Tales from the Dorkside Episode XIII: "On the Knight Shift"

Have you ever been in one of those jobs that was so routine that you didn’t have to think much at all, just do it? Oh, I have been, when I was in my mid 20’s. I used to joke that when I went to my locker at the beginning of my shift to change into my uniform, not only did I lock my street clothes in that locker, but my brain as well.

This was back in the mid 90’s. I’d been in Germany already a couple years already, so my German was understandable, for the most part. I landed a manufacturing job and found myself working swing shifts on a factory floor. As I may have mentioned before, I was actually a trained medic, but since my language skills were not adequate enough to work in that field, I found myself looking for a job where I didn’t have to interact too much with other people, especially when any misunderstanding could make the difference between life and death.

I had never worked swing shifts before, and I never really wanted to either. My father had been working shifts for well over 20 years and I saw what a toll it was taking on him. Besides the factory where he worked often laid off the new hires periodically. So I joined the Army to learn a skill that would help me land a job where I didn’t have to work shifts. Okay, I was naïve, had I thought it through then I may not have wanted to be a medic, since paramedics and hospital staff often have to work shifts too.  But here I was less than 10 years later doing exactly what I was trying to avoid in the beginning.

I had been used to getting up nice and early due to my military service, but this is not saying that I liked getting up at 5 A.M. Even that wasn’t the worst part of the morning shift. The management would always be there hovering around making sure you’re not only doing what you’re supposed to, but also making sure you were doing it exactly like they wanted, and I’ve never been a fan of micromanagement.

Of course, anytime we’d get visitors from our general offices in the States, they’d run and get me to give the tour of the lines. We had an engineer from research and development visiting who apparently didn’t catch my name in the introductions. Had he done so, I doubt he would have mistaken me for a German. At the end of the tour, he decided to complement me. “Gee, your English is really good.” I smiled and said “Thank you, yours isn’t that bad either.” Leaving him with a puzzled look on his face, until I explained that I was from Pennsylvania.

Late shift really sucked because by the time you got off work practically everything except the bars were closed. I had actually worked late shift all the time before when I worked in a rest home back in the States. After work I could still go to Kroger’s and buy frozen pizza rolls or some other snack if I wanted, but not in Germany. Nope, back then they closed the stores at 6 P.M.

But the night shift was a different story altogether. There was very little management there, so you could relax a bit more. If you didn’t sleep the whole day, you could still get up on time to buy something before you went to work, and we hardly had visitors during that time. But night shift brought its own challenges. First of all you had to get used to working while most people were sleeping and fight with yourself to stay awake while the hum of the machines tried to lull you to sleep. Especially when your tasks were as routine as mine were, feed the machine and clean up scraps. Secondly, when you’d mastered staying awake, it was the boredom that took over next.

I overcame this by being a bit of a prankster. I’d tape together my colleague’s tools in their tool bags, making them borrow somebody else’s until they could free their own. I’d take a screenshot of the shift report and use the picture as the desktop background. This was always amusing because they thought that the background picture was their report and they’d get pissed at the computer because it wasn’t showing what they were trying to write. I used to use the boxes from the raw materials to construct cardboard costumes and weapons and attack my colleagues. A knight in cardboard armor. Okay, I was a bored young man just trying to stay awake and doing what I had to do.
 
Well apparently I took it too far one time and nearly got myself fired over it. You see, the finished product would be boxed up at the far end of the line, palletized, and picked up with a forklift to be taken to the warehouse where the pallets would be wrapped with stretch foil and labeled. If you’ve ever driven a 5 foot high pallet with loose boxes, then you know you have to drive very carefully. Occasionally a forklift driver would hit a bump and lose a box forcing him to stop, pick it up and put it back on the pallet. So I filled one of the empty boxes with scraps from the production line and taped it closed. When the forklift driver passed my workstation, I threw the box on the ground so he would hear the ‘thud’ and stop. I’d hide my decoy box and leave him looking for the fallen box. When the next driver came, I did the same, but this time I left the box for him to find it. I waited until I saw him completely confused as to where this box should go on the full pallet before I let him in on the joke. So I had a bit of a laugh at the expense of my colleagues, with no harm intended. Of course, I could only do this once or twice before the joke got old, so I planned to destroy my decoy after my break.

