May 13th

I had a fitness assessment at 5:30 this morning. In order to be slotted access to Chrysler’s workout arena, one must first sign up for an assessment where they measure the following: pulse, blood pressure, and adeptness at waking up before the sun. I scored high but not exceptional marks on all three, so let’s add some yeast to the subject, cover it with a towel, and come back to it later.

In my rush to leave this morning, I managed to leave behind the most crucial piece of clothing equipment known to the working man: the belt. As, at the time, I was wearing gym shorts and a sporty long-sleeve tee, I failed to care about making sure I had all the necessary business clothing for changing into after my workout. I managed to pack a sharp looking pink shirt, shoes, socks, and pants. God once said “Woe be to all Packers.” I know now what he meant.

Much is to be learned from a man’s belt; the depth of his wallet, the breadth of his waist, and the looseness of his pants. When I wear my best belt, people tell me that I must be rich, healthy, and have baggy pants. When I forget my belt, as is the current case, all they know is that I spend every walking moment with my left hand rapaciously shoved at an awkward and almost grasping angle into my pocket. What a debuckle.

Tim Robbins spent the morning (8-11 AM) basically running through his daily routine (factory task scheduling) and narrating his thoughts to me. I spent the morning (8-11 AM) wondering if Tim Robbins is the name of the actor who was in the Shawshank Redemption. I would just check my intuition against reality by looking at Wikipedia, but, as you all know, interns can’t access the Internet (exception; Chrysler.com.) All this talk of thrilling penitentiary escapes has this jail-bird singin’ songs of a jailbreak.

11:00 AM: It is almost lunch time and I am only now beginning to wake up. I almost fell asleep on Tim twice. For those of you reading this after having translated it to a language besides American, this means I almost fell asleep while he was talking, not that I put my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes. Two sugary granola bars are the only reason I’m still awake. I will likely be eating lunch with my roommate, a young Casanova from Miami. If you were about to be intrigued, may I point out that the Miami I speak of is located in Ohio. The inmate table has, in the past at least, been frequented by only the hungry. We will, however, accept your dying, your injured, your broken. We will not, however, feed them. I may not have mentioned that food is a valuable commodity to a human engaged in the unending mouse race of office Olympics, but it is. I made myself scrambled eggs late last night, and plan to place them on some sliced bread – mercilessly stuffing my maw until my hunger is slaked. Ready, set, feed.

3:00 PM: Amelia Earheart once said “If you can’t beat ‘em, conjoin ‘em.” This likely referenced her early childhood, when she was attached at the chest to her sibling’s ear. But in this statement hides a greater meaning; listen to your heart. Hasten to make friends and never be afraid to freeze your spouse’s access to your bank accounts. I will keep you updated on my splashings in the social networking pool. You will know most of what I do throughout the day. However, I will leave out the moldy details; meetings and lectures and moral conjectures I will file under banal. You should always wipe at the banal.

Scant are the days when plagiarism falls on deaf ears or slinks beneath blind eyes. With that thought I will end with the following, an original thought: “I ain’t need no chips… take some bread ‘doh!”

Time for me to put on my bright yellow backpack, the one I have had since 5th grade with my initials stitched in the side, and scoot. I’m not worried that anyone will notice though, because they will be too busy checking out my lower thighs, where the top of my pants plan to hang out for a while…

May 9th

I spent the latter part of the day on Wednesday constructing the ultimate car-jacking tool. I used a 15” ruler (what a long tool it was!), one large and one small triangle clip, comprised of what seemed to be solid titanium (we’ll call those Black Magicians), one small and one large paper clip, and an industrial strength rubber band. The items were pilfered from various office locations, including the copy room down the hall. Worry not, though, for I used only what I needed; every part of the pig, if you will. It took approximately 30 seconds to open the door with my magic stick. Case closed.

Yesterday was filled with learning and actual responsibilities. I updated the “issues” report for the truck product group, which, I am told, is by far the hardest report to do and should have taken me months to complete. It took me 1.25 hours. I then had the pleasure to disseminate my work to the masses, many of whom already admire me for my Puritan-like work ethic. Within minutes of my sending out the document, I received 5 e-mails asking me what the hell I did to Internet tubes. “What?” I said. The alpha wolf in my section of the office, Sir William Hall, asked me if I was a hacker. How did he know? I work for years and years to become a competent but secretive computer-wrecker, and he figures it out on my third day. I have yet to submit myself to him as a beta wolf though, so there may be a showdown in the office soon. My direct supervisor, Salvador, took over the mass e-mailing, resending the file without hitch. It is fair to say that to everyone in the office, my competence in the arena of malicious file manipulation will never again come into question.

