Day Eleven: Buffing, buffing all day long!

Eight hours straight (with breaks) is a lot to be doing one thing. I now understand what factory workers have to deal with, and it's not a job I want to be doing.

Luckily, today was the last day for a while that I'll be having to buff all day long. However, there is the fact that I will spend four straight weeks doing this during my training at some point. I just hope that point doesn't come soon.

I tend to wear through a lot of gloves while buffing. It's actually pretty amazing how hot the metal gets under the wheel. Enough to burn through two layers of cloth gloves. Hot, hot, hot!

The smell of the buffing wheel is almost like crayons with a little bit of margarine. The stuff is made out of animal fat and wax, after all. The wheel is powerful. Enough to rip pieces out of your hand and fling them across the room or, worse, send them flying into the big vacuum sucky thingie that sucks in all the fibers flying off the wheel. I'll be getting a picture of that soon.

Hands and gloves end up black after half an hour. The stuff that gets on the skin through the gloves is pretty hard to remove.

I'm happy that, most likely, buffing is going to be a small part of my actual job once I have a career in this field. It is fun in small doses, but when you have to keep going at it for eight hours at a time it can get pretty monotonous.

Plus, there's the fact that you can't just zone out. You have to pay attention or else the wheel will rip whatever you're buffing right out of your hands, denting it in the process.

In other news, the student I was buffing with was quite cordial. He had a moderate Spanish accent and was doing his best to ask, over the sound of the buffing and my earplugs, why I had decided to go the route of instrument repair when I had a college education.

I thought about telling him that I got that education for free (they paid me to attend) but that was a little bit too complicated to explain through earplugs, masks, buffing wheels, and fans.

Apparently, college debt is a huge driver when it comes to being a productive member of society. Is that a good thing? I don't know.

All I do know is that I'll enjoy my four days off.

Day Ten: Epic of the hundred brass dongles! (I got a better eval today!)

Today I was vindicated when my instructor told me that he had noticed my increased effort to stay focused and awake. While my eval scores are still just above tragic, they are a note better than before. Before, I was ready to flunk the course by the end of five weeks, when the hammer falls. With these scores, I might actually be able to make it. If this were a classroom setting, I would have gone from a D- to a C.

And though C is passing (probably) I would like to get a better eval next time.

Today was my last day of crash course reeds/woodwinds. I tied up all the loose ends and then headed over to the buffing room.

Buffing keys and parts is one of the most transformative things that one can do to a metal object. They go from dirty and tarnished to bright, shiny, and clean.

"Buffing" is the act of using cloth and a special compound to strip away a tiny layer of metal, removing the tarnish and creating a shine that catches the eye.

Careful! Too much buffing can leave your instrument dangerously thin! I heard a story where the guys screwed up too many times during a lacquering job and the guys in buffing tore through the bell! It was a customer horn, too!

Explanation of customer horns. The place I am getting my schooling is what is known as an "overhaul shop." The owner buys large quantities of diseased and desiccated instruments at low prices and then flips them and sells them to shops as rental instruments. Since the quality standard for these horns is not stringent, they are what most starting students work on before they acquire the ability needed to, well, not break things when working on the more important "customer horns." If a professional computer repair place returned your computer with a fried motherboard that wasn't there before, rendering the device destroyed or useless, how would you feel?

These "overhaul" horns are designated with a moniker that takes a piece from the name of the shop. Since I want to preserve a little bit of privacy, I will say that it is an animal. I will refer to them as "animal horns" from now on.

My first introduction to buffing was this:

Guess what those are?

Dongles. I think. Truth be told, I have absolutely no clue what these things are. That paper down there in the lower-left corner told me that there are one hundred (and one) of them.

It takes about five minutes to buff a dongle. They come out looking like theses boys here.

The ones on the right. Noticeably shinier, right?

Ya! That's my hard work right there!

I racked up a considerable number of these during the day.

One thing you have to watch for when buffing is losing control of the piece. If you let your concentration slip, the wheel pulls the piece out from under you and sends it flying across the room. Most often this results in dents and broken things. I think the majority of my instrument repair mishaps had to do with buffing wheels.

