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!