Given the auto industry problems, this book, and the review I wrote several years ago are prescient.Hamper came from a long line of "shoprats." After a school career punctuated by brief moments of lucidity, during which he wrote passable poetry and showed some promise as a writer, he found himself self-condemned to the Rivet Line. He had promised himself he would never emulate his father, a drunken bum who was rarely home, often hung-over and eventually left his family for a floozy barmaid.
Hamper despised the horribly monotonous conditions of the assembly line, its impact recognizable from the ubiquitous "monster glaze": the set in the eyes of assembly line workers when they arrive home from work. Hamper was drawn to the assembly line, however, and even came to prefer the Rivet Line. He and his colleagues devised ways to amuse themselves, like kicking rivets at each other, the score determined by how much pain is caused upon impact. One common aspiration was to "double up." Two linemates would agree to do each other's work in addition to their own. This freed one up to leave the plant and go drink while the other hurried through both jobs. This way they could relish the sensation of getting paid for doing no work. "Working on the Rivet Line was like getting paid to flunk high school the rest of your life. An adolescent time warp in which the duties of the day were just an underlying annoyance. No one ever grew up here. No pretensions to being anything other than stunted brats clinging to rusty monkeybars....We were fumbling along in the middle of a long-running cartoon."
When a supervisor tried to end this nonsense the workers deliberately sabotaged equipment coming off the line to make him look bad and he is reassigned. A "successful" supervisor looked the other way, caring only for the ultimate quality of the vehicle.
GM, in the meantime, in an effort to promote quality, created "Howie Makem," a 5'9" cat mascot who patroled around the plant with a huge "Q" for quality on his chest. Howie became the laughing stock of the plant. (Other entries in the contest to name the mascot included Tuna Meowt and Wanda Kwit.)
Hamper and his coworkers loved layoffs. It was like getting paid for nothing. Usually he was called back to work just as the benefits ran out, so it was like a great paid vacation. He spent almost all his waking hours in bars. Even during breaks workers would sit in their cars chug-a-lugging 48 oz. beers.
All this took its toll. He began to suffer from anxiety attacks, and eventually he was forced to admit himself into a mental hospital. Hamper tries to the blame his problems on the conditions of the assembly line, but it's clear he refused to grow up and willingly descended into his own private inferno. One can only hope his story is atypical. If not, we are in serious trouble.
