| machined parts, making certain that the parts got delivered on time so that the production line wouldn’t go down. The line could never go down. If it ever did, my boss’s boss, Big George, the VP of manufacturing, would have my boss’s ass and then my boss would have my ass. It was sort of like an assembly line of ass-kicking, all the way down the human production line. As a lowly purchasing expeditor, I was on the bottom rung of the totem pole and sure to be the first to get shit-canned (to get fired). In other words, there was no one beneath me in the front office whose ass I could have. I was Tail-End Charlie (the last Marine or element in a line or column). The assembly line never went down; but if it ever were to, it could never be the fault of the PD. This was Jack’s law. The next step up on the ladder for me, assuming that I never got shit-canned, would be junior buyer, and then a few years down the road, hopefully, purchasing agent, if I was lucky and didn’t piss off Jack. As expeditor, I was given six things to effectively perform my job: a pencil, pencil sharpener, telephone, a computer printout list of all of the hundreds of parts the company had on order with vendors, a gray metal desk, and a thinly cushioned office chair. I was told to make all of my notes directly on the printout in pencil next to the delivery dates and that Jack would check my notes every morning and ask me questions and that I had better be prepared with the straight skinny (information known to be accurate) and not to come up with any WAGS (wild-ass guesses), because Jack always knows what the hell was going on and had a mind like a steel trap. So that was that: I had forever left Kiddieland behind for the World of Businessmen. The actual job functions were simple to understand, but Jack was not. He was the hard job. To do a good job and effectively communicate with Jack, I needed a crash course in a uniquely colorful and obscenely descriptive form of the English language: Marine Corps slang. I did my best to learn it chop-chop (quickly or in a hurry; derived from Chinese by the old China Marines) for my own economic survival. At exactly 8:45 sharp every morning, Monday through Friday, Jack Cotton, former Marine master sergeant (former Marine, not ex-Marine, is the acceptable term because—make no mistake—that person is a Marine and always will be a Marine), World War II Pacific Island combat veteran and purchasing manager of Berkey Technical Company in Woodside, Queens, New York, manufacturer of graphic arts equipment, marched in quick time (the normal pace in marching, approximately 120 steps per minute) to take up his position in the company’s chain of command (the continuous sequence of authority that links the most junior private to the commander in chief). |
| The Expeditor |
by Michael Domino
Arrival
The morning routine in the purchasing department—the
PD—never varied, never.
I made sure that I was at my desk by 8:30. This gave me
time to review all the calls I had made to the company’s
vendors the day before, organize my notes, and make sure
that my desk was in perfect military order before my ex-
Marine (actually, there is no such thing—once a marine,
always a Marine) boss, Jack Cotton, arrived, and he was
never late, never.
This was my first real New York City office job since barely
graduating from Podunk (any small town, or someone’s very
small hometown) High School on Long Island in 1975. I
wasn’t sure if I wanted to go on to college, so I didn’t want to
screw up this opportunity to learn about business and move
up in a large and growing company. I didn’t want to flounder
around working for mom-and-pop operations back on Long
Island anymore. My job now was expeditor, the person who
called the vendors after the buyers placed the orders for
PD—never varied, never.
I made sure that I was at my desk by 8:30. This gave me
time to review all the calls I had made to the company’s
vendors the day before, organize my notes, and make sure
that my desk was in perfect military order before my ex-
Marine (actually, there is no such thing—once a marine,
always a Marine) boss, Jack Cotton, arrived, and he was
never late, never.
This was my first real New York City office job since barely
graduating from Podunk (any small town, or someone’s very
small hometown) High School on Long Island in 1975. I
wasn’t sure if I wanted to go on to college, so I didn’t want to
screw up this opportunity to learn about business and move
up in a large and growing company. I didn’t want to flounder
around working for mom-and-pop operations back on Long
Island anymore. My job now was expeditor, the person who
called the vendors after the buyers placed the orders for
Denis Proulx / Shangri-La Studio