Anyways, I'll be buffing all of tomorrow (8 hours) and hopefully won't have to dive too deep ...

The thing that scares me most is the fact that I am going to have to spend four whole weeks doing just this. It's boring as hell! It's the most monotonous part of the whole gig! Gah, I hope those four weeks don't come soon.

Day Nine: Straddling the Fence

Ed, the director of the repair school I attend, has said to me personally that he is on the fence about keeping me past the five-week probation period, and he is leaning towards dropping me. This is not an easy thing to hear.

It is not that I am bad at doing the job, just that I have a few mannerisms that may need work and effort to change. For one, I have been so sleepy in the mornings that I can barely stand. I blame this on my medication, but who knows?

Second, I am twitchy and like fiddling with things even while I am paying attention. For understandable reasons this has been interpreted to mean that I am not paying attention. It seems that the more conservative people out there don't really have any allowances in their work ideology for, well, a little bit of jostling and fiddling. Tapping on the table, poking holes in the cardboard on the bench (it's meant to take a beating.) Though I am trying now to get rid of those habits, the fact is that I have always done things like that. Not doing things like that makes me physically uncomfortable.

I can try harder, and that's what I will do, but I really don't know what I am going to do if I get ejected from the program. All the effort that everyone has put in will go to waste. I don't want that.

There are alternatives to the band repair school I am attending. If I fail here, my next mission will be finding a school that suits me better.

I just hope that it doesn't come to that.

Today was my last day at reeds during probation. For the next two days, I'll be buffing things in the buffing room, and then I'll go on to soldering. I hope that this environment will suit me better, or at least facilitate the change I am trying to achieve.

Today I saw a cool sign for a meat house while walking. It's a pig with the word "meats" melted into its body. Pretty cool!

See that? Meats!

Anyways, I'll see you guys later.

Day Eight: Not-so-good evaluation

First off, let me say that my mechanical ability is not in question. Though it is not perfect, it was by far the best part that my bosses/teachers had to say about me during my evaluation today. I take medication that makes me sleepy during the mornings, and while that caveat does not really mean much to anyone (apparently) it is something that I have to fight with. 

Secondly, I am a very "agitated" person, and I tend to shift constantly while standing and pick up random objects and play with them. This does not mean that I am not paying attention to what my teacher is trying to tell me. I don't know how to communicate this to my teachers. I don't know how to communicate that I do not intend to seem like I am not paying attention. I am paying attention quite well. It's just that I move a lot and have to, well, do something with my hands when I am watching something. 

Whatever. Of all the feelings that I thought I would experience, frustration--at least this kind--is not something I thought I would experience. I don't even know how to handle it. Maybe it's just me running into the kind of world that just doesn't care about accommodating me, one that I haven't really handled until now. And I am aware that complaining about this doesn't mean anything to the people who really matter.

I want to explain that I am not being malicious or trying to escape responsibility by falling asleep at the bench or by walking in small circles while my teacher is giving a demonstration. I just honestly didn't think it was a problem. 

Again, now that I know it's a problem I won't do it anymore. I just did not understand how, well, stringent this world would be. Again, I expected to be accommodated, at least a little. Or at the very least I want to be able to explain that I am trying my best here and that, though I may not be perfect at the moment, I am willing to make changes to my actions that will foster a better workplace. 

It's just that no one wants to hear why. "Oh, you're walking in small circles while I try to show you something? You're not paying attention! Oh, you grab for things instinctively before I'm ready to hand them to you? You must not be paying attention! Oh, you're tapping things with that plastic hammer? You must not be motivated! You must not care!" 

I do care! I care deeply! But the problem is that I have some sort of  ... Thing, inside me, that just makes me behave differently than, well, the most professional of people. And what I hate the most--in fact, this is the thing that makes me frustrated more than anything ever--is when people assign deliberate malicious noncompliance to my mannerisms. I can't help it! 

When I stand, I have to rock back and forth. I automatically grab at things that other people are holding without thinking if I am interested in it. If I see something pokey right next to my hand I will poke things with it. 

