The tiny metal trucks came down the conveyor belt at an alarming rate. My job was to press the tiny axles with two tiny rubber wheels into the slots on each end of the toy trucks. At eighteen years old-straight out of the green fields of Arkansas to the hustle and bustle city of Rockford, Illinois-I was working my first ever factory job. In terror I watched the little toy trucks pile up and fall to the floor faster than I could assemble the wheels.
I was sweating bullets (if it's proper for a lady to sweat) by the time the line foreman walked over to see what was holding up the line. Nervous to the point of vomiting, I quietly stammered a reply to his shouted question, "Can't you keep up!?"
My first day-actually, my first hour-on the job and I was going to be fired. Tears ran down my cheeks as I awaited the blow of the ‘axe'. It never came. Instead of firing me, he brought another girl from farther down the line to help me catch up. She then taught me how to quickly clip the little axles on without missing a beat. After an hour or so I got the hang of it and managed to keep the line from bogging down. I felt as though I had just earned a reprieve from the Gestapo; so green was I in the ways of the working world.
That was my first job after having graduated high school and leaving home to make my first million-which by the way, I'm still working on after a mere forty four years-but hey, who's counting. One month into that job, I was given the opportunity to go to work for a union company that was hiring women for the first time and would have to pay the women equal wages to the men. And so I became a press operator in the late sixties. This was before the advent of OSHA-or at least in this particular company. I ran a press (to the uninformed, this is a machine that presses forms out of metal) that was so huge that a hole had been made in the ceiling of the building to accommodate its height-and the ceiling itself was very high already. It was like two floors in a normal building.
Old, very old, is the only way to describe this and all the other machines in this particular factory. The press was operated by a huge lever that came up from the bottom of the machine and I would have to push it forward to make the ram go up and pull it backward for the ram to come down after I had placed a three foot by three foot sheet of metal onto the die that would form the shape of the metal. When the machine was in operation, it vibrated the whole building on its thick concrete foundation. One day the machine was vibrating so badly that it vibrated the lever from the up position so that the ram came down while my hand was still in the machine removing the formed metal. The huge top portion of the die came down and settled snuggly against the bottom portion. In shock and horror I stared at my four fingers and one thumb-all still there and all still complete.
My glove however, hung from between the two dies by the fingertips. I almost fainted with relief! Not one to be faint of heart I continued working for this company for over seven years-I had found my niche; machinery. I discovered that I was extremely mechanically inclined and learned to operate most of the equipment there.
Suddenly the company closed its doors and moved to a southern state that did not have a union and wages could be dropped considerably. My only thought now was: ‘here I am without a job; whatever am I going to do?' I had yet to realize this was the happening that changed my world.
From Rockford, Illinois I moved to Dallas, Texas and went to work for an alternative power supply company. They built backup battery supply units for computers and I was lucky enough to get in on the ground floor of their first CNC machine. My quality control workstation was situated right beside the new machine and I watched with interest as the engineer set the machine up for the first time and commenced his own learning agenda to program and operate the machine by trial and error. I was fascinated and soon became involved with helping him program, setup, and operate the machine in my spare time-I spent all my lunches and breaks looking over his shoulder. And so it happened; the supervisor of the machining department asked me if I would be interested in learning to operate the machine. Initially I said yes, but as the weeks went by, I grew bored with just watching the machine run. So when I was asked again if I wanted to run the machine, I told them no, but I would be interested in learning to write programs for it. That was really the part that interested me the most-the computer programs that made the machine do the moves that created the completed product.
That was my entrance into the fascinating world of Computer Numerical Control. It may or may not have been true, but I was told that I was the first woman to do that type of work and I loved every minute of it. The engineer taught me the code that I typed into a computer, which ultimately punched holes in a long strip of mylar or paper tape. From that machine, I went to programming some new ‘pick and placement' machines that were bought by the company to insert IC chips into printed circuit boards. These machines were also totally operated by computer programming. I was sent from Texas to California to learn the programming for this equipment. This was an exciting adventure for a young Arkansas hillbilly that had hardly ever left home and had never been on an airplane before in her life. I was in seventh heaven!
From that company I went to work for a much bigger electronics firm in Garland, Texas where I learned to program Lathes, Mills, punch presses, drill presses, welders and more ‘pick and placement' equipment. I made several more trips to California, Arizona, and Pennsylvania learning the varied programming techniques for their equipment. At this company I learned to create the programs totally by computer and send them over the wires to the equipment on the floor. No longer did I have to punch tapes or cards and carry them out to the different departments. My job became easier as it became more sophisticated. The computer equipment that was built at this firm was placed in fighter jets like the Wild Weasel and others and also tanks and ships.
