He's my problem

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(Timeline: Week 2 Thursday)


Two days later, Kexing was still cutting the barrel nut material.

Howard, a machinist in the manual tool department, came to Hanson's desk to complain.

"Hanson, your guy has been on the saw for 2 days. I need the saw to work. I have stuff to cut too!"

Hanson knew that sooner or later, somebody would complain. The shop only had 1 heavy-duty manual saw, equipped with coolant and twin blade capability, therefore most people that needed to cut random aluminum or steel for special projects, or cut scrap parts before recycling them, or even cut resin boards and plastic pipes, would use that saw.

But Kexing was just too slow. Hardworking - no doubt - but too slow.

So Hanson and Howard went to the saw area, and Hanson told Kexing that he could stop cutting for now, and that Howard needed the saw.

"After I'm done, Rich needs the saw too, and then Bob. We've all been waiting!" Howard said impatiently.

"The saw is yours today. Cut whatever you guys want to cut. We will use it tomorrow." Hanson said.

Then he drove Kexing to the new building to help him move some heavy steel. Once a month, they receive barrel material. A total of 80 bars per month, each bar weighed about 220 pounds and measured 20 ft long. Because the material was carbon steel, it easily rusts and must be stored indoors. But the building does not have a lot of room so the material was unloaded from the delivery trucks using forklifts, but they had to manually bring each bar into the building by hand. They receive this kind of delivery once a month. Hanson used to carry each bar himself. But when he was done with all 80 bars, his back would hurt for a few days. Now that he had an assistant, he might as well get help. Together they moved the 9 tons of weight.

Kexing looked scrawny so Hanson did not think he could do all 80 bars with him. He thought Kexing would do a third or a half, and then stop for a break. But he did not. For as long as Hanson kept moving, Kexing kept going.

When they were finally done, Hanson told Kexing to take a break.

"It's not break time yet" Kexing said.

"I understand. But you're tired. So take a break."

"I'm not tired."

Even Hanson himself was tired. Of course Kexing would be.

"I said SIT and TAKE a damn break!" He was starting to get angry.

Kexing quickly sat down.

After Hanson regained his calm composure, he told Simon, "tomorrow I will finish cutting the barrel nut batch that you started, you don't have to finish it, I will."

"But it's my job."

"... I have other things you need to do. You're going to start working on the computer, so you can look up inventory. While you practice on the computer, I will cut."

Kexing explained to Hanson that he's not used computers much. He would have to be very patient with him.

And boy was he right.

Hanson had to teach him everything, how to turn on the computer, shut it down, login. Kexing couldn't come up with a password that meets the complexity criteria of the network, and after wasting a good 15 minutes, Hanson decided to create a password for him to memorize instead. Even so, he couldn't remember it so he wrote it down and put it in his wallet. Then he taught him how to use the mouse, the difference between single clicking and double clicking an icon, the difference between left-clicking and right-clicking, how to open and close windows, the Internet, how to get to the bookmarks. Hanson bookmarked the inventory database for him. He showed him how to open Outlook, where to go to see his new email messages.

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