Rooster's Revenge

There was a Fisher Body die engineering journeyman that retired about 20 years ago. His name was Joe Bono. During his retirement dinner speech, he talked quite a bit about respect. Respect to him, was more important than money. His advice to us apprentices at the time was to earn the respect of those in the die and stamping business and the money and opportunities would follow.

Respect is a hard thing to know if it is earned. It is subjective.

I finally came up with a metric to gauge whether or not I am respected when I walk into a die shop or stamping plant. I call it the F-bomb Factor.

Several years ago, I was a hired gun to solve a complex die issue for a stamper. The die was being built by a family-owned die shop in Nashville, Tennessee.

I determined the root cause and laid out the corrective action plan. Shortly after the die makers were getting started with my changes, the plant manager, a second generation die maker approached me.

He was pleased with the result. Tim (his name was Tim) impressed me to be an experienced die maker, seasoned plant manager, and professional business person.

Tim expressed his appreciation and respect for me solving an issue that had plagued his shop for three months with dropping a F-bomb about 30 seconds into our conversation.

My F-bomb Factor has two components. First, they have to drop the bomb. This is a sign of respect because the F-bomb is part of how die people talk. It is part of the shop vocabulary.

Second, the elapsed time is critical. The faster the bomb drops, the higher the respect.

If Aretha Franklin had been part of the hip hop generation, I am sure her song would have been “F-U-C-K” instead of “R-E-S-P-E-C-T“.