After five years I left this job and moved back home to Arkansas where I went to work again as a CNC programmer for a commercial crop sprayer manufacturer. Here I learned about even more new equipment. There were the usual computer controlled lathes, shears, press brakes, and mills, but this company brought in a huge punch press that also had a plasma torch that could cut any shape you could draw up on a computer-I actually drew an outline shape of Arkansas with an X to mark the spot for Jonesboro and the machine cut it out perfectly in a piece of stainless steel (I still have it today). They also brought in a CNC grinder.
This company was very modern in their programming techniques-they used large Bravo 3 computers that could do almost any type of program with very little effort from the programmer. I drew a picture, selected the tool to be used and it whizzed around the part making perfectly shaped squares, angles, circles, and curlicues. I made several trips to Detroit, Michigan to learn the programming for this equipment and got to make a few visits into Canada just to say I had been there.
Training on the grinder was not only complicated but also terrifying. A man from the grinder manufacturer was brought into our plant to train an engineer an operator, our maintenance man, and myself. One day he put a part in the machine and apparently didn't get it chucked down properly. As soon as the huge grinding wheel touched the part, the part came flying out of the chuck, crashed through the safety glass, and slammed into the wall between the operator and me. It left a deep indentation in the metal wall and all of us who were watching with a few extra gray hairs!
CNC programming can be a very stressful occupation. You continually worry about making one tiny error that may send an operator to the hospital-or worse. The equipment can be very dangerous if not programmed and operated properly. After sixteen years the stress took its toll and I opted out. There may be more women doing the work now and it may no longer be a man's world, but I decided I preferred to leave that world to the men-and any women who find the work as fascinating as I did all those years ago when I was young and curious.
Sandra E. Graham, author, AMOS JAKEY and NICOLINApublished by American Book Publishing. Visit my website for more info into my writings.
» left by nancy green from Jonesboro, ar. (131 days 9 hours ago.)
yes this article helped me rethink how dangerous some jobs are for women. I had never considered the technology behind the computer I barely know how to open to check emails. Thanks for the information. I do know how hard and long women can work right alongside me as I used to landscape . Boy , after awhile I knew I had to give it up as well.Good article.
Thanks for reading and commenting , Nancy. For many years I loved the work I was doing, but I think some people just finally 'burn-out' and have to move on to something different. Writing was always my first love, but I had to make a living and writing doesn't always work well for newcomers.
That's a fact---and I am sure we are all the more stronger for it. Thanks for reading and commenting. Oh, and by the way---have a great day at work tomorrow.
Thank you, Robert. I'm glad you enjoyed the article. I hope I didn't offend anyone by my use of the phrase 'a man's world'. Thanks for reading and commenting.
Thank you, Sue. Yes, I was determined and eager to learn---I just wasn't ambitious enough--thus the comment...."still working on my first million after 40 plus years".
This is a vivid, and slightly technical description of a work history, given a terse yet languid treatment. I think that additional points should be scored for this article being written from a logical perspective, given that it is this entertaining documentation of someone's career.
Thanks for Reading and commenting, Angie. I wasn't sure how interesting this article would be--to men or women. And you are right, it is more or less just a documentation of someone's (mine) career. I only wish that it had been a career about writing. I still regret not starting sooner; writing down the things that whirl around in my head.
Sandra, you are full of surprises. I read this with my mouth hanging open...really. And what an interesting thing to learn! I felt that I was running through the account with you, much like the hurrying I imagine on a plant/machinery floor. It was quite a ride. The scariest part was when your hand escaped injury. I can only imagine your programming job on which so much depended.
Thanks, Jane. I'm glad you enjoyed the article. I didn't much care for the oily, hard work that was involved in most factory work, but I had to start somewhere and like most, it's at the bottom. Working my way up was fun, exciting, and always interesting---and yes, sometimes scary.
Hi Sandra, Your article brought back a few memories of time spent with a computer that took up the entire side of a building. My job was to type on the keys that made the litttle holes in the cards that the computer read. It was very intimidating to the 16 year old me who was doing it. Thank goodness for progress and delete keys. No such thing back then, and fear of getting it wrong and costing the company money - or getting fired - was a biggie. Thanks for the reminder of how easy we have it now. You did a great job of writing about it.
Thanks for reading and commenting, Patricia. It is always nice to do something that not many people can do; especially when you are young and just starting out. After the newness wares off, though, it gets boring and you are ready to move on to something else new and different. That's what makes life interesting.
Many young people would do good to read this article. Life is tough and without an education it will get even tougher. Learning anything you can about what goes on at your place of employment will also further your career.
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