In fact, I am deliberately trying NOT to do these things. It takes a considerable amount of effort! Every time I catch myself doing this--up to ten times an hour--I will stop! But apparently, that's not enough. No one cares that I am trying hard to pay attention and stay awake and do what I am told and not grab for things or spin in tiny little circles while I watch my teacher work. Instead, they assume the opposite--that, because I am doing these things, I must NOT be trying--or even actively DECIDING to not pay attention. 

I am trying! Very hard! The amount of weird goofiness that I exude is down ninety percent of what it could be! 

I just don't like it when no one will listen to me when I say I AM TRYING. Instead of taking my word that my little quirks are innocuous--or even listening at all to what I want to say--they just assume I am delinquent. I don't even have a chance to voice my opinion back to them. 

Yes, I am trying. It takes a significant amount of conscious effort to NOT spin in little circles when I am watching my instructor doing something. I feel like I am not even in my own skin when my movement is restricted; if I am unable to move while standing. 

Is this a medical condition? I don't know! I can't help it! If I were to force myself not to fidget or spin or fiddle or walk in circles or sway back and forth I would feel extremely uncomfortable. 

I don't know. I can't say these things because everyone thinks I am making malicious excuses that are intended to divest me of responsibility for things that are easily controllable by neurotypicals, and because of that, are interpreted by those same neurotypicals as being indicative of something lazy, inattentive, or unmotivated. 

I do not even know myself if I am lazy, inattentive, or unmotivated. But I do know that I really want what I am working for and the thought that I may be kicked out after failing probation simply because of my unstoppable urge to fidget and grab and twiddle makes me afraid. 

Maybe I need to see a doctor. Hell, I've seen enough of them in my lifetime. I feel like a caged beast who is roaming his cell trying to escape and knowing that his roaming is being interpreted as bad, bad, bad. 

I will continue trying to work with this, and I have enough mental force of will to just eat this situation and force myself to not fidget as much as possible, but I would like to be understood, as it is the thing I hate most to be viewed as actively malicious or unconcerned or inattentive when I am actually the complete opposite. I am trying hard and no one will believe me. 

Sigh ... Whatever. What happens happens. If I'm not suited to something because of my fidgety-ness, I'm not suited to it. 

It's just that me and some types of people don't get along well. I wish my current instructor would stop being a perfectionist and start, just, empathizing a little bit. 

Blegh. 

Day Seven: Very Little Tolerance for Error!

I have put together and checked a significant number of clarinets in the time I have been working with instruments. But after yesterday I realize that I have been, well, unprofessional. That is to say, the tolerance for error that is upheld in this school makes progress exceedingly slow. Everything has to be perfect. No "play" in the keys, no unevenness in the pad cups, no burns or scars or bending. Everything has to be perfect.

I would probably say that this stringency frustrates me, but at the same time I appreciate the amount of attention to detail that must be upheld in any profession where one is working with mechanics, or any job with a professional standard at all. This is not working at a cash register or in the back of a store. It requires professional standards that must be upheld sometimes to degrees that may seem insane (and, of course, frustrating), to anyone attempting to learn it.

Frustration is a natural response to all this. It is what drives one to deal with the situation in a manner that relieves tension. Sometimes the attention to detail just has to be dealt with by the person attending to it.

Fixing instruments is going to be a long game for me. I have forty-seven weeks to go in this program, and what I am doing now is the easy stuff. I know I can handle this if I put effort into it, but at the same time, I am preparing to run into something that may hold me back.

 In any profession, it is attention to detail that matters. I think I have many things to learn if I am to uphold this standard.

Day six: Just a little sleepy, amirite?

So far, I've been doing good at this job except for one thing: I have a tendency to fall asleep due to the medication I take. Before 10:00, it's almost as if I am possessed with narcolepsy. I simply cannot stay awake!

Maybe there is a solution to this (coffee? Energy drinks?) but I have yet to stumble across it.

