Page 1 of Factory Reset

George

“Fudge my life!”

A burst of laughter broke out up and down the line.

“Did you just say ‘fudge my life’? Seriously?” Leo asked, his bushy white eyebrows raising up to where his hairline would be if he wasn’t completely bald.

He was a grizzly old guy who’d worked here at the factory since I was in kindergarten. He was well past the union retirement age, but he didn’t want to sit home alone waiting to die, so he continued to work on the line. He was a little slow to meet his quotas at the factory, but we all looked the other way on that, even the bosses.

“Yeah, a couple of weeks ago I made the mistake of saying ‘fucking A’ during a football game in front of Sofia, and then she spent an hour running around shouting it at us, over and over.” I pitched my voice high like a toddler to imitate my niece. “Fucking A! Fucking A!”

Everyone laughed. I’d also thought my two-year old niece’s antics were hilarious, but unfortunately, my sister had disagreed.

“Josie threatened to cut me off from my little buddy if I taught her any more swear words, so now I’m tryin’ to clean up my gosh darn language.”

I rolled my eyes as another round of chuckles sounded above the machines making tractor parts. I picked up a carburetor and studied it carefully. Everything looked good. Satisfied that the machines seemed to be working okay today, I picked up my toolbox and headed for my next stop.

“Jeffers! A word please.”

I turned around to see one of the suits from the main office standing behind me. As usual David Weston looked impeccable in his neatly pressed navy blue suit and red striped tie. He looked out of place down here among all the guys – and one woman—in faded jeans and battered overalls.

Normally I hated these guys in the main office, but I had a soft spot for Weston, probably because he’d married my sister and we were technically family now. I’d had my doubts about him at first, but I had to admit that he’d been good for Josie. He treated my sister like a damned princess, and they’d given me my sweet little niece Sofia, so I had no beef with him.

I followed my brother-in-law out of the main factory area and into one of the conference rooms set up along the hallway that separated sections of the building.

“Have a seat.”

Oh crap, it was never good if a suit told you to have a seat. I dropped gingerly into one of the little chairs. I was a big guy, tall and wide and still heavily muscled despite the fact that I had just turned forty, and the conference chair creaked a little beneath my weight.

My brother-in-law sat across from me, looking serious even for him.

“What’s wrong David?”

“We got an ultimatum from the corporate office. The owners aren’t happy with the output at this factory, apparently it’s keeping them from buying more summer homes or whatever those rich assholes do with their money. They’re making noises about sending the entire operation to Mexico if we don’t up our production and start making them more of a profit.”

“That happens every few years,” I told him.

David had only been in town for about four years, so he might not be aware that the corporate people crawled up our asses every once in a while, usually when their bonus checks weren’t as much as they were hoping for.

“Yeah, but this time they’re serious about it,” David told me. “They’ve been scouting locations in Mexico for a new factory. Today we learned that they’re sending in some efficiency expert from corporate to do an evaluation. The guy’s supposed to make recommendations about operational improvements. If he doesn’t find any, or we can’t make it work for whatever reason, he’s supposed to create a plan for a shut down.”

Damn, this sounded way more serious than the usual noise we heard about being more efficient.

“Oh sh—-shitake. Fudging owners, they don’t care the closing this factory would bankrupt the entire freaking town and ruin a bunch of people’s lives.”

The factory was by far the largest employer in town. More than half of the adult population worked here. If the factory closed, it would be devastating for my neighbors and all the people I cared for. Including me and my family.

David nodded. “They don’t care about the town, just profits,” he acknowledged. “I don’t think any of them have ever been down there. They all hide up there in the corporate office in Delaware.”

My brother-in-law had come from that corporate office originally, but I knew him well enough to know that part of why he’d transferred here was that he hated all the ass kissing and bureaucracy up there.

“So why are you tellin’ me this?” I asked.

“I convinced them that if the efficiency expert was going to have any chance of succeeding, they needed to have a partner on the floor. Someone who knows the operation inside and out and can help them figure out ways to improve our processes.”

I could see where this was going.

“No.”