Chip Shiftwell

Card before the work

The mill makes rolls of paper wide enough to hide a person crouched behind them. Chip Shiftwell works on the instruments that tell the crew when a roll really is the width the order asks for. He checks a reading in a controlled place, tries one change, then checks again. People who call him up to the floor sometimes offer the memory that a similar machine had the same problem in the spring. At his best Chip will go find the person who actually saw it. At home his husband Ollie says he can get a single troublesome drawer out of its runner so quickly he forgets to find out where it catches.

A bad practice in the Volkswagen Golf Mk2 gets exactly the same headlong treatment. The steering had felt stiff after the first bend. Chip came in and changed five things faster than Ollie could write them down. One change was just a move back to where they'd started. On the next test he couldn't tell what made the car feel different. He drove it twice. It felt like two different cars.

Two wet marks at the tea table

Gus Gasket had brought along two Volkswagen parts to trade. Chip gave him the story about his Golf and mentioned what he was hoping to borrow. Gus asked him what he did first. Chip kept putting a part on the edge of his tea saucer and then moving it while he reconstructed the order. A loose awning slid right over the whole tea table during setup. It never went anywhere near a moving car. Gus would remember the sound of a spoon running across a saucer. Chip would remember how warm the canvas still was when they lifted a corner so someone could get the teapot out.

There is a comfortable amount of disagreement in this story. A person can ask Chip which man had been looking at the knot last and get a different answer depending on whether Gus can hear him. Chip thinks everyone was busy pointing at somebody's parts when it got loose. He has never cared to write it down.

A new card

Chip drew five strokes on his first replacement, crossed the lot out and drove the closed lane from the position he'd saved before the changes. He altered one thing, watched the Golf hold its shape on the first bend and came right back with a good description of the start and a poor one of the exit. The next pass let him keep exactly the same turn until he'd felt what it did about two thirds of the way around. He knows now where he wants to aim the wheel when he eases out. He also knows who should stand outside and watch when he tries it again.

Rex Rotor was working on a spare wheel and had drawn a full rotation on a card that already carried a lot of his thinking. Chip left him a blank one. He put his own yellow pencil behind his ear.

Pencil bought in a pack of six

Ollie has accepted the offer of a day out with the Golf, provided Chip agrees to look at the drawer before they leave. Chip has one change planned for each. The same pencil is lying on the kitchen shelf between them. He will have to ask Ollie to remind him which order they agreed to do things in.