'Murica Week

God bless The Boss Who Must Not Be Named!  They announced today that we will have all weekend off!  It's so nice to have a boss who will fight for his employees!  We haven't had that in a long, long time.  And see, when you know your boss has your back, you'll do anything in the world for him.

Let me tell you a story of the last good boss we had.

His name was Scott Reid, and he was the Boss Hoss of the plant some years ago.  Now, back in those days, we had a truck that came around every so often selling shoes.  We called it the Shoe-mobile.  The plant covered a certain percentage of the cost, and they deducted the rest out of your paycheck.  Very simple.  Very easy.

As it happened, that morning the shoe-mobile was at the plant, I went out to get me some new work shoes.  I browsed the selections, picked out a pair, and gave them to the Shoe-mobile man.  He started filling out the form that he turns in, when I noticed he'd put the name of the temp agency they used at time, Ablest, instead of the company name.

I said, "Oh, I'm not Ablest.  I'm ADP."

He replied, "I went to ADP yesterday."

"No, this is ADP,"  I told him.

He said, "I went to ADP yesterday!  Where is your supervisor?"

"He's in the plant, getting ready to start the shift,"  I said.

Well, he just went bat guano crazy, yelling and hollering that he'd gone to ADP yesterday, not even trying to listen when I told him he was at ADP.  Finally, he said -- screamed, rather, "I want to talk to your supervisor!"

"FINE!"  I said.  "I'll go get him."

I went back inside the plant, intending to get the shift supervisor.  About halfway up the aisle, I thought better of it, and said, "No, I'm going to the front office."  I intended to get the person in charge of health and safety, but she wasn't in her office.  I found her talking to another man right outside of Scott Reid's office. 

That was back when employees were allowed in the front office space.  We aren't these days.  I guess they think they might get cooties from us.

I said, "I need to talk to you," and told them both the story.  As I was talking, I noticed Scott had gotten up from behind his desk and approached us, listening to what I was telling them.  When I'd finished, the other man said, "OK, I'll take care of it later."

Scott said, "No, I'M going to take care of this right now."  He put his coffee down, and headed into the parking lot.  Now, if you know anything about Scott Reid, you will grasp the significance of that phrase:  he put his coffee down.

I went on back to my work area and began doing my job for the day.  (This was before I became a brazer, and I worked in the tubing department.)  A few minutes later, Scott came and got me.  He said, "I went out to the truck and I said, 'Let me introduce myself.  My name is Scott Reid, and I'm the Director of Operations here at ADP.  I'm here to tell you, if you ever speak to one of my employees like that again, you can take your little shoe mobile, and get it off my plant property, and you will never, ever come back."  Then he took me out to the truck and made the man apologize to me.

Poor fellow was shaking like a leaf, Scott scared him so badly.  I took pity on him and explained that I wasn't trying to cause trouble.  I just wanted to make sure he put the right company down so he would get his money.  Scott and I went through his slips and found several he'd written the wrong company name on, and helped him correct them.  The man and I shook hands, and he gave me my shoes, and a free package of socks, and that was that.

It seems such a small thing, but I would have run through brick walls for Scott Reid after that, because I knew he cared.   We haven't had anyone like that since he left.  Not in one of the higher up positions, I mean.

Now, to start off 'Murica Week, I present the Star Spangled Banner, Madison Rising version:





Normally, I'm like, just sing it the way it's supposed to be sung, the way it was written, but this version rocks.