There was plenty of buzzing that afternoon among the men, especially when the job, re-set in the correct face—or rather, set in the correct face, because this now was the first time it had been set—was put on the dump. I gave the boys five minutes to crowd around and look at the proof and then I broke it up. I was exultant. It didn't occur to me then that a man could be too ambitious.
That afternoon the chairman came in, and I was ready for him. "We are not," I pointed out, "violating our union contract."
"But you made the casterman set the job twice, and he doesn't get paid for it."
"We pay the casterman two dollars an hour for seven hours a day. When he's here more than seven hours, he'll get time and a half," I said triumphantly.
The chairman frowned, but I didn't relax; I was on top and I knew it. "He set the job wrong in the first place," I pointed out, "and he got paid for that. Is there any reason why he shouldn't correct his own mistake, if it doesn't take any of his time?"
"It does take time," he insisted.
"No. He's only re-living that four hours and doing the job right instead of wrong; you can't find any fault with that."
And he couldn't. I felt wonderful. I wanted to jump and shout, but I compromised by taking Dr. Hudson down for a gleeful drink and planning our next tactic.
We also settled a point of strategy. We decided to confuse them with a few minor things before springing our next real item—which would be, to put it mildly, revolutionary.
Things looked pretty good. The only thing that bothered me was that we hadn't started the big job yet.