At a car assembly plant north of the fisher freeway, Matt Zaleski,

Assistant Plant Manager and a graying veteran of the auto industry, was

glad that today was wednesday.Not that the day would be free from urgent problems and exercises in survival-no day ever was. Tonight, like any night, he would go homeward wearily, feeling older than his fifty-three years and convinced he had spent another day of his life inside a pressure cooker. Matt Zaleski sometimes wished he could summon back the energy be had had as a young man, either when he was new to auto production or as an Air force

bombardier in world war II. He also thought sometimes, looking back,

that the years of war even though he was in Europe in the thick of

things, with an impressive combat record-were less crisis-filled than

his civil occupation now. Already, in the few minutes he had been in his glass-paneled office on a mezzanine above the assembly plant floor, even while removing his coat, he had skimmed through a red-tabbed memo on the desk-a union grievance which he realized immediately could cause a plant-wide walkout if it wasn't dealt with properly and promptly. There was undoubtedly still more to worry about in an adjoining pile of papers-other

headaches, including critical material shortages (there were always

some, each day), or quality control demands, or machinery failures, or

some new conundrum which no one had thought of before, any or all of

which could halt the assembly line and stop production. Zaleski threw his stocky figure into the chair at his gray metal desk,moving in short, jerky

movements, as he always had. He heard the chair protest-a reminder of his

growing overweight and the big belly he carried around nowadays. He

thought ashamedly: he could never squeeze it now into the cramped nose

dome of a B-17. He wished that worry would take off pounds; instead, it

seemed to put them on, especially since Freda died and loneliness at night

drove him to the refrigerator, nibbling, for lack of something else to do.

But at least today was wednesday.

First things first. He hit the intercom switch for the general office;

His secretary wasn't in yet. a timekeeper answered. "I want Parkland and the union committeeman," the Assistant plant manager commanded. "get them in here fast." Parkland was a foreman. and outside they would be well aware which union committeeman he meant because they would know about the red-tabbed memo on his desk. in a plant, bad news traveled like burning gasoline. The pile of papers-still untouched, though he would have to get to them soon-reminded zaleski he had been thinking gloomily of the many causes which could halt an assembly line. Halting the line, stopping production for whatever reason, was like a sword in the side to Matt Zaleski. the function of his job, his personal raison d'ftre, was to keep the line moving, With finished cars being driven off the end at the rate of one car a minute, no matter how the trick was done or if, at times, he felt like a juggler with fifteen balls in the air at once. Senior management wasn't interested in the juggling act, or excuses either. Results were what counted: quotas, daily

production, manufacturing costs. But if the line stopped he heard about

it soon enough. each single minute of lost time meant that an entire

car didn't get produced, and the loss would never be made up. thus, even

a two- or three-minute stoppage cost thousands of dollars because, while

an assembly line stood still, wages and other costs went rollicking on.

But at least today was wednesday. The intercom clicked. "they're on their way, Mr. Zaleski." He acknowledged curtly. The reason Matt Zaleski liked wednesday was simple. Wednesday was two days removed from Monday, and Friday was two more days away. Mondays and Fridays in auto plants were management's most harrowing days because of absenteeism. each Monday, more hourly paid employees failed to report for work than on any other normal weekday; Friday ran a close second. It happened because after paychecks were handed out, usually on Thursday, many workers began a long boozy or drugged weekend, and afterward, Monday was a day for catching up on sleep or nursing hangovers.Thus, on Mondays and Fridays, other problems were eclipsed by one 

enormous problem of keeping production going despite a critical shortage

of people. Men were moved around like marbles in a game of chinese

checkers. Some were removed from tasks they were accustomed to and given jobs they had never done before. A worker who normally tightened wheel nuts might find himself fitting front fenders, Often with the briefest

of instruction or sometimes none at all. Others, pulled in hastily from

labor pools or less skilled duties-such as loading trucks or sweeping-

would be put to work wherever gaps remained. Sometimes they caught on

quickly in their temporary roles; at other times they might spend an

entire shift installing heater hose clamps, or something similar-upside down.

Newkirk dismissed him. '-fou hush upl" his eyes remained fixed,

challengingly, on the Assistant plant manager. Not for the first time, Matt Zaleski wondered: had the whole free-wheeling world gone crazy?  To people like Newkirk and millions of others, including Zaleski's own daughter, Barbara, it seemed a basic

credo that everything  which used to matter-authority, order, respect,

moral decency-no longer counted in any recognizable way.