Today was my first day working assembly. That means, in the lingo, that I was putting instruments back together after they had been worked over. It's a complicated and involved process that is a lot more difficult than it has been for me in the past; this is mostly because my teachers hold me to a higher standard than I held myself back when I was working on instruments in my garage. There are a lot of details that I missed before and am just learning about now.

Richard was a really nice mentor in the absence of my assigned teacher (who was sick yesterday and today.) He's really the opposite of the cranky old type in all ways except his appearance.

I also did a bit of buffing, a bit of glueing, and I struggled mightily cutting corks with a razor. I still make jagged edges with all of the corks that I work with. Such a shame that I have not yet grasped the hang of cutting cork on keys with a razor.

Nothing really interesting happened today. I know my account of today is pretty boring (it's almost like a diary entry) but I do this mostly to inform those who would probably care about that kind of thing.

I just hope I do not overstay my welcome with my daily uploads, as all of them are likely to become more inane as I settle in.

|In any case, I hope tomorrow I can stay awake!

Day 5: Return of the Tiny Screws!

Today I battled with tiny screws the size of a grain of sand, fought with an oboe, and did a little bit of hand burning. A day like any other.

Look at the size of these things!

They're tiny! And really hard to line up with their holes! 

Today I noticed that the rain falling on the roof sounded a little funny. I looked up and found this!

That's a trumpet bell! It's collecting leaks from that portion of the roof and redirecting the water with a series of rain gutters!

It was done by experienced tech #1 (who I will now call Richard), and has been there for decades. I think it's pretty cool. 

Those tiny little screws though ... Nasty little buggers. 

Richard has that kind of soothing grandfatherly voice (with a Wisconsin accent) that makes you feel all comfortable on the inside. Though, his usage of the word "fuck" is a little overboard and sounds incongruous. 

I finished tear downs and am starting on assembly tomorrow. In the little bit I was able to do today (of assembly) my favorite part has to have been the buffing. Buffing is fun because the wheel goes round and round and, magically, when the key goes under it for a short period of time, it comes out the other end nice and shiny. 

I don't have any funny stories for today, but I hope I will have some tomorrow. 

Day 4: Burns Building Character and the Attack of the Two-Foot Long Rod Screw!

Today I burned myself several times by touching a metal key right after I had heated it up for pad removal. It wasn't too bad--I have reflexes to thank for that--but my hand still hurts in various places.

Working on saxophones is at once intuitive and chaotic. Altos, tenors and barrys (baritone saxophones) all run on the same system. The person who developed them (a guy named Sax, of course) made them surprisingly elegant, especially when compared to the oboe and bassoon, kings of the keys. There are two main screws that act like "key highways" and hold, respectively, the top "stack" and the lower "stack;" here "stack" is the terminology to define whatever would be underneath each of the hands when the instrument is played.

Thus, the saxophone is probably the best-designed instrument out of all the ones I've worked on.

Of course, this is intentional. The saxophone is to musical instruments what spelling reform is to language. The saxophone was intended to fill in the gaps in the orchestra left between the low woodwinds and the middle brass, and while it never filled its intended orchestral purpose (largely due to opposition from established unions and "big instrument business") it has fulfilled the spot of the "best designed musical instrument." This is a doubly amazing achievement since the man who invented them (Sax) had to work with four different sizes (the three I mentioned plus soprano) and keep them all on mostly the same mechanism and screw chart.

Thus, one is able to elegantly enjoy the fact that once one learns the layout of one saxophone, they know the layout of all the saxophones.

Though the "highway screws" (technically called "Stack Screws") are ridiculously long, sometimes reaching almost two feet in length.

See here for proof.

A Barry Sax stack screw

These screws, frankly; they scare me. 

My woodwinds instructor today made the comment that "burns build character," and while I do not like being burned by hot metal when I'm not expecting it, I like the phrase enough that I will probably adopt it myself. Burns do build character in this situation by forcing you to respect the instrument and the craft. Without the proper amount of respect, you will be burned.

I like this ethos a lot. It really speaks to me on a conceptual level. 

I was thinking on the walk home today about how insanely specialized my choice of profession is. Musical instruments themselves are quite specialized. I have sort of "layers of specialization" method of analyzing jobs, and it works like this.

