Chapter 23A

We went to see the Cubs beat the Mets Friday afternoon. Dennis Eckersley was the starting and winning pitcher for the Cubs. It was their third win in a row, but they were still seven and a half games out of first place in their division. The game ended 2-1, and it wasn't as exciting as some other ones I'd seen on television, except that I was there in Wrigley Field watching this one.

We had gotten over to the Tanner plant before eight o'clock. It was a lot smaller than I had thought it would be. There were six people other than the Tanners that were working. Three were operating machines to stamp or cut out different parts for the machines, and the other three were busy cutting steel rods and snipping sheet metal. David told us they made all of the component parts for ten machines first, then they assembled and stored these, before starting in on another ten. They made one product, the machine that we used. They had been in business for twenty five years. Mr. Tanner had started the company with his brother, but the brother had died of cancer about ten years before. Since then, Mr. Tanner only made this one design. Before, Jim's brother used to make several different designs. Making each machine the way they were, it took a whole week to make ten machines. It looked to me like no one was working very hard or fast. Mr. Tanner and David would supervise every step of the process, inspecting each finished component before placing them in storage bins for later assembly.

My father told me that almost everything they were doing could have been automated. Later, Jim and David cleared a space towards the storage bins and assembled a machine for us. It took the two of them an hour to put one machine completely together. Watching the two of them working together, was like watching a complicated dance. It was incredible. When they were done, I felt like clapping, that was how good they were. There was no wasted motion, and they made subtle improvements as they went along, shaving an edge here, or shortening a spring loaded clip there. When they were done, they filled the machine with bags of product, testing each button and lever, making further adjustments as needed.

When they were done, Craig and Glenn, two of their other workers, came over and did the same thing that David and his father had done. They worked together just as well as the other duo had, and their machine was assembled and tested in about one hour also. After those demonstrations, Jim and David, and the four of us from Ridgeline, went out to an early lunch together.

"Jim, that final assembly you do is simply amazing. I've never seen two people work together so well before." Dad was really excited, and you could tell he was, just from the sound of his voice. He was quickly echoed by Mama, Uncle Bunny, and me. "I'm sure it's that terrific assembly process, and those final fittings, and adjustments of everything that account for the superiority of your machines. You makes sure that everything fits together so evenly and precisely. You do it so quickly too. How much do you pay your workers?" Jim looked concerned at first when Dad asked him that question. It was one thing to show someone how you did your assembly, it was another thing entirely to discuss your internal workings. Jim already knew that my father was looking to get an awful lot of new vending machines. He would have been foolish not to suspect Dad of thinking about doing the manufacturing himself.

"Labor costs account for about forty per cent of our building costs. Parts and machinery another forty per cent, and fixed overhead accounts for the rest. We don't have the mark up that we need to grow."

"How long have Craig and Glenn worked for you?"

"Craig has been here about nine years. Glenn for about a year. He's just getting to the point where he can carry his share of the build out load. The rest of them are just as good. All of them were trained by either David, Craig or myself. Craig is my son in law, married to Nell, my youngest."

"You can train people to assemble your machines like that in a year?"

"Some less, some a little bit longer. More than half the people we try, they don't work out. You need to have the ability to move quickly, and to use the free time to go bring the next parts needed. You have to be able to look at something and see where it has to be cut, bent or smoothed so that it's a good fit. Not everyone can focus or concentrate for an hour at a time, like they'd need to with our type of assembly process. When we train someone new, it takes three hours to assemble a machine. We like for it to take one hour, start to finish."

"Why don't you buy your parts cut or bent to your specs? Nothing that I saw needs to be custom cut or bent."

"You're thinking we could spend our whole day doing nothing but assembling? Can't be done. David and I can assemble three a day if we have to, but at the end of that day, we're both pretty fagged out. David says each assembly is like taking a final test was, back when he was at school. The first one is okay, but after the second, you really feel wrung out. After three, you can barely stand to walk anymore, and you're going to have a headache. That's the reason we can't make more than about ten machines a week. We find that two assemblies per man, per week, works out about best."

"Most of the really challenging work seems to be with the internal workings. Why not train someone to build the frames for you so that you can finish up the internal workings? The coin mechanism seems standard enough to install too. The artistry is in fitting all those internals so that they work perfectly." I noticed that David was nodding in agreement with what Dad was saying. Jim was noticing that too, and he didn't look happy about it.

