Rivethead : : Tales From the Assembly Line

Locations
Call Number: 331.762 Ha
On Shelf At: Downtown Library

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	331.762 Ha	4-week checkout	On Shelf

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Blue Collar Memoir of Flint submitted by sdunav on August 28, 2017, 12:27pm Funny, sickening, eye-opening memoir about growing up in blue-collar Flint, MI in the 60's-70's and going to work at a GM plant (building Suburbans and Blazers) in the late 70's through the late 80's. There's lots of drinking, drug use, violence, boredom, incredibly stupid management decisions (including a mascot - the "Quality Cat" called "Howie Makem" ), layoffs, more drinking, and screwing around on the job. Michael Moore encouraged this guy to write, gave him his first break, and Hamper also appears in "Roger & Me".

The book is very good, but a bit much all at once. I think reading a couple of chapters at a time (or as much of it was written originally, as a series of magazine/newspaper columns) is the way to go - then it's less repetitive and overwhelming in its bleakness (working at GM was "like being paid to flunk high school").

Still, I never would have guessed that reading about working the line in Flint would be so interesting.

Sample of Hamper's style:

"Not all diversions were of an amusing nature. I recall one that really gave us fits. GM and the union got together and installed these mammoth electronic message boards in various locations around the plant.....The messages they would flash ranged from corny propaganda (green neon bulb depictions of Howie Makem's face uttering shit like QUALITY IS THE BACKBONE OF GOOD WORKMANSHIP! to motivational pep squawk (A WINNER NEVER QUITS & A QUITTER NEVER WINS!) to brain-jarring ruminations (SAFETY IS SAFE)....).

I remember the first day the message board went into operation. For the entire shift, it beamed out one single message. They never erased it. We kept waiting for another phrase to come along and replace it. No such luck. The message blazed on brightly like some eternal credo meant to hog-tie our bewildered psyches. The message? Hold on to your hardhats, sages. The message being thrust upon us in enormous block lettering read: SQUEEZING RIVETS IS FUN! Trust me. Even the fuckin' exclamation point was their own. (p. 160)"

Of course, Hamper adds a "CKED" taped over the "N!" to amuse his fellow shoprats for a few hours, until his foreman Gino, fearing the wrath of the overlords, rips it down amidst a chorus of booing.