Layer one jobs are the ones that are necessary to run any society at all. This is farming, blacksmithing, and working in a factory that makes layer-one goods (textiles, tools, and things that are needed to perform layer one jobs.) 

Layer two jobs are things like education and lawyering. While they are not necessary to run the most basic of societies, they are necessary in some way to run a more advanced society. 

Layer three jobs are attached to layer two jobs in some way that is only possible with the amount of free capital created by specialization. These are jobs that support activities of fun or interest, such as video games, pleasure reading, or playing in a band. Thus, game developers, writers, and band teachers are able to exist only when there is a significant amount of free economic capital. 

Finally, stage four jobs are those that support stage three jobs. They are only possible when there is enough free economic capital to provide for so many stages three jobs in such concentration that specialization makes sense. Thus, people who own trading card shops, concept artists, literary editors, and, of course, band technicians like myself can only be located in certain areas and environments where there are a lot of people and thus a lot of free economic capital. 

This explains why there are only so many band technicians, editors, and concept artists out there. On the job "food chain," they are at the top. It takes a city of at least fifty thousand to even make a band repair shop viable. The same goes for the other stage four jobs. 

This is just me musing. 

Now onto the coworker tidbits that I learned today. The experienced repair tech (I will call him EX One) is an old coot who puts the word "fuck" or some derivative of it somewhere inside of every single sentence that he speaks, no matter if it's about his plastic spoon or his grandkids. And yet, he seems like a really kindly old man. Some of my other coworkers think his kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids are taking advantage of his kindness. I don't know enough about his situation to tell if that is true, but from what I hear he may just be an old softie on the inside. Except this old softie bandies the word "fuck" about like it's a basic function of speech.

I don't like waking up at five every morning, but I will get used to it. Though my medication will keep me half asleep for the first two or three hours of work every day. I don't expect that to change. 

Counting down the days to the weekend! 

Bonus chapter: A very interesting church!

Now, I'm a non-denominational guy (when I'm in the mood to be a good, orthodox Christian) and I've never been to a Lutheran church before today. And let me tell you, it was interesting on many levels. For one, the chapel (if you want to call it that) is very beautiful without hanging onto that pompous, Catholic-infused gargoyle and bannister aesthetic, while simultaneously maintaining an atmosphere of "classic churchy-ness." You know, the pews, the windows, the raised altar. All the church needed was a choir--which I am told they have at a service different from the 9:15 one I went to.

My first impression was strikingly colored by the presence of a sign language translator. While I have seen sign language translators at bigger churches (I'm talking thousands of attendees), I have never seen a sign language translator translate an entire sermon (plus notes) in a church where there were fewer than a hundred people in-house at the time. I spent a good portion of the sermon (more than I should have, all considering) watching the translator sign and move their hands back and forth.

Two interesting things I saw: first, the sign language translator had to translate biblical names by using a sign-letter system, spelling out the name in front of their mouth. That was fun to watch, as the translator rushed to catch up to the pastor who was giving the sermon.

Oh yeah, and the preacher was a woman this time. Very unorthodox, if you ask me. She wasn't the senior pastor (who I met and was very nice) but she did preach the first full-length sermon I've ever seen a woman preach. Depending on your stance; "good for them!;" "what is this heresy?!." You know the drill.

The second thing I noticed about the translator was that, every time the sermon paused, she quickly moved her hands back to a "home" position near her stomach. That is an attitude that only professional anything-ers seem to be capable of; "home" positions are a concept that is relevant to martial arts, instruments, and anything that requires precise movement.

The second thing that really threw me for a loop was the fact that they used real wine. Now, in most churches (if you're not a regular goer) the "wine" for communion is grape juice. At least at the more modern, cosmopolitan ones that I have attended. There were probably less than ten milliliters in the cup, but I still tasted the alcohol. Wierd. Maybe I've just been isolated from the more traditional churches that do this, but this to me was the biggest surprise about the whole affair.

