Gambling Man

For the past two days our operations manager has been out on business and was foolish smart enough to leave me in charge on the shop floor.

Wouldn’t you know, yesterday afternoon our big revenue unit for the month which has been going through our test department suddenly tripped on an unexpected fault. The masses began scrambling. We had to get a replacement part into the equipment immediately so that we could retest the machine before the container came to pick it up.

We did what we could yesterday, but today was the real day of action. It started at 7am as I raced around the shop floor orchestrating a massive rescue attempt. Our workers responded and by 11:00am we had 7 people working on different sections all at once. It was a great testimony to our company’s ability to rally together. Still, there was a lot to do.

At 1:30pm I was called into a meeting with our president, vice president, and financial controller. They asked me when we’d be able to pull the equipment into test. Always the optimist, I said it’d be in by 4pm. They laughed.

“Wanna bet?” The president retorted.
“I’d put some money down, sure.”
“five dollars.”
“ten.”
“deal.”

I kicked it into full gear. I headed out to the floor and helped tighten bolts and collect needed components. Things were coming together with incredible speed. Come 3:30 we still had a few pieces left to assemble but it was mostly together. At 3:45 I sent one of the guys off to get the fork lift to bring this monster into the test department. At 3:55 we started moving it.

Time was ticking away. We turned the first corner. 3:56. We rolled around the second corner navigating between some large containers. 3:58. I watched in eager anticipation as the wheels on the fork truck inched the equipment around the last corner towards the final straightaway. I walked ahead and opened the test department’s large gate.

Suddenly I heard the test department’s bell blare three times. I turned to see the President grinning. The equipment rolled into test at 4:01pm.

One minute. One lousy minute late.

Darn it.

One thought on “Gambling Man

  • 2/22/2010 at 9:42 pm
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    I love this story! Good one, mr company president, good one.

    Reply

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