Big Sweet John

 I worked for a while with a guy whom everyone called Big Bad John. He was a big fellow, strong, and not given to much BS. He trained me to run a mill, and on the last day of my training, we pushed hard and set a new process record for an eight hour shift. John's official title was auxiliary 1, and he was shifted around through departments to cover when people were sick, or when there was a bottle neck.
While I said John wasn't given to much BS, I'm not saying he didn't have a sense of humor. He had that twinkle in his eye that just let you know he could deal a joke as good as anyone. He was a stickler for following the rules and believed in safety.
Well, one day, I opined that he wasn't big bad John, but big sweet John... He also had a heart of gold. John had never heard of Ben Colder, so I found a recording and brought it to work for him. Well, he took it home.
The next morning he walked in  to the lunch room, right up to me, and told me the only reason I still had teeth was because the company couldn't afford to lose both of us on the same day.
John was running fork lift that day. I typically went through 4,000 lbs of rubber in a shift which equated to five or more boxes of raw compound, and John was the one delivering it.
Somewhere around box three, he stopped his truck and began laughing at me. "I had you going..."
Sorry John, you didn't. You had so much laughter in your eyes you weren't sputtering from anger, but from laughter. His girlfriend told me he listened to the dang song about ten times and was laughing all night about it.
People took John seriously though, and the next time he was running the mill with me every eye was watching to see if I got stuffed bodily through the machine.
This is a video of a 60" rubber mill. Bigger than the one we ran, but very similar operation.



With ours, we were feeding a calender which would run the rubber out in a continuous strip like toilet paper. It was then cooled and rolled up, sliced, and used in making hose.