It was cool today and the thermometer at the bank (you know, those bank thermometers by the roadside, I'm sure all of you have seen one) said 69. Nice. (This is a meme.)

But aside from the rather tasteless meme reference, the weather was good for a short walk across town to the church. I'll have a car before it gets to -40, but I hope it doesn't get too cold before then.

My days have been passing rather quickly as of late. I think this is just a response to getting older--my neurons are slowing down, I've heard--but I am scared by how fast my days slip through my fingers. I seem to go to bed just an experiential hour after getting home from work--it's really about eight hours. I know this effect, and have been expecting it--and have appreciated it while working--but when I just want my relaxation time to stretch on forever it reminds me that there is a time limit to everything.

See you tomorrow for day four. I wonder what will happen?

Living in the screw forest: Day 3!

Today I broke five more springs. I think my instructor is on the verge of beating my ass. (I'm only seventy-five percent joking.) Whatever the case, it seems that me, pliers, small bits of pointy metal, and enough force to bend a spoon in half (a good one) do not work well together.

Though I have to say, my throughput rate is about ninety-five percent no-breaks! Springs, springs, and more springs! 

Today I finished seven flutes and a piccolo. You can see their head joints here. 

Flute head joints! (Not all of them!)

These come out through a process that involves a metal rod and lots of force. 

In fact, most of the things that we do here in the shop require a scary amount of force. In order to dislodge whatever it is that won't move, I have to put in pretty much my entire body strength. And the terrible thing about that is that if the strength is misguided and hits a vital point (on you or the instrument) there will be hell to pay. 

Here's the little spot where I took a nap after getting to the shop twenty minutes early. Not long enough for me!

My cat nap spot!

And here's what I was talking about when I spoke of a "forest of screws." 

Look at all those screws!

It really looks like a forest, no? 

It's pretty nice here in Wisconsin right now. To the locals, it's baking out there, but to a Louisiana resident who has experienced true weather misery, this is perfect! God only knows what I'm going to do when the temperature drops below -40 (forty below!) 

I was skeptical when Ed told me that most of the people working or training here were band director drop-outs. But, true to his word, every student (and my current instructor) wanted to be band directors before they came here. 

One of my coworkers was a band director for five years, and he's only twenty-eight! Apparently, his workload was so much (he was doing the job of three people) that he had a nervous breakdown and made some seventh graders cry. 

As he said, "if I am going to make kids cry, maybe I'm not suited for being a band director." 

Though, it appears that he was very good at his job. All five years his middle school band made top marks in their competitions. And this was in Texas! (In Texas, it's about five times as competitive as pretty much anywhere else when it comes to band.) 

Today I got off early. I'm looking forward to the weekend! 

Day two: I made it! Woke up at 5:00 am and I'm not dead!

Today my butt hurt. (This may be a running theme.) Not because of my bike, but because the chair I used on day 1 was hard as a rack and had no backing. Don't worry, I swapped chairs as soon as possible.

This was my first time getting to my job at 6. To do this, I had to wake up at 5. Good thing is; I did it! I made it on time, too! Since my butt hurt so much, I decided not to ride my bike. Hopefully I will ride it tomorrow.

Surprisingly, I did not feel very tired. Maybe because of the brisk morning walk. Whatever the case, I was stripping clarinets by the time the clock hit 6:05. From 5:50 to 6:04 I was napping on a shelf underneath the desk. A common occurrence; Experienced Tech and another guy both take naps on the desk during lunch.

Aywho. I stripped two clarinets and then was given the most gorgeous bass clarinet I have ever held in my hands. It was a Selmer, wood, and though it was in bad shape I could see the glimmers of amazing quality and that good old Selmer Shine that would make my day had I still been playing bass clarinet.

The only problem was that it had an unconventional build and the screw board that I used to hold all the screws was confusing as all heck.

About screw boards. There are three types of screws that instruments use. Four if you're being technical. There are the roller screws, as shown here:

There are the pivot screws, as shown here: 

And there are the spring screws, which I will show later once I get some pics of my workplace. Trust me, there will be a lot forthcoming. If I can manage to sneak them in past the old geezers who don't even know the difference between Android and IOS. 

