Page 87 - Part One of a Two-Part Story: We Worked for General Instruments

ISSUE : Issue 49

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1988/8/1

But, remember, there's 2 or 3 trucks a day coming in. $1800 a truck. One bill for the month, of transportation, when they took us into the conference room, was $80,000--15 years ago--in truck fees. (What are you suggesting would have been better?) If the sub-assemblies would have been made here. The cores had to come from the States. The whole casing had to come from the States. The push buttons had to come from, I think it was Ontario. Pointer arms came from the States. The rivets and all came from the States. If General In? struments had of said to these guys, "Come down with us. Start your little industry beside us. And we can pay you more. Because we'll have no transportation cost." We had a rivet for this--we used to call it the "pointer arm"--that was your dial on your radio. (That little red thing?) Yeah, they used to go back and forth. Okay. There was a rivet with a little half-moon lock washer onto it. We ran out of the rivets. Anyway, we called--I'11 say New York--for the rivet. And they said, "I have lots of them." So, in the meantime, it was in the winter, so they had to put it on Alleghany Airline. Now, this was a shuttle. It was supposed to be shipped to Boston. Anyway, there was a storm and they had to go up to Canada. Now, we had to transport those down there. Sometimes we'd have to fly boxes down just to keep them going. That's the truth. Anyway, (the rivets) got lost. So we got word Saturday, through the storm, they landed in Montreal. So we sent Manny O'Quinn, who works with our brokers, to Montreal. Now, paid his air flight up. He had to pay a (customs) broker, when he got up there--I think it was 2 or 3 hundred dollars to get a broker to work on a week? end. Anyway, they found the package. Manny couldn't get out, he couldn't get out right away. So he landed in Sydney Monday morn? ing. Just enough to start to get the lines going. That--it came up around, I'm sure it was $5,000 to get this $80 bag of rivets up. I'm sure. I might be exaggerating, now.... In the long run, the rivets did cost a huge amount, in the 4 or 5 thousand dollar bracket, I'd say. (Was this a very rare example, or did this happen occasionally?) Oh, this happened quite often. Not only in the rivets, but a lot of other things. Like cores--sometimes they'd come down here--there'd be too much Now, the rivets ended up in Montreal in a warehouse which was as big as Water? ford. The bag was a brown paper bag, reinforced, to hold the rivets--maybe about 20 thousand--I'd say about 5 or 10 pounds. They got lost in the warehouse in Montreal. Now the line was going to be tied up Monday if we didn't get them. All these girls--no work for them. They were crying for the tuners down in Bendix and down in Philco Ford. Down in Huntsville, Alabama, and New Jersey, I think it was. Their lines were going to be tied up. G.I. was going to have to pay. You know, they had enough supply down there for a week's tuners If It's Really Important Canon ize it! SEE PAGE 13 BELLE ISLE LINCOLN MERCURY -SENIOR SERVICE ~ Any Make Car Care Plan for Senior Citizens * FREE Leaner Car on Overnight Repairs * FREE Pick Up and Delivery of Your Car • FREE Tow to Our Service Department • FREE 20% Off on Ford Parts • FREE 20% Off on Repairs Done Here * FREE Life Insurance on Car Loans : FREE I. D. Card BELLE ISLE LINCOLN MERCURY SALES LTD. 195 Prince St., Sydney 'At the Tracks" 539-9292 1988 MERCURY TOPAZ MERCURY UNCOLN 1988 MERCURY TRACER

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