PAYCHECKS OR THE FACT THAT THEY POSSESS MORE MEDICAL COVERAGE THEN EVEL KNIEVEL COULD PISS AWAY IN A MILLION UNSUCCESSFUL BUS HURDLES! TO TOP IT OFF, THEY'RE ALL CODDLED AND PROTECTED BY A UNION THAT WOULD PROBABLY EMBRACE RICHARD SPECK AS JUST A MISUNDERSTOOD DRIFTER WITH A HARMLESS YEN FOR VODKA AND ROPE TRICKS!”
Oftentimes, the
Flint Journal,
the unofficial GM gazette, would devote large portions of their editorial page to the miserable whines of these blowhards. “I worked in the plant for thirty-six years and never once needed to rely on alcohol…” “I think that it is an outrage that my neighbor, a GM employee, spends half of his shift sitting in a bar…” “The autoworker of today is weak and corrupt and…” Blah, blah, blah.
It's one thing to be harangued by those who have gone before—the forebears, the sit-down strikers, the providers of the torch, my very own grandfather—but to be put through the verbal shredder by townsfolk who've never even
seen
the innards of an auto factory, well, that was a different matter. Their pious deductions always made me squirm.
The total farce of it all is that given our jobs, these same moany denizens would be lined up right next to us at the barstools and beer coolers if they could somehow weasel in the gate. They'd lose that sacred work ethic baloney and clasp on to Louie's coveralls faster than you can say “the mercury reads 118 in the Paint Department tonight.” Keep in mind, the grass is always greener on the other side until it's your turn to jump the fence and chop the shit down.
There is simply no need for apologies. Hell, when you get right down to it, General Motors management doesn't even pay much heed to the drinking habits of its own work force. They realize it would be a massive and futile effort on their part to attempt to stymie a widespread tradition. And moreover, they really don't give a good goddamn who's tippin’ and who isn't just as long as the parts keep flowing by in their assigned locations. Start sending down inferior product and then drinking would become an issue.
Drinking right on the line wasn't something everyone cared for. But plenty did, and the most popular time to go snagging for gusto was the lunch break. As soon as that lunch horn blew, half of the plant put it in gear, sprinting out the door in packs of three or four, each pointed squarely for one of those chilly coolers up at one of the nearby beer emporiums. Talk about havoc. It was like some nightly cross between the start of the Indy 500 and chute-surfin’ out of the fuselage of a burning jet. Engines racing. Tires squealing. Pedestrians somersaulting over car hoods.
I half expected one night to find Marlon Perkins propped in a jeep near the gate narrating this frantic migration: “Notice, friends, the fleet mobility of our subjects. The wide eyes and gaping mouths are timeless clues that another pilgrimage to the watering hole is well under way.”
A half hour is all most workers had. Make no mistake, this small opportunity to bust open the monotony of shop grind helped many guys avoid cracking up, cracking skulls, missing work or mutating into supervisional bullies. A jumbo of beer certainly wasn't gonna save anyone's life, but the odds were it would certainly enhance it. John DeLorean himself proved that factory critters can't triumph above the ordinary on black coffee and Twinkies alone. Hell no. On a clear day you
can
see General Motors and, if you squint a little harder, you can also see a frosty quart of Budweiser just as plain as the cocaine attaché case at the end of the motel bed.
It was during these early years that my old friend Denny and I spent our lunch breaks together. With a double-up arrangement not much different from mine, Denny was able to tag along as we indulged in every shoprat's dream scam: the Double Lunch. With our jobs securely covered by co-workers, we could slide out and overlap the two lunch periods designated for the two separate
Oftentimes, the
Flint Journal,
the unofficial GM gazette, would devote large portions of their editorial page to the miserable whines of these blowhards. “I worked in the plant for thirty-six years and never once needed to rely on alcohol…” “I think that it is an outrage that my neighbor, a GM employee, spends half of his shift sitting in a bar…” “The autoworker of today is weak and corrupt and…” Blah, blah, blah.
It's one thing to be harangued by those who have gone before—the forebears, the sit-down strikers, the providers of the torch, my very own grandfather—but to be put through the verbal shredder by townsfolk who've never even
seen
the innards of an auto factory, well, that was a different matter. Their pious deductions always made me squirm.
The total farce of it all is that given our jobs, these same moany denizens would be lined up right next to us at the barstools and beer coolers if they could somehow weasel in the gate. They'd lose that sacred work ethic baloney and clasp on to Louie's coveralls faster than you can say “the mercury reads 118 in the Paint Department tonight.” Keep in mind, the grass is always greener on the other side until it's your turn to jump the fence and chop the shit down.
There is simply no need for apologies. Hell, when you get right down to it, General Motors management doesn't even pay much heed to the drinking habits of its own work force. They realize it would be a massive and futile effort on their part to attempt to stymie a widespread tradition. And moreover, they really don't give a good goddamn who's tippin’ and who isn't just as long as the parts keep flowing by in their assigned locations. Start sending down inferior product and then drinking would become an issue.
Drinking right on the line wasn't something everyone cared for. But plenty did, and the most popular time to go snagging for gusto was the lunch break. As soon as that lunch horn blew, half of the plant put it in gear, sprinting out the door in packs of three or four, each pointed squarely for one of those chilly coolers up at one of the nearby beer emporiums. Talk about havoc. It was like some nightly cross between the start of the Indy 500 and chute-surfin’ out of the fuselage of a burning jet. Engines racing. Tires squealing. Pedestrians somersaulting over car hoods.
I half expected one night to find Marlon Perkins propped in a jeep near the gate narrating this frantic migration: “Notice, friends, the fleet mobility of our subjects. The wide eyes and gaping mouths are timeless clues that another pilgrimage to the watering hole is well under way.”
A half hour is all most workers had. Make no mistake, this small opportunity to bust open the monotony of shop grind helped many guys avoid cracking up, cracking skulls, missing work or mutating into supervisional bullies. A jumbo of beer certainly wasn't gonna save anyone's life, but the odds were it would certainly enhance it. John DeLorean himself proved that factory critters can't triumph above the ordinary on black coffee and Twinkies alone. Hell no. On a clear day you
can
see General Motors and, if you squint a little harder, you can also see a frosty quart of Budweiser just as plain as the cocaine attaché case at the end of the motel bed.
It was during these early years that my old friend Denny and I spent our lunch breaks together. With a double-up arrangement not much different from mine, Denny was able to tag along as we indulged in every shoprat's dream scam: the Double Lunch. With our jobs securely covered by co-workers, we could slide out and overlap the two lunch periods designated for the two separate
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