The Cordwainer

by Christopher Blankley

  Chapter Thirteen

  Form 24-01

  While we were making solid progress on Mitty's Plan, my hold on my position as a Foreman at The Shop was slowly starting to slip away from me. I was doubly confused by the whole situation – the job, paradoxically, proved to be both childishly simple in its duties and confusingly complex in its nuances.

  Returning to work Monday, flushed from the victory of our successful test of The Cordwainer's rolling stock, I took it upon myself to implement a few of the simpler optimizations of Production Line Number Six I had identified watching the line in action.

  What could have possibly possessed me, I could only guess. No one had even minutely hinted that such a thing was at all within the portfolio of my position. But I was, at heart, a problem solver – I felt like a problem solver, with so many victories under my belt back in Zimmerman's junkyard. After everything I'd achieved in the last few weeks, the optimization of my production line was small potatoes. The girls would be happier, the output would increase, I'd actually have something to do... everyone would be happy.

  How much more foolish could I have been?

  My first change was the simplest: Move the girls who organically formed a team closer to each other on the line. The Worker B's initially looked at me like I was insane. Some of the older women had been working at the same station on the same line for upwards of twenty years. They looked at each other in confused silence. Did I have the power to make them move workstations? No one seemed sure. Begrudgingly, they rearranged on the line as I had instructed them, and after twenty minutes or so of working in the new configuration, every girl on the line was looking up at me and shooting me wide grins. A simple optimization of effort had made everyone's lives demonstratively better.

  If I'd stopped there, perhaps no one would have ever noticed the change and I could have achieved a substantial good at little to no cost.

  Of course, I couldn't just let it go at that.

  My second change was where all the trouble began: The three extra Worker B's on the production line, the girls who seemed to belong to no specific organic team, the ones who attempted to pick up whatever slack formed on the line for whatever reason, these girls I instructed to step away from their workstations. I told them to move wherever they felt they could be most useful. They were soon flitting up and down the production line, watching for bottlenecks or lending a helping hand when a Worker B became overwhelmed. They were my flying squad, shoring up the production line wherever it began to give.

  And it all showed results. Timed with Barry's golden watch, I was seeing boots coming off the line thirty seconds quicker than before my optimizations. But it was within the comparative times of the four organic teams that things really improved. My worst two performers, Teams C and D, who'd taken more than ten minutes to complete a pair of boots before, had rocked up to eight minutes forty-five and eight twenty respectively. With my “flying squad” able to move up and down the line and pay extra attention to these under-producing teams, I was getting some great results. The girls were joking and laughing more, they had more time to loaf about and chatter than they did before, and they were still making boots faster.

  The problem was, the three girls I'd moved off the line, my “flying squad”, were suddenly finding their jobs very physical. No one on Production Line Number Six was a young pup, and these ladies were quickly finding themselves winded. They didn't need to be on their feet the whole time, much of their job was simply watching for bottlenecks, so I made the fateful decision to allow them to sit down. I gave up use of my Foreman's stool for the purpose. If they were able to rest between bouts of activity...

  But the sight of Worker B's sitting down on the job drew angry glares from across The Shop floor. No one else was sitting down – only Foremen. That my production line was producing boots at a rate far superior to any of the other production lines, no one could tell. All they could see was that my girls were sitting down on the job.

  If I'd only left well enough alone, if I'd only not been such a goddamn smart ass. If I'd only just done my job and drawn down my pay and left well enough alone.

  Then no one would have come looking for Form 24-01.

  The first suggestion I got of the coming storm came two days after I'd put my optimizations into place. I was home that evening with my father, letting him beat me at chess. We were playing on the World War II Patton chess set I'd earned collecting Tom Mixx boxtops my whole eleventh year. It was the summer after my mother had died and I had developed a disobedient streak to overcompensate for the loss. I'd taken to not eating my breakfast, as my father never bothered. That was until he told me about the Authentic, Collectible World War II Patton/Rommel Chess Set that you could get if you sent in twenty boxtops of Tom Mixx Cereal and $1.99.

  Of course, after seeing the set in all its color-printed glory, I started eating my breakfast again. Even augmenting it with a few bowls of cereal when I got home from school. It only took me two months to collect enough boxtops; and I helped my father dutifully put each one in an envelope, with a check for $1.99, and mail it off to Cedar Rapids.

  Two weeks later the chess set came. I unboxed it and set it up and spent hours just looking it over. Patton, understandably, was the white king; Rommel, the black; Old Glory the white queen, the swastika the black. A pair of Omar Bradleys were the bishops for the good guys; a Nazi General I could never identify was the bishops for the black. Sherman and Panzer tanks were the knights, P-52 Mustangs and Stukas were the rooks, and a slew of Doughboys and Wehrmacht infantry were the pawns. My father sat me down and proceeded to teach me chess. By the time I was fifteen I was consistently beating him, and by my seventeenth birthday I was charitably letting him win.

