" Seating"

One of the funny routines that went on in Master Control at Macmillan Yard was musical chairs in the morning without the music, and in fact shouting matches would break out over the chairs.

Individuals would arrive and eyeball a nice chair that was not being sat in yet, would grab it and take it to their desk. If they had to get up for something and get out of the chair someone might grab it and the fight would break out. This multi- million dollar yard was chintzy on so many levels it wasn't funny, but on the other hand.

I never worried about chairs as long as there was one, consequently one of the ones left for me was a moulded plastic chair with straight legs.

For some reason or another the company had a few different chairs which they originally assigned in hierarchical manner the best chair, a real nice one very nicely padded, with padded arm rests, nice Corinthian leather, and, swiveled, being in the Superintendent's office the very top of the line.

After the Superintendent, the Trainmasters, and Office Assistants had slightly less quality leather, then the next group had wooden arm rests, then no arm rests, you must get the picture by now.

Being rather heavy when I sat in the chair the legs spread and, because we had carpet tiles on the floor, the spreading legs started curling up the carpet tiles under the chair.

The Superintendent Burt G. , who I had known for many years, came through the office one day and made a point to come over, and see me, and saw me sitting in the simple plastic chair, with the legs pushing up the corners of the carpet tiles, and asked me if that was the best I could do for a chair, at which time I told him that the chair was unimportant to me, at which time he said that he would get me a better chair.

A few minutes later Burt G. Superintendent comes in pushing his chair, and says to me here is a better chair for you Al, at which time I thanked him, while out of the corner of my eye, I notice the jaw of my immediate supervisor Dennis L. drop as the Superintendent presents me with his personal chair.

I say to Burt to what do I owe this surprise, to which he says, I just got a new one and didn't know what to do with this one.

Now never in my wildest dreams did I ever expect the chair to be there the next day, however, at least, until the end of my shift.

Aubrey R. and myself left and went to lunch at noon, and when we returned from the cafeteria Dennis L. had changed the chairs giving me his old swivel chair and taking the chair Burt G. had given me only an hour before, showed the minds of some supervisors worked and, how small minded, and, juvenile they could be, and where their priorities seemed to be.

I made a loud comment to Aubrey, like where did that chair go that Burt G. had given me, saw Dennis L's face redden, and left it there, reinforcing in my head my beliefs about where they got Supervisors.

Allan