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Joe"s Fickle Finger

Joe Arnold had a score to settle with the company's safety department.
A year ago, that department's engineers had made an object lesson of him and today the do-gooders would get their comeuppance.
Too long had they imposed unnecessary burdens on the punch press operators, chief among them, Joe Arnold.
For too long they had enforced rules with the hot ardor of zealots and for too long they had used Joe as an example of the price of nonconformance.
When not enforcing rules, the engineers busied themselves with the invention of new ones.
There were rules for everything now.
Because of the safety department, Joe was burdened with a hard hat, safety glasses, earplugs and even heavy gloves that impeded his ability to insert his hands into the secret workings of his punch press.
Until the safety engineers interfered, Joe had been the sole master of a maneuver that shaved minutes from an otherwise slow and awkward shutdown procedure for the company's several punch presses.
The same engineers, he was convinced, jealous of his mastery of a technique that defied their understanding, had manipulated matters that led to his downfall.
Until the downfall, it had been his practice to apply the time saved by his secret procedure to an extension of his mid-morning and afternoon work breaks.
Those who operated similar presses and lacking Joe's manual dexterity and innate understanding of the punch press, were obligated to remain at their workstations minutes longer.
During those extra moments of leisure, Joe lolled beneath the sun's warming rays reviving worn but comfortable fantasies involving the secretarial staff and to the inhalation of various chemicals packaged economically in slender white tubes.
One day while he was taking his leisure, the safety engineers made a slight alteration to his press.
It was a simple matter of replacing an outdated and no longer legal mercury switch with a newer solid-state variety.
The engineers, unaware that Joe relied upon the slower acting mercury switch to effect an early release from work, unwittingly obviated one of the several secret maneuvers he employed.
Later, in the hospital, Joe complained that neglect on the part of the safety department in informing him of the change was the sole reason for the sudden activation of the press at the very moment the third finger of his right hand fell into its path, making him suddenly and irreversibly lighter by the weight of that finger.
The loss of that particular digit added considerably to Joe's grief for it was that finger that played such a significant role in his daily communication with the world.
When asked his opinion on any subject, it had been Joe's custom to raise his right hand and with hoisted middle finger, flash his judgment to all but the vision-impaired.
It was different with the left hand.
His timing was off.
He could not muster the same degree of passion, could not calibrate the thrust with emphasis suitable to the occasion, could not suspend the solitary digit for the precise number of seconds needed to invoke wonder.
Simply put, the gesture failed to impress.
He had used the right hand since learning as a youth just how much panache he could pack into a simple gesture and how clearly he could articulate his thoughts without wasting valuable time on vocabulary development.
It was sorely missed.
Another black mark against the villainous safety department! With the passage of time, Joe's left hand displayed skill nearly but not quite equal to that formerly possessed by his right.
Though he took pride in his developing left-handed dexterity, he remained irked by the bitterest aspect of the incident, the loss of an ability to deliver opinions on any subject with brevity and shock.
When roused to a fevered pitch of excitement his right hand, out of long habit, flew upward to form a reply.
All that appeared, however, was a bruised stump, a dismal reminder of elapsed glory.
The time came when a young and inexperienced worker named Howard gained employment.
The supervisors judged Joe Arnold the most suitable candidate for training Howard in the operation of a punch press and for indoctrinating the youth on the subject of safety.
After all, they reasoned, Joe endured a grievous amputation by neglecting the very rules put in place to keep him whole.
Surely, they said to one another, he gained wisdom from that experience.
Joe had given special study to the amendment to the press that resulted in his tragedy and had come to believe he could again bask in the glory of undermining the overzealous, namby-pamby safety department.
An added inducement was the light of respect that appeared in young Howard's eyes when Joe revealed his plan.
The eager youth pledged secrecy; Joe perfected the technique.
The safety department's scheduled Day of Atonement arrived exactly one year to the day of Joe's dismemberment.
When the whistle signaling the approach of the work break sounded, Joe grinned at Howard in a manner that said, "Watch this".
He withdrew the protective glove from his left hand and passed it to Howard with elegant disdain reminiscent of a knight handing off armor to a page.
He raised his arm and then opened and closed his left hand several times in a demonstration of suppleness.
Howard's youthful eyes widened in moist veneration.
Joe rendered the lad a condescending smile and suddenly with the deftness of a magician thrust his hand into the workings of the machine.
His fingers danced between the whirling gears and cogs with the same confidence as did the right hand in days of old.
He was back on top.
With a grin, he said to his admiring audience of one, "I wish the do-gooders were here, they gotta see this!" Before the grin could fade from his features, a blaring sounded and the punch press descended much as it did once before.
When a second electrical impulse returned the press to its former position, Joe withdrew his arm and with a quizzical stare, gazed upon his left hand, now a twin to his right.

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