Here's one for reference. The acetylene torch that, still, scares the crap out of me every time I try to move it while it's on. 

Anyways. (Again, lots more pics incoming.) 

Back to "screw boards". They're little pieces of wood that have holes drilled in them where the screws go. The screws, like I said, can be anywhere from a centimeter long to a foot long in the case of a barry sax. They stick up from the boards, and since the boards are everywhere, the reeds shop has a distinct "metal forest" feel. (More pics coming soon!) 

They are marked cryptically to save space, and the holes generally line up with the build of the instrument. 

After fixing the marvelously beautiful (and complicated) bass clarinet, I moved onto flutes. 

Let me tell you a bit about the relationship between me and my immediate instructor. I'm pretty sure he's annoyed at me because of how much I ask for his help. I ask, like, every ten minutes. Sometimes it's a stuck screw, sometimes it's a broken spring, sometimes it's a spring that won't come out. Because of his farmhouse background, he has good grip strength, which helps a lot when you're gripping two pairs of pliers and an uneven instrument while handling what is basically a wire that is flush to the surface of that instrument (and, devilishly, actually embedded in trenches at points). 

But still, he is remarkably patient with me considering how much I screw up. I have to worry about what he will report back to the owner, though, because if I get a bad rap I may flunk out of the probationary period if I'm deemed "mechanically incompetent." Let's hope that that doesn't happen. 

Springs broken: 5. 

Lacerations: 4

Burns: 3

Day One: I got here at eight and I'm tired. How will I stand getting here at six?

Day 1 (Written after day 2)

I knew my day was going to be interesting when I couldn't ride my bike all the way to the repair shop. My legs were protesting after thirty seconds of hard riding. My butt hurt. Maybe the seat was too high? 

I should YouTube how to fix that.

Yesterday I moved to Wisconsin to pursue an education in band instrument repair. And, let me tell you: there are a lot of stuck screws. I have been dipping my toes into this world for the past six or seven years, but now that I have decided to take the plunge straight into the deep end, I am left wondering what will happen to my poor hands. My poor, poor hands. 

After one day I have, what, three lacerations? Two burns? Glue that won't come off and was hot when it stuck to me but now is cold?

I arrived at eight am. Without much ceremony, I was shuffled by the owner, Ed, to the "reeds" repair room. ("Reeds" encompasses everything that uses a reed plus the flute and piccolo. So, bassoon, clarinet, oboe, bass clarinet, all the saxes.) The place is forested in screws, some as long as a foot, dappled with Skull tobacco cans that hold dozens of tiny little screws that are a real b*tch to find when you've dropped them on the cork dust-covered floor. Long fluorescent lamps illuminate six desks. Only three are in use. Behind the desks are wall upon wall of cases, each marked with a product number. 

Besides the band instrument repair house, Ed, the owner, runs an instrument case business and a supply shop. So, behind the walls of empty, cellophane covered cases are racks of supplies stored in shelves that remind me of Radio Shack. 144A are flute shims. 234B are trumpet spring mechanisms. (Yes, I did satisfy my curiosity and root around in there during one of my breaks.) They are packaged neatly and there are a stupendous amount of them, both in variety and number. 

Stripping down clarinets was the name of the game for the six hours I was there. In that time, I stripped five. 

Here's how stripping works: 

Step one: unscrew everything. This can be a real pain, as the screws sometimes get struck, stripped, or bent. The worst part about a stuck screw isn't the fact that it's stuck. It's the fact that the tiny little radius holding the screwdriver (which can have a shaft as long as eight inches with a sharp little diddly on the end) is pressing towards the screw's direction while simultaneously rotating like screwdrivers do. With a lot of force. For the screws that are really stuck, you have to use literally ALL of your force to move the thing. 

Imagine what happens when the little diddly (flathead) slips.

There are two outcomes. Either it goes up, or it goes down. If it goes down the instrument gains a scratch. If it goes up you have a laceration. I heard a horror story where one of the other students literally drove the thing straight through his hand. 

Ouch. 

