Full Page Ad; Southwest Writers (600+ members)Newsletter (Sage) March, 2008. |
To all the young people out there...STAY IN SCHOOL! Jerry Aragon/The Humor Doctor humordoctormd@yahoo.com |
My articles published 200+ websites |
Dealing With Pig-Headed People! (oink-oink!) |
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This is a family site |
My articles published 200+ websites |
To all the young people out there...STAY IN SCHOOL! Jerry Aragon/The Humor Doctor humordoctormd@yahoo.com |
My way...or the highway! How many times have we all run across people with this stubborn and controlling attitude? Pig-headed: (definition) perverse; stubborn At the time, I was a temporary employee, and I was assigned to an engineering firm who was doing contract work for a large national engineering company. The large company was manufacturing sorting machines for the Postal Service, so this would be a long-term assignment in the assembly department. of , of course,if I decided to stay there. When I started the assignment, the work couldn't be simpler. It was just a matter of pinning electrical wires into a connector. That's it...about as simple as it gets! What was involved, was to take 19 electrical wires of different lengths and colors, and pin them into a connector about the size of a saltine cracker. There were three different modules (1-2-3), and different wires for each module, and wires measured from about a foot long to eight feet long. Once all 19 wires were pinned into the connector, they were wrapped up, put in a plastic bag and sent over to the soldering department, to be soldered into the modules. Sounds simple enough! My trainer began to show me what to do, and he showed my three boxes on the floor, consisting of the wires we would need to do the job. We would start with module number one. He took out plastic bags which contained the various 19 wires to do the job. He then began to start draping the wires over chairs and tables in the area. He took the connector, and began to start pinning the wires into the connector, and he placed the wires in the sequence that they would go into the connector. After he finished the first connector with all the wires, he bundled it up and placed the bundle of wres into a plastic bag, and it was now ready to go to the soldering department. He handed me a connector, and I got started. Over the next hour or so, I did about 20 bundles of wires, etc. This was about as easy a job as you'll find. When I finished the first module, I called my trainer over and showed him what I had done. Now, I was ready for the second module. So, I opened the box for the second module and started pinning the wires to the connectors, and so on and so forth. When I finished the second module, i started on the third module, and draped all the wires over the tables chairs and started pinning the connectors. There was only so many bundles that were needed by soldering each day, so if I had some wires left over, I would bundle them and put them back into the plastic bags and back into the module I was working on. I would now start on module numbe 2, and it was the same old story...take all 19 wires out of the plastic bags and drape them over the tables and chairs and start pinning, etc. When finished, put all the wires back into the plastic bags and back into the box, and start on module number three! As the reader can see, it was ridiculous to do it this way, which was so time consuming! There had to be a better way to do this job! Just off the soldering line, there were several wooden fixtures, which measured about five feet tall by 3 feet wide, and were built on casters, which could be moved around. I asked about them and nobody was using them. So, I came up with the idea to use the wooden fixtures to drape all the wires over, and not put them back into the plastic bags or boxes anymore. I would need three of the fixtures...one for each module. By doing it this way, it would make my job faster and easier. I could knock a few nails on the top of the fixture, to seperate the wires to stay organized, and to keep the wires from getting mixed up, etc. Since the wooden fixtures were on casters, they could easily be moved out of the way. The wires would be placed on the fixtures, in the order that they were pinned into the connector, and that way the person doing the pinning, would start on one end of the fixture, and go to the other end of the fixture. Simple, right? The idea wouldn't cost anything, because there were several fixtures pushed over in the corner doing nothing! But, getting an idea and selling it, are two different things! The problem was with my supervisor of the department. He was one of those "pig-headed,: individuals, who has to do things his way or the highway, etc. You know the type...they want to control everything around them, etc. It took me THREE MONTHS...THREE MONTHS...to show him that there was a better way to do this job, which would save the company time and money. And, each time I approached him with the problem, he would tell me that he was working on it! For three months...I was pinning connectors the old fashion way...empting out plastic bags and boxes and draping wires over chairs and tables. I had to deal with this pig-headed such and such, and FINALLY, he gave me permission to use the wooden fixtures! I went to maintenance right away to get a hammer and some nails, to divide the wires, and started placing the wires on the fixtures on a permanent basis. No more plastic bags and no more boxes. This made it easier for the people in soldering too, because after they finished soldering the pins on the wires, they could just bring them over to the appropriate fixture and drape the wires where they belonged. Any person could pin these connectors, with no muss and no fuss, and the time saved, could be devoted to other jobs, etc. When dealing with a pig-headed person is bad enough, but when that person has authority...it makes it worse! And, it can make the job more stressful and lower morale in the work place. Pig-headed people are negative people with an attitude! Pig-headed people try to cotrol everything around them and I try to stay away from them! (oink-oink!) |
"Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." Abraham Lincoln |
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Copyright; Jerry Aragon; 2007 All Rights Reserved |
Full Page Ad; Southwest Writers (600+ members)Newsletter (Sage) March, 2008. |
