Typical Day
At 7:00AM, Ray Pareman's alarm clock goes off. In his robe and slippers, he shuffles into the kitchen for breakfast: a large bowl of cornflakes and two percent milk. He showers and brushes his teeth, not bothering to brush his hair (his wife, Pearl, has been gone for the week visiting her mother; so no need). After putting on a black t-shirt and jeans, what his friends affectionately call his "uniform," Ray settles in his machinist shop by 7:30AM.
He doesn't drive a car to work, nor does he take a bus. He simply walks down the two flights of stairs from where he lives. He single-handedly runs the shop, which he inherited from his parents over thirty years ago. Every once in a while, when the shop is overloaded with requests from customers, his niece comes in to help out.
She's been coming in less and less over the years now that she's betrayed him to pursue a degree in engineering…but Ray knows he doesn't need her help much anyway. Business is steady, though a bit slow. He's rarely overworked.
He opens the shop at 7:42AM. Being self-employed, Ray doesn't really need to open or close the shop at any particular time. He just opens around 8:00AM and closes around 5:00PM, give or take. The shop is a renovated two-car garage, but he doesn't need much room—just enough to fit the two lathes, a grinder, three welders, a band saw, and some measuring equipment. To an outsider's eye, the shop is messy and disorganized; to Ray, it's a thing of beauty.
First order of business, he reviews the shop orders. There are far fewer than in his early days on the job, but he's got some dedicated customers. He only has four years until retirement in any case, so the job market hasn't worried him much.
He starts by building a prototype for a favorite customer of his, an engineering firm located downtown. Ray doesn't like most engineers—they never take his advice, but they do give him work. Just because he doesn't have a degree in design, they think he doesn't know squat.
"Well, it's just not true," he grumpily thinks to himself. Still, the guys at Sterling Engineering Inc. are alright. Old-school, almost. Plus, they give him some pretty lucrative design and build jobs.
After a few hours, he breaks for lunch, flipping the sign on the front door from "OPEN" to a picture of a clock with the words, "Be right back!" Then he waltzes upstairs to fix himself a sandwich: steak sliced thin, onions, Worcestershire sauce, and butter to get the French roll nice and toasted.
The doctor told Ray he needed to cut down on the butter, for the cholesterol or something. He dabs it with a napkin after toasting. That's probably enough.
By noon (he takes an early lunch), Ray's back in the shop, this time to do some repair work. Repairing little gizmos is most of his work, which tends to involve a lot of welding. He pulls on the welding helmet and sets to work, repairing several clocks, a few stove pilots, and some jammed up power tools a few neighbors brought him to fix.
At 4:00PM, the chime of the front door interrupts Ray from his work. It's a rare walk-in customer. Ray doesn't get many of those these days, but he's always happy for the extra business.
"Can I help you?"
"Yes, hi there. I called but the phone seems to be out of order."
Ray mentally adds that to his "to-fix" list. "What can I do you for?"
"I've got a coffee roaster at home, custom-made. Inherited from my mother. And it needs a replacement hub."
"Sure thing, do you have it with you?"
Ray represses an eyeroll. He knows this kind of a guy. Nice shoes. White teeth. Six figure salary. Probably at an advertising company or some big law firm. Powerful guy, but the second something breaks down, he's totally lost. Doesn't know how to fix a daggone—
"No, I'm sorry. I thought I would just—I can bring it, if you need it."
"Yeah, I need it. If it's a custom job like you said, I need to work with my eyes."
They settle on a baseline price (subject to change once Ray sees the coffee machine, of course) and a deadline for the project, and Ray bids him a good day. Another customer comes to pick up a front-mounted kurdler-nurdler. When she leaves, Ray looks at the clock. Almost 5:00PM.
"Well, that's good enough for now." He walks over to the door, flips the sign around again, and locks up for the night.
He makes his way upstairs to the apartment to fix dinner, and his phone. He's starting to think Pearl may not have forgotten he said he'd call her to say goodnight each night...