T206 questions...

[steve B]

I worked for them for a bit over two years while in Highschool. But before any one dismisses that, they had high but reasonable standards for us. They cross trained nearly everyone, including the highschool help. That way of someone was out sick or hurt or something and there was a real need for particular work they were covered. If you weren't full time at a particular job they expected quality but maybe not speed. And the Highschool kids like myself got a bit of a pass on arriving late as long as it wasn't abused. I was part time during school, full time during summer.

Over the two years I spent some small ammount of time in almost every department. I didn't do sales, or run the papercutter.

But I did do a bit in the camera room, platemaking, The Stripping department Not that kind, the kind where you arrange the negative on the mask so the plate can be made. A good deal of time in the bindery with folders, gatherer/stitchers, 3 hole drill for stuff eventually going into a binder, round corner cutter (which was actually from 1910 or so and one of my favorites) Shrink wrapper.....Some time doing both shipping and recieving,
And my last week, one of the press operators got hurt so I ran the press with instruction. He'd been injured before and the injury wasn't work related event hough it happened at work -After hours, at the beer party for a full time guy who was leaving a week before I was - Good news , a week running the 35 inch Heidelberg . Bad news - No beer party for me.

The paper cutters were in the bindery which was my area to be responsible for. Some would view it as only cleaning up, but they made sure we knew that without the cleaning, the other work would be less safe, and slower, both of which would lead to poor quality work. It gave us all a very real sense of every job mattering in getting the work done quickly and correctly.

While I was there they did a lot of stuff for MIT and the government. I still have a few things somewhere. The most impressive were some air force recruiting book covers. Which were more poster than book cover. Glossy pic of a fighter plane around 14x20 and really fussy for registration. A very fine screen, and if it was slightly off the colors would be all wrong. There was one older guy who got all those type jobs, His registration was always exactly right.
My first day on the press they said they'd be happy if I got the first job setup an running by the end of the day. They were really happy to see it up and running before noon, and I got 3 of the 4 colors done by quitting time. By the end of the week I was only marginally slower than anyone else and still getting it right. So a great week for them and for me

Jake who is running it now was around once in a while. Being maybe 13-14 he did some cleaning in the office. Yeah, EVERYONE started at the bottom and ended up doing everything.

Steve B