But that's just the beginning. Next, you remove the springs. Now, these little b*stards aren't your normal spiral springs. They are straight, running the length of the keys they operate and attaching to a little nub. 

And boy, are they sharp. Like, needle sharp. Some of them are literally needles. And, of course, they take a lot of force to remove. If you're experienced, you can do it without much trouble. If you're a shaky-handed noob like me, you either break them or end up with a quilters worst nightmare. A situation where you have to balance the force applied to the spring to get it out with the spring's fragility with the very real fear that your hand will slip and you'll end up with a needle in your flesh. 

Now once those are out (there are about a dozen of them on each instrument) you fire up the acetylene torch. Hot, hot, hot~! This is used to get the glue that holds the pads in the cups to melt. Once the glue melts, it's easy to remove them with a little needle tool built specifically for that purpose. (It's amazing how many purpose-built tools there are in this business.) The real problem isn't the flame. It's the hot keys after they have had their pads removed. If you touch one less than thirty seconds after it leaves the torch--which happens a lot more than you would think--you get burned. 

Then the corks are removed. It's the easiest part, but still involves a steel wool roller attached to a bench motor. Putting it against your finger is like running it through medium-grit sandpaper. 

By far, the least problematic of the bunch. 

And then you have it! A disassembled clarinet. Big whoop. 

Hopefully, as this blog goes on, you will see me go through every other step. Buffing, lacquering, plating, bending, fitting, sealing. There are probably a bunch that I have missed. 

Now onto my coworkers. No names, of course, except for Ed, who I already mentioned. And none of them are my friends on Facebook yet. So I guess I can talk about them?

For one, there is the owner, Ed, who is a relic from a bygone era. Not in a bad way. More of in an old crusty kind of way. He's very amiable but hates technology. His office doesn't even have a computer. 

Well, it does, but it's a model from the mid-'90s that is used as a sticky note board. 

But the guy apparently knows everyone in the business. That's how he manages to run this whole operation. He has a Rolodex (yes, one of those) that, as far as I can tell, is chock full of names. He sits in an office dealing with paperwork (which is extensive mostly because of the plating and lacquering fluid tanks containing hazardous materials) while the rest of his school works under him. 

The teacher to student ratio at this place is 1:1. There are usually only six students at a time. The mentor I had on day 1 is a guy who is about as new to the business as can be. He was a former student until just a year ago, when he was offered a job as a teacher straight after completing the course for himself. 

He defers to a very, very experienced technician who works on the other side of the desk, one who has been working in an instrument repair shop since he was sixteen and is now about seventy, as far as I can tell. The experienced tech is not technically allowed to teach me, but he helps my immediate tutor iron out bugs that he isn't experienced enough yet to handle. The relationship wouldn't work without him. 

My reeds tutor (let's call him that) is a born and break farm boy. Ever since he was little, he has been working his ass off. During high school he worked baling hay and doing other farm stuff up to thirty hours a week. Eighty to ninety during summer. While going to this school (which is full-time at forty hours a week) he was also working full-time at a factory that makes generators. He said that for most of his time he was running on about four hours of sleep. 

I really respect that kind of work ethic. Though the guy is kind of a dork (in a good way) it makes me understand the value of working in a way that I haven't before. 

Let's talk about Experienced Repairman. He, uh, is a little on the raunchy side? He makes comments about "f*cking girls" and random NSFW stuff like it's talking about the weather. Clearly a relic of a bygone age. But he manages to pull it off in a way that makes it seem like he's not too serious about it. 

He also likes complaining about the lacquer. Again and again. Apparently, the guy who dos lacquer used to work on road signs and don't understand the intricacies of band instruments. 

A little cherry on top for the end of this post. Apparently, whatever radio station they listen to in the reeds room has what is called the "daily orgasm," where a caller calls in and tries to imitate an orgasm in order to win a prize. I wonder what I would have thought about it if I hadn't been prepped by both the guys working there.

The only reason I think they did this was that the last girl who heard that without warning went and sued Ed for it. My mom (an employment lawyer) will probably get a kick out of that. 

Be ready for day two!