This is the skull I bought for the sale of “Jolene”; it’s heat-treated agate, in the same colours as the titular pickup truck, and I think it looks rather like Fordite.….well, that’s all you need to know! I’m super chuffed. If you’re a BSFA member and you liked the story (it’s the one about the country singer whose wife, dog and truck have all left him, and you can read it in Interzone 283), then do please vote for it at this link.
Another day, another format! Driving Ambition is now available as an audiobook. You can listen to it here.
My latest academic article, “‘National culture’ as an integrating agent in the post-acquisition organisation” is now available online in advance of publication in International Journal of Human Resource Management.
You can read it at the link here.
Want to read an SF mystery about murder, labour relations and self-driving cars? Now you can do it cheaper. Catch Bundoran Press’ sale, and get a trade paperback of Driving Ambition for less!
Continued from last episode…
Our guide for the tour of Body In White, the area where the unpainted car is assembled, is Tommy. He explains that he used to work there for 20 years and only retired recently. Throughout the tour, staff keep coming up to him and shaking his hand or hugging him and wanting to chat. Tommy’s delivery is not the greatest, but the robots are fascinating to watch; they remind me of animatronic dinosaurs (same technology powers both, I’m sure), and I keep expecting one to bend over for a closer look at me. I mostly see men in the BIW shop, with one White and stout woman. They wear jeans rather than metal-free trousers, but then I suppose chipping the paint isn’t an issue here.
On the way to the Assembly area, one of the young German women takes over to talk about Paint, which she says we can’t go into “because of the dust”; she doesn’t elaborate, which must puzzle most people on the tour (having interviewed people in the Paint Shop before, I know that special measures are taken to keep the area free of airborne substances that might cause the paint to be uneven). Her command of English is poor, she is mostly reading from a prepared script which she doesn’t seem to totally understand. To top it off the microphone she is using isn’t built for outdoor use and reception is faulty; she tries twice and then we walk to Assembly in silence. I feel very sorry for her, and throughout the rest of the tour I see the other guides giving her hugs and pep-talks.
In Assembly, Jim takes over. His delivery is more fluid and humourous than Tommy’s; he keeps talking about how the right component is always delivered for the right model of car, “always, always, no, honestly it is.” He also salts in little jokes—most of which revolve around getting the wrong components on the wrong car model– and bits of trivia, like pointing out that the wheels of one car are reflective: “that’s to NASCAR standards, North American System car. So if I saw one of those with a right-hand drive, I’d be suspicious.” He too is greeted by a lot of the people on the line, patted on the back, hugged, and so forth. Small pickups are driving back and forth up and down the lines, bringing components and people at speed. Blue Shift appear to be the ones online today. Tommy asks me if I know which shift I’m on yet, so I tell him. At 3:15, a small pickup truck drives through honking and a cheer plus catcalls go up on the line: John says that this is the one-hour-till-shift-change signal. We are in perpetual danger of being run down by the small pickups.
On the way back Pris asks what I thought. I said I thought it looked OK. “I’m less afraid now, there wasn’t anything there I couldn’t see myself doing,” she says. I say that I wouldn’t want to be the one on the last station, a petrol pump where a small amount of petrol is dispensed into the vehicles as they come off the line. “Oh no, you’d be standing there all day with a silly grin,” she says.
Back at the info centre, we discover that not only is the place locked, but the person with the key has disappeared. The German lady rushes off to find them; Mike suggests that those who want to smoke do so, but Pris says “My cigarettes are in the building!” She bums one off Saeed, and says “Lesson number one, always keep your cigarettes with you.” Finally a harassed-looking administrator turns up in a pickup with the key and lets us in. I get my bag, drop my stuff and go.
After the presentations, we are taken to a big building near the carpark, and introduced to Pete, a man with glasses and a goatee. He tells us to put on lab coats, and gives us battery sets with earphones and safety glasses. I ask if I can leave the tour early, as I’d already done the tour with my supervisor the previous month, and he says no. He tells us to wait in the area beyond until the tour guides arrive. This is a wide space with tables and chairs at one end, and two displays on the wall; one is of the history of the Car Factory and the other is of its current operations. The operational one emphasises the modernity of the proceedings and the ergonomics and general comfort of the staff. I’m starting to feel a bit like a battery-farmed hen. Joining us are two Black women and an Asian man.
I strike up a conversation with the hawk-nosed man. He is called Saeed and was born in the Middle East, but his parents are East African. He has been in this town for 16 years and is studying in London part-time. I also talk with the Asian man; he and the two women have just started in Paint.
After about a fifteen minute wait we are herded into an auditorium at the back of the room behind black partitions by two older English men and two young German women. We are told to fill up the front row first, then the next one. There is an LCD screen, currently displaying the error message that the computer is locked. One young woman tries to unlock it for several minutes, then someone is dispatched to find an administrator. An older man stands up in front and introduces himself as Jim; he says that this is a new tour which they are going to be giving to other people, starting with a vintage car club on the weekend; we are the guinea pigs. He suggests to the girls that we start with the video. He passes around sticky tape for people to cover their rings with.
The video is about 8 minutes long and appears to have been translated from the German, without much fluidity. There are cumbersome phrases along the lines of “High Performance Stylings” which would no doubt have sounded better in the original. It shows us montages of cars, a potted history of the company, and an overview of all the major Car Factories worldwide, with an emphasis on the Western ones. There is some branding: the car this Factory produces is cool, chic and sassy. Apparently.
After the video, there is another struggle to unlock the computer; the administrator herself tries and fails. The first woman is then dispatched up to the podium with a sheaf of notes. She gives us a talk about the company (most of which was already covered in the video), its productivity, its worldwide focus. This is obviously aimed at investors rather than at the likes of us. At the end of the talk we are informed that the two older men, Jim and Tommy, will be showing us around the Body in White and Assembly plants, while one of the women will tell us about Paint as we walk by it.
Continued next episode…
