Andrew introduced me to the area supervisor, Ann Klimmer, and returned to his office. Ann took me table by table and introduced me to the rest of the team. The women were in their thirties and forties. There were two men. One of the men was Asian. Singh would have gravitated to the Asian, I thought. But the women would warm to me faster.

After the introductions and an overview lecture on the operation, I was partnered with Jane Locarelli. Jane looked like she’d just rolled off an embalming table. She was late forties, rail thin, and drained of color. Even her hair was faded. She spoke in a monotone, never making eye contact, her words slightly slurred as if the effort of speech was too much to manage.

“I’ve worked here for thirty-one years,” she said. “I started working for the senior Cones. Right out of high school.”

No wonder she looked like a walking cadaver. Thirty-one years under fluorescent lights, measuring and torturing little metal doohickeys. Jeez.

Jane hitched herself up onto a stool and selected a small gear from a huge barrel of small gears. “We do two kinds of testing here. We do random testing of new product.” She sent me an apologetic grimace. “I’m afraid that’s a little tedious.” She displayed the gear she held in her hand. “And we test parts which have failed and been returned. That sort of testing is much more interesting. Unfortunately, today we’re testing new product.”

Jane carefully measured each part of the gear and examined it under a microscope for flaws. When she was done, she reached into the barrel and selected another gear. I had to bite back a groan. Two gears down. Three thousand gears to go.

“I heard Singh didn’t show up for work one day,” I said, going for casual curious. “Was he unhappy with the job?”

“Not sure,” Jane said, concentrating on the new gear. “He wasn’t very talkative.” After extensive measuring, she decided the gear was okay and went on to a third.

“Would you like to try one?” she asked.

“Sure.”

She handed the gear over and showed me how to measure.

“Looks good to me,” I said after doing the measuring thing.

“No,” she said, “it’s off on one side. See the little burr on the edge of the one cog?” Jane took the gear from me, filed the side, and measured again. “Maybe you should just watch a while longer,” she said.

I watched Jane do four more gears and my eyes glazed over and some drool oozed from between my lips. I quietly slid from my stool and moved to the next cubicle.

Dolly Freedman was also testing new gears. Dolly would drink some coffee and measure. Then she’d drink more coffee and perform another test. She was as thin and as pale as Jane, but not as lifeless. She was cranked on coffee. “This is such a bullshit job,” Dolly said to me. She looked around. “Anyone watching?” she asked. Then she took a handful of gears and dumped them into the perfect gear bucket. “They looked good to me,” she said. Then she drank more coffee.