thoughts like that.

It’s real fun when the package throughput is overwhelming everything like the center shot. They come down the curved slope and pile up and spill all over the place because we are way understaffed. It’s not like “Walking in High Cotton” more like “Little Boxes on the Hillside, and they all look the same”. That’s how you maximize profit. During John’s bloodletting I didn’t stop the line but just kept the throughput on pace. We don’t care if the packages are crunching and creaking like an old wooden ship and bursting apart throwing Styrofoam everywhere along with Harley Davidson hats or hundreds of empty pill boxes. It’s like the old comedy sketch on I Love Lucy or Laurel and Hardy where they cannot keep up with the conveyor belt of pies. Lot of laughs. There is a 1000 watt Onkyo system shown in center- it’s about 6 feet long and heavy, 90 pounds. That keeps you on your toes. Like the JR song “I got Rhythm” you develop a clockwork pace to stay on top and forget what you are even doing. They have added on a helper now- Rocco, football player and accountant major at SUNY Albany (couldn’t help but notice he drives a white G35 Infinity!).