In the late 80’s I was working in manufacturing and had become a respectable prototype mechanic. Fun times! This was early enough, and the shop small enough for me to experience a lot of old school ways of doing things. Paper tape, actual hand drawings, math, writing gcode manually, layout, all sorts of great skills I’ve used off and on in my life since.

But, I was pinned as far as advancement went. Plenty of senior people with lots of time remaining in their careers left me in a good place, but it didn’t pay what I needed, and it was going to be the same place for a long while…

Enter a good friend who took an opportunity to clean up a rough shop. He wanted help, and I would be hired right into the next position I wanted. Deal!

This place was like a backwards time machine! The people were the worst. Well, most of them were. Company practices were a mess! Many of the people in the shop were arrogant, not particularly skilled, and many were bigots, haters out and proud. That was hard to bear, but I got some important lessons about what it takes to stand up for other people, along with slashed tires, some pretty egregious abuse, and the occasional leave early before “they” get out to the parking lot! This was flat out crazy!

To top the rough experience off, most of the equipment was old, abused and poorly serviced. But none of that is central to the story, just some setup.

I noticed fairly early on that all of the women worked in one place. Found out they all made within a dime of one another, and it was all basically minimum wage, despite some of these women having considerable skill and experience. I became good friends with one of them like we’ve all had happen at the workplace. We both were married, and would joke sometimes about “work spouse” due to the richness of the friendship. Let’s call her Tara, for the purpose of this story.

Being young, we had a lot of fun despite the oppressive environment. Part of my job was to improve this company. Clean up the equipment, establish better practices, modernize where possible and practical. I was in my 20’s and most of the changes impacted people in their 50’s. Yeah, those arrogant haters very set in their ways. Let me just say there were sparks.

Along the way, the company had purchased some computer equipment and an MRP system. They didn’t do a network, opting for a serial terminal VT 100 type setup instead. I helped set all that up and got my first sysadmin experience on that system. It was a lot of fun, despite being old school dated from the moment it was delivered. I managed to do various automations, including using PC’s for some of the terminals so I could run scripting software that would streamline input and capture information for reports without having to drudge through the software interfaces to do it, but I digress.

Here’s the key thing: I made a book. In that book was this company. All the systems, equipment, docs on the automations… everything! And I’m good at that kind of thing. Trust me, if you were just dropped into place and were tech literate on any level that book was all you needed.

One day I walked in to my desk having been moved, and it was facing Tara! She grinned and said, “well look at this! Looks like we are working together now.” Truth is, we both thought it was strange, but cool as we did have a lot of fun. I asked why, and they said Tara needed to learn some job cost aspects of the system for accounting, and I was fine with that. She had little manufacturing experience, but was tech literate, so off we went.

I took her through the shop, and again that time capsule. If she wore anything but a bag, the leers were obvious and intense! We both felt pretty bad about that, but the rest of the training was just fine. I taught her everything, because I had a plan.

See, all the women making the same money, forced into one room, one role basically, didn’t sit well. We both were married, and we both were looking to start families, and we both needed more to make life happen as we needed it to do. I was denied a wage increase, and she was stuck at the pittance women were paid in that company. Neither of us were going to be happy there, and the longer it went on, the higher the overall life impact too, and we both knew it.

I had finished the hard improvement work with my good friend. Quality was up, new work came in the building, and we both learned a lot, both grew considerably for the experience. But in most other ways the environment was actually bad for me personally. Toxic.

I also wanted to move out of manufacturing due to the massive outsourcing going on, and she wanted to get out of accounting and into more tech / management type work. So it was settled, and soon the day came where I was going to leave. We had a little party, both realizing the playful, close times were coming to an end, but life was out there and we both were going to go live it large too!

We discussed the plan: “Tara, take this book home and just camp on it.” Many knew about “the book”, but nobody knew about the expanded edition Tara had.

I knew they would be calling me within a week, and I was going to refer them to Tara, and say I was busy otherwise. She was going to say she can do the work, and would expect to get paid what that work was worth.

If we were successful, she would nearly double her income and we both would advance our careers and stick it right to misogynistic haters, bigots and theocrats who really deserved it.

Took two weeks. And I got a phone call: “They paid me!” YES!! Oh, that felt super good on basically all fronts. Do some good for someone else? Check. Stick it to assholes? Double check.

We kept in touch for a year or two after that, and the place slowly spiraled out of control again. She left soon afterward taking her new experience and skill into a great opportunity same as I did. There was a bit more brain drain and it reached a point where one of the owners sons showed up angry and literally cut EVERY wire in the building. Strangest thing I have ever heard of.

All the wires. Not just cut, but cut good, many with long sections missing.

It all sold at auction a few months after that. The building still stands today, old, decrepit, but somehow still hosting some business or other. It should be condemned.

I put the setup into this answer to hopefully convey just how painful it was for those people to actually pay a woman what she’s worth. And to convey just how delicious it was to have been part of making all that happen! The calls I got! One was literally screaming, “you know we can’t pay HER!!” (yeah you can, snicker)

The best part, over and above the gratification I got out of seeing our plan work so well, is I realized I am the sort who will stand for others who deserve it. Those couple years had a big impact on me and I took many painful lessons into what has been a great career so far.