"George Alec Effinger - Relatives" - читать интересную книгу автора (Effinger George Alec)

high stool with an uncomfortable back. Ernest was a fourth-class subassembler, which meant that he was
not rated for soldering work; his toolbox held fewer and less specialized tools than those of the women,
who were for the most part third- and second-class assemblers. Maybe his feelings of inferiority were
imaginary. He didn't know for sure, and he wasn't worried enough to test the situation further. But Ernest
noticed how rarely the women included him in their conversation.
Some days Ernest worked only on front panels. He would take the plates of sheet metal from their
tissue wrappings very carefully, because if he nicked the light green paint on the front the slightest bit, the
panel was ruined. His panels had odd-sized holes punched in them, some with calibration markings
stenciled around their circumferences. In some of the holes Ernest installed control knobs, in some he
merely pushed rubber gaskets or fuses, and in one he put an on-off toggle, which was difficult to tighten
without chipping the paint on the front. Sokol, the nervous foreman, walked around the section checking
how much was wasted by each employee. He carried a blue plastic notebook; several times a day he'd
stand behind each worker and scribble his idea of the person's worth.
When Ernest took his seat at the table, Sokol was already making his rounds, apparently taking an
early attendance check. Sokol stopped by Ernest's stool and made a notation.
"Why are you checking up, Sokol?" asked Ernest. "That's what the timeclocks are for, aren't they?"
"Just making sure, Weinraub. It's my job. Just leave me alone."
Ernest shrugged. "Are they that worried?"
"No, they don't even care," said Sokol. "It's very hard to understand, Weinraub. I can understand it
fine. That's why I'm a foreman."
"Is that why you're a foreman?"
"Yeah. And because I never wised off, either. Once you get real good at that work, if you get real
good, you may get to be a foreman, too. And then you'll find out it's not such a terrific thing."
Ernest snorted skeptically. "What do you do all day? Just walk around and scribble in that notebook,
right?"
"Yeah, that's all. And then I write up reports on everything, and I turn them into the front office, and
the secretaries throw them away."
"I feel real sorry for you."
Sokol slapped his notebook shut and turned away. Ernest stared after him. "Anybody check up on
you, Sokol?" he called.
Sokol stopped and turned again. "Yeah. Kibling does."
"Anybody check up on him?"
"I guess the Assembly Supervisor."
"Where does it end? Old Man Jennings?"
Sokol shook his head sadly. "You won't listen, Weinraub; that's your trouble. It doesn't end. I told
you. It doesn't even begin. Now get to work." The foreman stalked off down the narrow aisle toward his
cubicle of an office.
Before him on the bench Ernest arranged the color-coded socket wrenches to his left, and the
corresponding screwdrivers to his right. He seated the toggle switch in the proper hole, held it with a
wrench, and tightened a hexagonal nut on the back. As the morning passed, he paid less attention to his
work, completing one panel after another efficiently, mechanically. His hands were cut and his fingernails
torn. His day was measured out from clocking-in to coffee break, from break to lunch, from lunch to
afternoon break to clocking-out. Those were the only goals he had; if he worked quickly it was only to
minimize the awful tedium. But the company knew perfectly well that his boredom would begin to work
against that productivity. All that it could devise to alleviate the monotony was piped-in music.
Ernest found that even worse. He sat huddled over his work, protecting his tiny area from the
innocent glances of the women and the omniscient gaze of the foreman. Ernest defined the others by their
functions -- not even limiting them to as human a thing as a name on a timecard. There was the heavy
black woman who picked up the stack of front panels he completed. There was the old lady next to him
who soldered complex balls of electronic components, turning out those delicate webs with mindless