  But you know what? Looking back, a World War II chess set seems like a mighty strange product tie-in for a cereal with a cowboy on the box... but I ate my breakfast every morning for the rest of my childhood after that, my disobedient streak forgotten. My father had won at least that game.

  “Foreman Salmon says you've made some changes to Number Six...” my father began out of the blue, moving a Panzer tank.

  “Hmm,” I grunted, not looking up from the game.

  “Says it's caused some chatter on the floor. Rumblings.”

  “Hmm.” I moved Old Glory.

  “Tells me you've got girls sitting down...”

  We both looked at the board for a silent minute, both taking sips from our tumblers of McTavish.

  “What? Sorry?” I looked up.

  “Girls sitting,” he repeated. “Down.”

  “Yes, yes...” At the time I didn't understand the trouble I was in – that my father was trying to break it gently. “My 'flying squad'” I said with pride. “Productivity is up fifteen percent. I had one team make a pair of boots in six minutes today. Can you believe that? Six minutes?”

  My glass was empty. I got up and went to the bar for a refill.

  “That's-that's... Great,” My father stammered. “But son, sitting?” My father said the word like it was the most vile sin you could perform against nature.

  I turned around from the bar, finally grasping that my father was dressing me down.

  I said defensively, “Yes, they're watching for bottlenecks. They're moving all day. They don't have to stand to use their eyes.”

  My father climbed to his feet and walked over to join me at the bar. He began to refill his glass, but it was only half empty.

  “You've got to understand how it looks, Andrew. Worker B's sitting on the job. The girls on the other production lines don't get to sit. If they look over and see a girl on your line resting on her laurels. Well, I mean, next thing you know they'll all want to sit down.”

  “Perhaps they should!”

  “Now, son...” my father condescended, putting a hand on my shoulder.

  “Number Six is making boots faster than any other line!” I knocked his hand away.

  “Number Six has always been the fastest-” my father be
gan.

  I interrupted, “Yes, and now it's faster.”

  I found my seat again and slumped over the board, pretending to study it, but I couldn't remember whose move it was.

  My father sat back down in his chair. “Andrew, remember what I said your first day of work: This is the real world, not school, there's no second chances. Making changes, rocking the boat, you're only causing problems. Maybe production is up on your line, yes, but what about the others? What effect on morale will watching girls sit down on the job have on those other production lines? What will happen to their productivity? We're all in one big boat, Andrew. That your production line produces more than another... well, it's not important if the total production of The Shop goes down, now is it?”

  “Just tell me one thing,” I thrust an accusing finger across the chessboard. “Have I done one thing out-of-line? Have I done anything that is not within my powers to do as Foreman of Number Six?”

  “No, but...”

  “Then don't berate me for doing my job!” I jumped to my feet, putting my drink down on the board. My father grimaced and rubbed at the stubble on his chin. “You should be copying what I've done, not pissing on it! You old fools wouldn't know a good idea if it bit you...” But I was already storming off out of the living room, looking for my coat. “Give me a month and I'll shave another ten seconds off a pair of boots. Give me four empty production lines and I could quadruple output with the staff I have!” I was yelling from the hall. I'd found my jacket. I put it on and paused in the doorway to the living room. “How about that? How about I show everyone how lousy you guys have been running things? For years. How would Mr. Salmon like that, huh?”

  My father didn't reply. He was looking down at the chessboard.

  “Yeah, that's what I thought!” And I stormed off out of the house.

  The next morning I was called into Foreman Salmon's small, glassed-in office. His bulk was sitting behind his desk as I entered. He pointed to the ancient aluminum chair that sat across the desk from him and I sat down. He shuffled some papers on his desk and didn't look up at me, making me wait.

  Managing Foreman Salmon's office looked out across the full expanse of The Shop. From here, he could see the entire goings-on of the factory. I could just make out Number Six production line working busily away at the far end of the floor. Mr. Salmon coughed and appeared to find the piece of paper he was looking for.

  He began, “I'm sure your father stressed to you, during your initiation, the importance of the inspection forms you daily complete.” He held up a sample four-boxed form, showing it to me. I had my clipboard across my lap, inch-thick with identical forms.

  “Of course,” I said, glancing between the sheet of paper and Mr. Salmon's face.

  “Did he mention that each is individually numbered?” Mr. Salmon's fat finger indicated the embossed serial number in the top right corner.

  I opened my mouth and closed it. I wasn't exactly sure where this conversation was going. Hadn't I been called into the boss's office to discuss my optimization efforts?

  “Yes, yes, he did,” I blurted out, realizing I was staring at Mr. Salmon like a fool.