"Tom, we've been doing this for twenty five years. We already know what we need to do before we'll put out a machine with our name on it. We handle every single part that goes into one of our machines. David thinks money is the cure, and it would be if all I wanted to do was turn out a bunch of crap, like the big vending guys do. Some of the first machines we ever built are operating in places, even today. They're just as good today as they were when we first put them out there."

"Jim, I still need two thousand machines a year from you. You need to find a way to build them, while still maintaining their quality and reliability." Dad was looking at Jim and David both when he spoke. That was when Mama spoke up.

"Jim, could you do seven hundred machines a year if you had to train four new people at the same time. People to replace David and Craig and two other workers?" Mama was smiling at Jim when she asked him.

"Hell no, and I wouldn't even try to. We don't need to, all of us are getting by right now, just the way things are." Jim answered her question like she had insulted him. He was starting to get defensive. I guess he thought none of us understood English. He kept telling us no whenever we asked him for any changes at all.

"David, if you had your own shop, just like your Dad's, but you had to get started with only one trained guy and four new ones, how long before you could turn out seven hundred machines a year? Machines as good as what you now make."

"He couldn't, and I wouldn't allow it if he could. This is my company, my design, and I'm the one who makes those kinds of decisions. I say no, we can't, and we won't. I'm sorry, but you people refuse to listen to what I'm telling you. You want two thousand machines a year, you can just go somewhere else with your business. That's my final word on it." Jim got up and walked out of the restaurant. David stayed. Jim looked back once, then shook his head, and left.

"That's what Craig and I have been putting up with for years. He's the most close minded man I ever met. There's only one way to do things, and that's his way. I'm thirty two years old, I'm married and have two little ones. Craig and Nell have three kids. All of us are just scraping by, just because he won't let us do anything different than what he and Uncle Leon started out doing. There have been a lot of changes over the years in fabrication, but not at our shop. He still hates it when I use my power screw driver and the power drills and sockets. It used to take us two hours to put a rack together, but now it's an hour. That stuff he was telling you about not being able to assemble more than one a day, that's his weakness, not ours. Craig and I can both assemble four a day if we had to.

"Dad gets headaches, and he gets tired. He's sixty one years old, and he only assembles, at most, once a week, and that's the only real exercise he gets. To answer your question, if I had Ricky, and four new guys, I could probably put out seven hundred my first year. I'd set the new guys to doing the easy parts, and Ricky and I would do the tricky stuff. Craig and Glenn could do the same if they had four new guys. We could train the new guys in the more complicated assembly as we went along. Craig brought Glenn along just that way, after my Dad said he was going to fire him. Glenn is a good man, but he has trouble sometimes absorbing new things. Craig trained him a little bit at a time, but made him work extra to make up for being slow to catch on. It never slowed us down, not once."

"I'm not going to go around your father, David. We want his machines and his design, but we aren't thieves. You'll need to work on him, and let him know you still want it to be a family business. This is a good opportunity for all of us. If you can convince him to expand to make two thousand machines a year for us, we'll arrange the financing for new machinery, and we'll guarantee things with your suppliers. You can keep sole ownership of the company, we just want those machines."

I noticed that both Mama and Uncle Bunny looked a little uneasy with the way Dad told David he didn't want any ownership in the company. I had heard Mama talking about how much better it would be if we owned the vending machine building company too. I think Dad was bowing to Jim's not wanting partners, and the fact that the company was really only the people working at it. The Tanner's had developed a system that made each machine fit smoothly to all of the parts that were in it. Each part was made to fit well with all the other individual parts. That was their only secret or advantage. Their machines worked better because each one was altered, as needed, so that it was as good as it could be.

"Mr. Parsons, I'm sorry about how Dad acted. I don't think Nell or Craig or I can change his mind though. This is how he's always been. Craig and I have designed and built prototypes of our own ideas. We have three designs that we think are big improvements on Dad's design. One of them is the same size as Dad's, but it has four extra slots for products, and a quarter gum dispenser built on the side of it. We have a small shop set up in Craig's garage, if you'd like to take a look at them. Craig and I have been talking for several years about going off on our own. We're both tired of having to fight with him every time we want to try something that's a little bit different."

