Throwback Thursday- Life in a Car Factory with a Muscle Disability

I worked in a car factory from 27 to 32 years of age . It was a stamping plant- meaning we took sheet metal,  cut it into parts and then finished the part, (sub-assembly) so it was ready for assembly at the next factory. I was in the first group of women (late 70’s) to work there so I got a ” good job for the ladies.” The job was to  1. fill a box with bolts- 2. carry it to my station where an entire car floor (the floorpan) would appear (somewhat like a vertical toaster popping up the toast) – 3.  put my hands deep into the machinery – 4.  lay some bolts at various points on the floorpan-  5. turn and pick up a rocker ( long strips of metal)- 6. drop rocker over bolts- 7. repeat until bolts are all covered – 8. reach up with both hands -9. push 2 buttons to lower this huge assembly onto the floorpan and 10. accept smoke in face and throughout space as the machinery created welds at each place where the bolts and rockers were. Then the line moved and we repeated- on my feet- 8 to 12 hours a day, five to seven days a week. Well, although this was one of the “easiest jobs” in the factory I knew the job would kill me so I looked around.

The most macho job in the plant was final packing of the completed doors.  The job in the union contract was written for 4 “men” to pack the fully created doors. As the doors  came around a final bend in this sub-assembly line,  There were 2 rail tracks with open rail cars designed specifically to hold the doors. The wide part of the door fit into the first slot on the left and the second slot accepted the wide part of the door on the right.  There were, I think 40-50 doors per car.   The doors rode over the rail cars and the “men” pulled the doors into the rail car but the union contract had them standing alongside the cars-so each man packed one of every four doors and the two men standing on the right of their rail car had to turn the door upside down to fit. This is boring job and hard on the back so someone realized that if one person got into the railcar- they could pack a car alone.  Therefore, by working alone, but rotating the job among the 4,  they only had to work one hour of every 4 hours.  So the thinking was you had to be strong and coordinated because you had to be able to climb out of one car into the next while moving the rail car ahead but not letting any doors pass you and drop off the end of the line to their ruin.

As counter-intuitive as it might have seemed to others. and as ugly as the men got toward me,  I knew this would be the only job I would be able to do. And the men did get ugly- there was a final control of the rail cars to push them out to rail traffic and they would use it to jiggle or move the rail car ahead so I would bump into the line.  My toes, which had  many doors dropped on them for that reason, have never recovered.  In fact, I could have literally lost my head if I had gone under the line.

I did not have a diagnosis at that time but my intuition  was correct.  Years later, I learned I have a rare genetic muscle disorder, McArdle’s Disease or GSD Type 5 where I can not use the glycogen in my muscles.  This means that I am not able to do the anaerobic work  others take for granted.  The lifting, squatting, standing of the first job really was harder for me than the macho -twirl the door in the air and hop into the next rail car -job because I was able to use my aerobic pathways to do that work- then I got a nice break before  another go round,  and then  punch out time.  It was definitely hard and it took quite a while till I did the job as easily as the men ( ok, i never got there) but I got stronger and I did it. Only one other female joined me on that job.  She did not have as tough a time with the co-workers because her father was a foreman in the plant and she was an accomplished athlete- incredibly strong from riding competition and baling hay and mucking stalls for her horses.

This taught me the lesson that

NOT EVERY ONE CAN DO EVERY THING NO MATTER HOW HARD THEY TRY BUT IF YOU PAY ATTENTION YOU MAY FIND A WAY THROUGH THAT FITS YOU.

This was a hard job.  Cars were steel not plastic as they are now.  They were  made by human sweat not robots. This was a dangerous job. I recently updated my OSHA safety certificate.  My instructor was horrified by  all the jobs I told him about in that plant.  But, this was a job that paid 2 1/2 times my previous job with some control, some autonomy, and lots of overtime perks, because of a strong union contract.  There is less stress in your life even in a stress filled workplace when you know what you are doing, you know it is important to the economy, and you are paid a  decent salary. Yeah, those were the days.