Harbor Freight (arrogance)

There was a Kodak plant right next to the Burroughs plant I was working at in the 80's in Pasadena - Data something division, I think.

It was torn down and replaced with a strip mall (Hastings Village), the old Burroughs building (originally Electrodata, mid 50's) is still there, north of Electronic Drive.

Datatape - high end tape recorders and similar equipment for the instrumentation space.

One of the buildings I used to work in at Kodak Park is now an indoor self-storage business. It faced the main thoroughfare that bisects the plant, so all they had to do was move the fence that ran along the road to the back of the building and Poof...the building was no longer inside the plant. Sold!

Here's a fun fact: For over 30 years there was a small nuclear research reactor that contained

Have you priced a Snap-On or Mac tool box lately?

I bought a Craftsman top and bottom box in 1983. Served me well until I moved it to our new home 10 years ago. It did not hold up to the pushing and shoving in and out of the truck. And that was with a lift gate.

I out grew it long long ago and with it's sides no longer being plumb to the floor I replaced it with a larger Husky. It is pretty HD but I don't know if it would hold up to being lifter by an automotive lift and rolled into a pick-up bed very many times. That is the abuse that a tool box has to withstand in automotive shops.

No, actually the AE1 only had the shutter priority, When the A1 came out with both shutter and aperture priority I traded up.

The AE1 Program model still had Shutter priority but added AE with the camere in control of both the shutter and aperture, the user only focused and pushed the shutter button.

I developed a lot of Extcharome. I only needed to be in a dark room when loading the film into a light safe container. From there the kitchen sink was my lab. ;~)

No, I thought the money was better spend on a new truck. It was cheaper.

Kodak (of course) had dark rooms available for employee use. I played around a bit but never really got into it.

The dark rooms were in the same "rec" building that housed the 2000 seat theatre, the bowling alleys and the swimming pool that was never filled. The pool was built on the 6th floor. Just before it was to be filled, the engineers concluded that the building couldn't handle the weight of the water, so it was abandoned - sort of. They eventually used the pool/space to dry sections of the 18' x 60' Coloramas that were showcased in Grand Central station.

I grew up in NYC and I remember the announcements each time a new Colorama was installed. Even went to a few unveilings. Eventually, I ended working for the company that made them.

Did you see what I did there? ;-)

There is a lot to forget in fifty years. I didn't have an AE1 or A2 (or F1, for that matter). As a poor college student, the FTb was a mighty stretch.

I used the stainless reels and bottom of those containers but using the light-safe feature was more than iffy. It took too long to get the developer and fixer in and out of the cap and it messed up the timing (didn't use the lids for B&W, either). I used a darkroom with even the outside lights turned off. It takes a mighty dark room to develop color film.

Close enough! LOL. I swear some of the mechanics put a year or two salary into their tools and boxes. But hey! The candy man delivers right to your shop!

My reels and containers were both plastic. I had no problems with quickly changing out the chemicals. IIRC there were a few more exchanges of chemicals than 2. Seems like there was a wash in there a time or two.

I for a short period used the Ektaflex color print contraption, developing prints in our spare bedroom. A REEEEL PIA.

The payment for being a photographer on the student paper was use of their darkroom after hours. We also got to cover concerts and sporting events, so really good, some not so.

I hope the architect and engineer got paid what they were worth.

What sort of camera was used for those? 8x10 Land Cameras?

They just came by and gave us the letters. In a year we went from

Our department was spared because several large banks told the execs that if they got rid of the product we were working on they'd rip out all of their IBM equipment and put in Amdahls. We were a money loser otherwise. I had a transfer to the Burlington VT lab in hand so I knew I was safe beforehand.

I got mine 15 years later. I was the only one to thank my manager. ;-)

Washes, yes, lotsa washes. The tanks we had wouldn't drain fast enough for us. The film would develop unevenly because the developer would wet the film and the wash wasn't complete.

Yeah, printing was a PITA. No such thing as a safelight with color paper.

The big meetings were just the overview.

"20% RIF here, 10% RIF there, You'll know your individual status by such and such a date."

In the case of my division, when that date came, everyone was called into their manager's office, one by one. You knew your status as soon as you walked in. If there was a thin envelope on the table, you were safe. Basically a letter saying go back to work. If it was a thick envelope, you were done. It contained all the official separation paperwork.

When I was a kid I worked as a clerk in the sales office of a Ford dealership. I witnessed first hand how work was divvied out to the mechanics (as they were called back then). One example was an older guy named George who had what the owner described as "knuckle buster" tools. His bay was in a back corner and he was given a lot of crap, time consuming jobs on older vehicles, where it was difficult to make book time due to corrosion, broken bolts, and waiting on parts. The guys who bought stuff from the candy man had bays up front where access in and out of the shop was easy and they regularly got gravy jobs on newer vehicles. The investment in the big name stuff came back to those guys pretty quickly in the scheme of things...

When I had real jobs, 1995 and back, I was always in the automotive industry.

I'll say that many mechanics mostly used Craftsman, S/K Wayne and a few other tools available from a local store. Snap-On was a fill in for what they could not find.

Anyway, I am not sure that Snap-On, Mac, Cornwall tools are worth the added expense of convenience and or perceived quality.

So when I was service sales manager we had about 45~50 technicians and location in the shop had no bearing on which jobs they got, that was left up to the dispatch computer.

Some guys made more money with the off brand tools than the guys with Snap-On and the like tools. My top mechanic did in fact have the upper end tools but that was because he could actually afford them. He made about $10K per month and that was 40 years ago. He actually paid for his tools as the bought them. I believe all the rest, that bought the upper end stuff, financed every purchase through the tool dealer.

Is that right? That seems awfully high for a mechanic at a car dealer in 1995

Joe Gwinn

A friend worked at a Saab dealer, if he booked 120 hours in a week that was a slow week. But he also work real hours maybe 80 a week. Generally he booked the most hours in the shop. Getting paid for booked hours, versus time at the shop are totally different.

To Joe, not 1995, 1983. I retired in 1995. Yes that was a LOT of money for a mechanic. His salary was more than the dealer's salary and I was reminded of that fact each month in our management meetings. Mr. Menger told me to not let him get away. Greg, our front end guy, averaged over 150 hours per week flag time. He was almost a blur. And FWIW those hours were based on warranty book hours, not Motors or Chiltons book hours. Eventually we lost Greg but not to a competitor. He build his own new 6 bay shop that he paid cash for.

Markem, Greg was paid mid range in our pay scale, $15.00 per flagged hour. And the shop was open 55 hours, M~F only.

I am proud to say that I taught Greg how to bust tires, dismount and mount. I had a service manager for that but I was the resident expert on tires.

Chuck my friend start at Nikki Chevrolet, when he left the Saab Dealership he and his partner bought an existing shop. For cash as Greg did. Now he is in Glenwood Springs, he works some volunteer stuff for ski passes.