The Last Office Job

I only worked with those women a bit over two years. I was hired as the fill in, to take up slack wherever it was needed. It was a young company that had moved from another city into a new building at our new Industrial Park. We made all kinds of gaskets. The offices were upstairs, with windows looking out over most of the factory floor. The factory supervisors offices, cafeteria and the storage area was below the main offices. Huge presses out on the factory floor reached as high as our viewing windows. It was noisy and everything vibrated with every thunk when one of the presses cut through metal or occasionally cork or other gasket material. Things vibrated around on our desks and it became second nature to move them back into place several times a day. All of that thumping was playing havic with those headaches of mine. (If you haven't read about them, it was posted back in mid March) Eventually that might have forced me to quit the job, but another problem presented itself first.

Gradually, as I became more familiar with the business, I took on the responsibility of reading the blue prints that came in for quotes from our accounts, or prospective accounts. Then I would match the blue prints to our dies and machines and write the orders for the factory to make prototypes to send back with our quotes. (Someone else worked up the quotes.) It was the blueprints that caused my problems. They had probably been copied many times and also sent to other companies for quotes. They were very faded and hard to read. My eye Doctor let me know I was losing almost 10% of my vision every 8 months. After my third change of glasses in two years, it was obvious I had to find different work. Though my doctor couldn't explain why my eyes were reacting this way, I had to think it had something to do with the constant headache.

W and I had been married almost 3 years and hadn't been able to get pregnant. That was quickly solved when I quit work. With the new pregnancy, I dind't even look for another job. Our baby was due in mid June. J.T. was in kindergarden and I was very happy the winter of 1970/71 living in a new house and just being a housewife.