Things go from bad to worse - typical in a fascist controlled life.

On Monday, February 27, I received a call from Stanley which shocked me. He said he was unhappy with my performance and was wondering if he should keep me on. When I asked him what was wrong with what I had been doing, he said he thought the failed plant reaction and subsequent product was my fault. He continued to by saying that at the very least, he was going to deduct six thousand dollars from my salary for the materials used in the failed reaction! In other words, he was going to cut my salary or fire me or I could quit. He was probably hoping for the latter.

Given that I had arduously argued against running the reaction in the plant in the first place, his statements were so absurd that I didn't even try to reason with him. And the fact that I was continually trying to get my manuscript published made me suspect that The Crazies might somehow be involved. And I also considered that the failed reaction, the down time of the plant reactors, plus the cost of getting the plant boiler back in operating condition might have been causing Stanley some financial problems. But, I needed the income to be able to afford sending out copies of my manuscript to publishing companies.

I had done some other experiments concerning the failed reaction and found that much higher temperatures were need to get the reaction to go to completion and I had made sure that Stanley was aware of that fact. Stanley may have had a lot of negative characteristics, but he was not stupid enough to really believe that I was at fault for the failed reaction. I hung up the phone not knowing what to think. Was his threats just Stanley acting out his own frustration or was there an element of The Crazies again generating stress with the old "we are going to fire you" routine.

Repair of the boiler was proceeding about as I had expected. The damage to the boiler and the building was extensive and minor details that Stanley had overlooked, such as the state inspection, delayed plant production from starting up again. It was about three weeks, not the three days as Stanley had predicted. before the boiler was operational again.

My boiler incident brought to light another problem at work. Apparently Herb, who was still recovering from his injuries from the accident had neglected to properly maintain the boiler. At least that is what the insurance company was saying because they were now balking at paying for the damages because the cause of the accident was questionable. Although the cost of the repair was a concern to me, my real concern was over Herb's apparent lackadaisical approach to doing things in the plant. Since the reports were that Herb would be back at work in a few weeks, I was going to have to deal with Herb in making changes in the plant. From what I was seeing and hearing, I was anticipating strong resistance to any change.