 When I came back, the decoy was gone. I searched everywhere, at this point I was wide awake and not bored in the least bit. Then I saw it, not where I left it mind you, but in the hands of the warehouse manager. The box top was open and the scraps were clearly visible and he looked pissed. He was marching toward my manager to complain about it. I cut him off and tried to explain in my broken German. He explained to me that someone had seen the box and thought a forklift driver had lost it, and my decoy was nearly on its way to the trucks waiting at the loading docks. He asked me in German “War das Spass” which could be understood two ways. How he meant it was, ‘was that a joke’. How I interpreted it ‘was that fun’. So of course I answered ‘no’ which only made thing worse because he thought I did this intentionally to harm the company. Fortunately, one of my German colleagues intervened and explained to the warehouse manager that it was a stupid joke. Seeing how shaken I was, I guess he decided to let me off the hook, because I never heard anything about it again. And I decided to be more careful about pulling pranks. Yeah, that definitely was ‘not fun’.

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God Bless Tucker!

Utube took it down. If you click on the "Censored video from post 4614" in blue below , it will take you to the video on another site.

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Freedom of speech

Freedom (poem)

Freedom

You do not yet know what it means

As educated as you claim to be

To live in a land of greatness

Where every man, woman, and child is free

You burn, loot, and murder with no regard

For all the good lives you destroyed

You think yourselves folk heroes

Despite the tactics you’ve deployed

You talk about Marxist revolution

Like it brings a utopian fantasy

But we have heard this lie before

And we have seen its misery

Our fathers have paid a heavy price

To give us that which you spit upon

But we shall not stand idly by

And watch you stomp it until it’s gone

For this is ours to pass to our children

Who we shall teach to protect so dearly

Not sell off in the promise of false safety

And they shall see this oh so clearly

Our freedom will not be surrendered

Nor will we drop to our knee

We will fight and freedom shall ring

From sea to shining sea

Liberty (poem)

Liberty

When my family first came to this land

They came to escape the chains of tyranny

Seeing her beautiful copper-brown face

They dreamt of a place where they would be free

They shared this dream with their children

Who worked hard to help build our country

They stood strong to defend her in times of need

For this is our sweet land of Liberty

Do you understand what you squander away?

Something so preciously coveted by so many

That which our fathers fought and died for

Still you claim to not care to have any.

Were you taught the words of Patrick Henry?

Or were the schools too busy with Karl Marx

Henry proclaimed he’d rather die than live without

Or are you just more victims of the Monarchs

Can you truly not see through the lies?

Fighting your programing brings you to tears

You must unlearn all of the manipulation

For you with open eyes is their greatest fear

Tales from the Dorkside Episode XII: "In Too Deep"

Through the heavily fallen snow I lumbered forward. Each step weighed me down and stole my breath. I’d been walking for almost two hours through the frozen wasteland, but was I closer to the farm or heading further away from it? I couldn’t tell at this point. If I could only see the farm, I’d finally have my bearings, I thought. The snow caked my scarf and mittens and stung my face when I touched it. ‘How did I get myself in such a mess this time?’ I asked aloud to no one, for no one was there to hear my inquiry anyway.

The sun hid well behind the thick clouds and more snow gently powdered the ground.  It seemed much later than it actually was, and I feared darkness would fall upon me before I reached my destination. Grim thoughts clouded my mind, should I not make it, when would I be found and what would be left of me. I tried to banish them. I imagined myself as Rocky in ‘Rocky IV’ just doing training in Russia for the big fight. But the longer this trek lasted, I started picturing Luke Skywalker escaping the Wampa creature, only to find himself facing the hostile conditions of the frozen ice planet.

I did not start this adventure on foot, and I’d travelled much further than planned. This probably contributed to why my SRX 440 ran out of gas. Although there were other unforeseen factors which attributed to me finding myself in my current position. For starters, I probably shouldn’t have tried to race against the neighbor’s kid, Josh. His sled was so much faster and newer than my ’79 model and he knew the trails better than I did. But I was hell-bent on beating him this time.

As always, he wanted to race me to the tree nursery, which meant there were a couple of dense areas of woodland, two or three fields, and a creek we had to cross. But this time, I decided to take another path which I’d hoped I could use to cut him off at the pass. My father often warned me about taking new paths which I hadn’t scouted before, sighting that a friend of his was nearly decapitated by a low hanging branch where you had to duck to go under. Of course in my fourteen years of wisdom, I was sure nothing like that could happen to me.

