I didn't worry as much as some of the people did. Yes, I was frightened
by not having a steady paycheck each week. I was getting X number of
dollars; because even though I was still in the self-employment training
program till my business actually got started, I was still able to draw
unemployment. It wasn't the type of thing where I was totally without
income at all. I still had some income coming in.
Page 36
Yes, naturally I was frightened too. It's just like I say, I had been in
this plant for sixteen years and it was the only work job I had had. It
was the type of work that I loved doing. I didn't consider this a job, I
considered this a career. This was a career for me not just a job or a
paycheck. I took pride in the work that I did. To me it meant something.
One of the things that used to always piss me off at the plant was when
they said, "Well, Hickory does a better job than White. Hickory does
this better than White." Hickory didn't do any better than White. I have
seen some of Hickory's furniture. They didn't do a bit better than
White. It used to always just teetotally piss me off because they always
made it sound like, you know, we don't do anything.
If the quality of our work went down, it was because of them and the
outrageous production rate that they had set. Not only that but the type
of materials that they started using. I mean, they started using
defective products. They started using defective materials. Their major
concern was that they had to make that dollar and also want quality, but
Hickory does it better. That used to just piss me off. I got tired of
hearing it. It would just make me sick. I used to say, "If Hickory is
doing so well, why don't you just pack-up and move to Hickory? Get
yourself a supervisor's job or a management job up there and put
somebody else down here that wants White's to run for White's."
It's just like a supervisor I used to have years ago when I first went
there who used to tell me, "You have to compare apples to apples and
oranges to oranges. You can't compare apple to an orange because they
won't taste the same because they are not the same fruit."