Dad set up a time on Saturday to come by and look at Craig and David's machines. After we gave David a ride back to the Tanner shop, we drove over to our hotel rooms. We had two suites at our hotel, and it was just across from the Lincoln Park Zoo. The hotel was older, but everything was nice, and Mama said it was one of her favorite hotels, from back when she was a little girl. I decided I'd take the other bedroom in Uncle Bunny's suite. I asked him first, and he said that would be fine with him. I noticed Mama smiling when I told her I'd be sleeping in Uncle Bunny's suite. From the room, you could see Lake Michigan and the Zoo.

We had an early dinner at an Italian restaurant over on West Webster Avenue. I had the chicken cacciatore with polenta, which was excellent. Dad and Uncle Bunny both had something called Steak O'fame, and Mama had a nice salad and a Giambotta with beef tenderloin. Dad and I helped her with part of it, since it was too much for her. They had great bread in that restaurant too. By the time we got to Wrigley Field, all of us were stuffed. I saw Ryne Sandberg and Ron Cey talking together about twenty feet in front of me. They were laughing about something. Leon Durham was a lot bigger than I thought he would be. Dennis Eckersley looked like every single pitch was important to him. I could see his face every time he got someone out. He took the whole game personally.

Saturday, we went to the address David had given us. We met Nell and her three kids. In the garage, we spent two hours looking over the three working prototypes that Craig and David had designed and built. Only one of the machines was big enough for what we were doing at Mr. Lucas's company. This one had everything Mr. Tanner's had, and more. The one drawback was the price, over six hundred dollars. David told us he could deliver it for five hundred and thirty though, without the gum vending device attached. After fifteen minutes, Mama went back in the house and visited with Nell and her children. I thought that was rather strange, since Mama was so excited about David's invitation the day before. We had barely gotten to the part where David and Craig were dismantling everything, to show us the innards, when she just left us there, going back inside the house. Later in the day, we found out that she was on a fact finding mission of her own.

After the tour, Dad and the rest of us drove over to Jim's house. David, and Craig followed in Craig's car. Mr. Tanner seemed surprised to see all of us again. I guess he thought we'd be leaving him pretty much alone after the blow up in the restaurant the day before. All six of us were standing out on the porch for ten minutes before Jim opened the door and allowed us to come inside. David got things started by telling his father that he and Craig had shown us their own prototypes.

"Well, I knew you guys would do that. I can't stop you from chasing after your foolishness, but I've already told both of you that I won't let you use my shop to build them. My design, and Leon's, has stood the test of time. Who knows the problems your design might have? It's never been tested in actual use anywhere. These get rich quick schemes you two keep trying to come up with, they don't work Dave. Craig, I'm surprised you keep letting him talk you into these things."

"Pop, we're both serious this time. We've both had enough of trying to scratch out a living your way. It isn't like it was when you and Uncle Leon were just getting started. I can't feed my family on what I'm making."

"Both you boys make the same as I do, Dave. I make out just fine on it. You should be able to too."

"Pop, I didn't get a chance to buy my house when they only cost ten thousand dollars like you did. Twenty thousand a year isn't enough for either of us, not with a wife and kids and a mortgage to worry about. Every year we pay the banks more in interest than the three of us take home. We keep busting our asses, and the banks and suppliers are the only ones getting ahead. I can make more taking a factory job somewhere else."

"Then do it! I'm not begging you to stay. You're free, white and twenty one, Dave. Do whatever the hell you want to. Just don't come crawling back to me with your tail between your legs when they lay you off or close down your factory job and you can't pay your house payments anymore."

"Jim, why do you always have to believe the worst is going to happen? You've seen our prototypes, and you know damn well that they're as good as your machines, and probably a damn sight better. Every time we try to get you to listen to us, you go back to warning us about how we'll both wind up out on the street, without food for our families. I'm like Dave, I'm sick of working so hard with nothing to show for it. These people came to you and offered you everything we'd need to get ourselves out of the hole we're all dug into, and you just turned your back on their offer. You never even checked with what Dave and I might want." This was Craig speaking, and as he talked, a lot of his frustration came to the surface. He was angry. This had apparently been building up between all of them for a long time. Our arrival had just forced it to the surface.