The rest of yesterday involved brain-teasers and shadowy pop-quizzes which managed to keep me on my toes but not throw me off balance. Today is much of the same… Word has it that I may actually get to do some plant scheduling today (which was the ultimate goal, for me to be able to do scheduling when those around me go on vacation.) At this pace, I will be up to speed by approximately next Thursday, and will have successfully managed to master a job that many of my co-workers have been doing for over 10 years. Yeah, I’m technically still on the bunny hill, but those double-black diamonds better watch out, because There Will be Blood. I wonder if we have any factories in Sierra Leone?

Just got out of our first meeting/conference call. It consisted of about 15 people in the room discussing issues across all three platforms (FWD, RWD, and Truckies.) Erica and I had no business being there, but we listened and learned and licked our wounds from the long work week. I’ve got a personal, one-on-one meeting with department the head in about 45 min, so I am preparing for that by checking my company e-mail every few minutes. As my popularity within this private company grows, I expect the rate at which I receive messages to increase from 2 per hour to perhaps 3. It just so happens that 90% of the messages I get say something like “Thad Scarborough will be out of the office from 5/9 until 5/14.” When I read such powerful statements, I can’t help but feel like a King, overlooking his pride from a perch inside a 3-walled cubicle. And by perch I mean I can’t see anything but grey walls and coffee-stained carpet. Something is fishy. Just pay me already!

May 7th

First things first, I had a rough start this morning. I did manage to get here on time, but when I suavely tried to scan my new ID card to get into “employee” parking I was unceremoniously denied. I had to back up, forcing some Jeep owner out of the way while he honked as if I had just murdered his first born. I slid into the visitor parking lot for the 3^rd day in a row, and waited in line at the visitor security check-in only to be told the following, “Get the hell out of the Visitor’s lot.” When I scooted back out to the car and reached for my keys, my keys laughingly jingled at me from the ignition slot. I jammed my arm through the tiny crack in the driver’s side window, but came up short on unlocking the car. The nice ladies at the security desk cut me some slack and let me enter so I wasn’t late for work, but my keys are still in the car. Stay tuned for how I, Summer Vacation Replacement Wesley King, will erase myself out of this painted corner. Hint: it will involve offering my slight-of-forearm co-worker Erica cookies in return for a trip out to the Visitor’s parking lot.

We met with Sal for about an hour this morning, discussing how to pull different reports out of VBASS and use said reports to change daily production numbers for use with a scheduling issues Excel spreadsheet. He commented that, by tomorrow, we might have enough access and mental flexibility to enter some numbers into VBASS without screwing up. Personally, I think it will be a wondrous miracle if we could get one of the aforementioned two prerequisites for data entry accomplished by tomorrow. And, by data entry, I mean that if you screw up, some poor chaps down in Mexico are going to have to work overtime. God knows how much they probably get paid for time-and-a-half.

And now begins the bruising of my forearm, 3.5 hours after the incident… I painfully grabbed a tea packet from the coffee cubicle, but I failed for the 3^rd consecutive day to bring my own cup, so currently I listlessly lick at unwatered tea. I can’t wait to get the promised 175 mg of Protective Antioxidants into my system.

May 6th

Today started out early... 6:00 A.M. wake up time, and I consider myself lucky, as my in-mates will have to awake ever earlier in an attempt to beat me off my high horse. I live only minutes away, while some of them have to drive over an hour. Morning meetings revealed the following: we don’t yet belong to The System. We have access to nothing but our desktop, screen saver settings, and web-based company e-mail. But, fear not, access is pending?

In lighter news, Chrysler today announced a promotion involving freezing gas prices at $2.99 for future customers. But we all know that to freeze gas requires temperatures approaching absolute zero, so I conclude that Hell hath officially frozen over. The “New Deal” lasts for three years beginning on the purchase date of your new car. Upon learning of the promotion, I spent at least 50 minutes checking out the employee discounts on vehicles and lusting after the Jeep Liberty. Apparently, if I sign away my soul for 72 months, I can get a monthly payment of $350. Maybe it is because I have little to no liquid cash, but that just does not sound appealing.

Erica, my closest (by location) in-mate and I got in around 45 minutes with Salvador today, talking about the MDP system and how it applies to the setting of daily standards and how we can use the system to get “actual” numbers and gauge how each plant is performing. Erica has been studying the RUMBA system all day, and I dabbled with it myself this morning. I had an enlightening conversation with my suite-mate John Castiglione (“Cast-ig-lee-oh!-knee”) about the new, cheap, and sub-par ASF system, which is bound to take the company by storm sometime in this decade (it was apparently scheduled to “roll out” in late January, but it is May 6^th and there is no sign of it.) As such, I will wait and get some instruction from Salvador about what exactly Erica and I need to learn before I dedicate my precious time to the antiquated RUMBA system.

I got my picture ID today, and some sexy “deep sea” blue graphics were applied to the plastic surrounding my picture, casting me even further into a foamy sea of uselessness. Then again, I’m 33% sure I am technically a union member, and being useless is a prerequisite for that, right?

‘Bout half an hour left for the day, and that means 30 more minutes of cruising through the Chrysler website looking for free Pistons tickets…