  “It's very important that we keep track of these forms, you understand. Internal accounting.”

  “Yes...”

  “Good, good, I'm glad we had this talk,” Mr. Salmon said, standing up from behind his desk. I rose to my feet, too. Mr. Salmon held out a plump hand and I shook it in confusion.

  That's it? Mr. Salmon's body language was telling me the interview was over. I turned and started for the door.

  As I was reaching down to turn the handle, Mr. Salmon added, “So, if we can just get 24-01 – for completeness – we'll be right as rain.”

  I paused, “I'm sorry?” I asked, turning back. “What?”

  “Form 24-01.”

  “Form...”

  I looked down at my clipboard, at the barely legible serial number – more indented than embossed. My top form was number 25-73.

  “...24-01?” I parroted.

  “Yes. That'd be great.” Mr. Salmon was sitting again, shuffling papers around his desk.

  “24-01...” I said again, like an idiot. “24-01?”

  And then, as if my eyes suddenly leapt ten miles out of my body, I had a vision of my engine schematic, pinned to a board in Old Man Zimmerman's workshop. The four-boxed form I'd sketched my engine design on the back of, it must have been-

  “Yes, Form 24-01,” Mr. Salmon said slowly to me, like speaking to a child. “If you can get that over to accounting, they'll be overjoyed.”

  I was dumbfounded. None of this had been about my efficiency efforts? Nothing about the girls sitting down? They just needed a crummy form back that I'd misplaced?

  “Is there anything else?” Mr. Salmon asked and I realized I was standing, thinking at Mr. Salmon's door.

  “No, sorry,” I said and turned the handle, slipping quickly out.

  Managing Foreman Salmon, like so many Generals, was reticent to attack his enemy in a frontal assault. I had not yet fully comprehended as I walked away from Mr. Salmon's small, glassed-in office that his request for Form 24-01 was only a feint; that his true target, as I had suspected, was my efficiency efforts on Production Line number Six. Why the ruse, I can only surmise. Perhaps he thought I'd have been unable to lay my hands on the errant form, and therefore had cause to officially discipline me. I didn't know.

  My father had explained the importance of keeping track of the four-boxed forms, and other than that single exception, I'd kept a good handle on the paperwork entrusted to me. That I was still in possession of the form, but disinclined to part with it, I can guess that Foreman Salmon was unaware.

  If I returned that form to accounting with the schematic of my engine on the back... well, at the very least it would create a whole lot of unwelcome questions. I needed to keep hold of that form. I was going to have to find a way to get accounting to let me off the hook for the loss of the form, and lucky I was positioned well to get exactly that done. After all, Sophie, my sister, worked in Accounts Receivable. I had pull. Family connections.

  Of course, Mr. Salmon – and my father – weren't going to let the whole sitting-down-on-the-job issue drop without seeing me disciplined. But their first round, I was thinking, might just fall short of the mark.

  Score one for productivity.

  But now, in hindsight, I realize how foolish I was being. My whole attempt to optimize line Number Six had been a fool's errand from the start. If I had possessed half the brains I credited myself for possessing, I would have seen it. But in my myopic, childish attempt to make my work meaningful. I was butting up against the very fundamental purpose of The Shop:

  The Shop didn't make boots, it made jobs.

  If I'd bothered to open my eyes, I could have seen it. All those crates of boots boxed by the side of the road leading up to the factory – millions of boots that would never be worn by anyone. The Shop had been overproducing footwear for decades, more than could ever be shipped to market, even without carbon controls. But that wasn't the point. The Shop didn't make boots to sell. It made boots to keep hands busy. To keep people employed. To keep people happy, to keep their minds off the shortages. To keep money in people's pockets so, at least, they felt rich, even if there was little or nothing for them to buy.

  The Shop made work, not shoes.

  That I didn't see this was unforgivably short-sighted of me. If I'd been able to grasp the full social-political meaning of The Shop, I would have understood why my father and Mr. Salmon reacted so violently to my efficiency efforts. Making boots faster or better was helping no one. I was just sowing dissatisfaction, rocking the boat. The longer it took to make a pair of boots the better. After all, why really make the boots at all if no one was ever going to wear them? The process, that was what was important. The labor. That was what was keeping the world turning.

  I could blame it on my age, or my inexperience, but I'd be lying to myself
if I did. It was, fundamentally, a world I was not cut out to occupy. It takes a certain attitude to make things poorly, to make them slowly, to make them for the sake of wasting the effort.

  It was an attitude I didn't possess. I was a man, after all, who still believed he could build a train out of scrap metal, power it with steam, ride it across the mountains to make his fortune in the Big City. No, I didn't have an attitude compatible with Boot Hill or The Shop. And never would.