Josh took off down the field towards the edge of the woods where the trail that we usually took started. I still wonder to this day exactly when he noticed that I didn’t follow. At the time, I’m sure, he thought that he left me far behind or that I’d actually given up. I spotted the other trail opening a little ways further down the field on my left and gunned the throttle.

This trail had a shorter maze through the woods, but it came out on a declining slope with thick bushes left and right of me. I was already braking when I realized that this path crossed the highway. The highway wasn’t a heavy traffic area, but depending on the time of day, it still got its share of cars and trucks passing through. I kept trying to stop, but the slope was icy. When I finally did get the sled to stop, I found myself sitting in the middle of the highway with an 18 wheeler heading right for me. I gunned the throttle again, but the sled was having a hard time getting traction. I let off a scream and off the gas a bit and the sled finally took off as the honking rig sped past.

Safely on the other side, I took a second to thank the Lord, and tried to recollect my wits to continue. I was still hoping that despite my little ‘prayer break’, I could make up time and beat Josh. I followed the trail further until it came to the creek. There was a rickety bridge, but it looked like it was safe, so I crossed. At this point I was sure that this path led to the nursery and that it was a shorter path than what Josh was taking because usually I had to go take three paths through the woods before I made it to the creek. I shot out across the open field as fast as my sled could take me. The field looked pretty flat, with only a few shallow dips, so I really didn’t notice the patch of dirt on the field until it was too late. It was a narrow patch, so I gunned my sled and crossed it quickly back to the snow on the other side. It seemed a bit strange to see a patch of dirt in the middle of the field, but it would have taken too long to drive around it, besides, the snowmobile could drive on dirt for short distances without overheating.

Up ahead was another patch of woods that looked vaguely familiar, so I thought I knew where I was and the nursery was just on the other side. The woods were thicker than I had anticipated. In places the sled just barely fit between two trees. The path continued on the spur of the hill, but then made a sharp right turn. I of course missed the turn and drove into a deep snowdrift hill. The sled sputtered out and I spent the next five minutes pulling the ripcord to no avail, only giving up as I realized that the tank was empty. So I started towards the edge of the woods where I was sure I would be able to see Josh waiting at the nursery. Yeah, well, as I’m sure you can imagine that was not the case and I was lost. I lost the race and I lost myself somewhere in the woods. I decided to try and backtrack.

So back to the beginning of my story… Trudging through the snow, cold, numb, wet, and lost.

Suddenly I heard the roar of a snowmobile. I was waving and jumping up and down with new found life. I yelled at the top of my lungs, though I now realize how pointless that was. It was Josh who figured out that I didn’t give up and came looking for me. I was never so happy to see his smirking face. “I saw your sled back there on the path. Trouble?” he asked. “Nah, just ran out of gas, I’ll beat you next time. You just wait and see.” I taunted. Josh just grinned and said “Speaking of beatings, you know your dad’s gonna give you one, when he finds out you ran that sled through cow manure.” 

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Justice (poem)

Justice

The time has come to bring balance back

To a system which seems so out of whack

Where the innocent must rot in jail

We see criminals set free, without bail

Go on to commit more heinous crimes

One need not worry of serving any time

We all can see that something is broke

Go after those they deem not woke

All must demand equality under the law

We must make a stand to end this flaw

The scales have been tipped unfairly

To a point where justice is seen rarely

Now the time has come, I do dare say

To take a stand for the American way

Tales from the Dorkside Episode XI: "Standing on a Beach"

The flight was exhausting, and I wanted nothing more than to just lay down and sleep. I’ve never been one to sleep during flight, especially not when the anticipation was burning a hole through the lining of my stomach. But we were finally on the ground and filing out on to the tarmac. I could see Hoss waiting for us already through the plane window. When I got to the door my senses went nuts. The heat was a huge contrast from the air conditioned aircraft cabin, the roar of the Warthogs accelerating down the runway was deafening, and the midday sun was unbearable even through my Ray-bans.

Sand had swept the runway in several places and the crew had deposited our gear on top of a small dune. Hoss strolled up out of the shaded hanger and said “Welcome to the Bonanza, cowboys. Now grab your kits and let’s get.” Desperately trying to dust the talcum powder-like sand off my duffle and keeping step with my pack was quite a challenge, so I eventually gave up on the former.

