It’s late friday night at the end of a long, hot summer week. As I push on the next liner, feeling my neck and shoulders ache, I spot one of the trainers and his buddy tiptoeing behind the parts racks with a truly magnificent weapon, a slingshot made of rubber tubing that’s so big one man holds the ends above his head and the other pulls back the cradle…

Not so long ago I was a boss and would have been considerably less amused. Now, picking up the 151st window, I watch with delight as they fire off another water balloon and it travels a good seventy-five feet down the aisle, splattering on the painted concrete floor. I am a prisoner of the line, and I am completely free, free of anyone’s expectations beyond the correct installation of this window.
– Solange de Santis

Solange de Santis is a journalist who took a job in a GM car plant to try blue collar work life. She described her experience in the book Life on the line.