Hoss led us past the main hanger where a few rough looking soldiers were playing cards on top of an old 463 aluminum pallet, the webbing was drawn down and a few of the crates had been arranged like seats at a table. Judging by their appearance, I’d have to guess they were Mercs. They sized us up as we passed by and then went back to their game. I had no idea what they were up to. Could have been black-ops, security, or something more. It was above my paygrade and I slept more comfortable at night not knowing.

When we finally got to the command tent, Colonel Cartwright was waiting for us. Actually he only wanted to talk to Hoss and the squad leader, so the rest of us had to take a hike. I knew that my buddy Sancho knew 1SG Robert ‘Hoss’ Roth from a previous assignment. I asked him about the nickname, because he was a string bean and didn’t look like a ‘Hoss’. Sancho explained to me that it was all part of the ‘Bonanza’ joke because Col. Cartwright was actually a rancher from Nevada, like the one played by Lorne Greene in the old T.V. show. And ‘Hoss’ just played along and the name stuck. I understood this all too well, since everybody called me ‘Clark’. Seems that back in Basic, somebody thought I looked like Clark Kent with my BCGs. (AKA - Birth Control Glasses).

Hoss and our squad leader, SGT Scott, finally returned they informed us that we were taking the night flight to one of the local occupied airports. So we sat on the edge of the airfield watching the A-10s roar off for parts unknown as the sun slowly set on the horizon. Somebody handed me  a little bag of chips and a can of Pepsi, the name was written in Arabic, but the logo and color scheme were the same as I knew growing up. I opened the bag and started munching on some chips and near immediately spat them out. I then noticed nobody else was eating the chips, and everybody was laughing. Had I’d been able to read Arabic, I would have known that the chips were ‘Fish Flavored’. I popped open the can of Pepsi only to find myself spitting that out too. It would seem that in a desert where water is scarce that they tended to use a different ratio of water vs. syrup than they do in the States. Feeling a little guilty, Sancho handed me a bottle of water, which I cautiously drank, hoping for no further bad surprises.

We filed up the ramp of the C-130 cargo plane. In the middle of the floor were 2 big airfreight pallets and a half dozen men sitting on either side of them. I recognized them as the men we saw in the first hanger. As we were trying and failing to get comfortable in the web seats on the plane walls, Hoss told us this was a blackout flight and we should don our goggles and to wear our face scarfs because the cargo ramp was not going to be closed completely and it was going to get sandy. He wasn’t kidding either. It felt like we were being hit with a sand blaster. No need to talk to anyone either, because the noise of the engines made any attempt at conversation moot.

What seemed like an eternity was probably only about an hour and a half when we landed on the near dark runway of the occupied airport. Hoss was the first one out the door. I could see a flashlight in the distance blink once, and Hoss returned the message. He then sent use, one at a time, towards the direction where the light had come from. It was good that the distance wasn’t that far, because on a moonless night like this, it was easy to lose your orientation. When I reached our guide, he ushered me towards the door of the airport. It was also pitch dark inside but I could slowly make out the sight of other men sitting on the floor. I heard a few speaking Arabic. I don’t speak the language, so I had no idea what was going on. I started to worry about who they were. Somebody grabbed me and I nearly shat myself, but it was only Sancho. He told me that these were just the airport personnel and that we should join them and try to get some sleep until the trucks pick us up in the morning. I tried, but again sleep did not come easy.

As dawn approached, so did our transport, an old deuce and a half with a cargo cover. We all piled in the back. The Mercs were nowhere in sight, so I figured they must have stayed in the plane with the cargo when it flew off. We veered onto the hardball nearly missing a white Nissan pickup truck with a couple of Arabs in the cab and their wives in the bed. They were cussing and spitting a storm. We passed through a town that apparently saw some action not too long before. The walls of the buildings were riddled with bullet holes and a few burnt out vehicles were still on the side of the road. Other than that the town seemed peaceful. Kids were running behind the truck asking for chocolate. One of my buddies, BigSlater, tossed the kids a few packages of M&Ms from his MREs. Sancho started screaming at the kids to go away. Only then did I realize what kind of danger the kids could have been for us, had they chucked a grenade into the truck or self-detonated an IED. I guess I should have known better. How fast our mission would have ended.

You may be still wondering, reading this story, what exactly our mission was. But as you have probably heard before the cheesy saying “I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you”. I can tell you that our mission was successful and that we all came home safely. And that I never, ever, ever… want to wear MOPP gear in 100° heat.

I hope you've enjoyed this episode of "Tales from the Dorkside".

Be sure to recommend, if you did.

Thank you