Ferrets can’t rig. Badgers can’t pull.
Ferrets can't rig. Badgers can't pull.
Michael J. Albers
Royce struggled to see the report through the bangs falling over his eyes. He pawed his hair aside as he reviewed the weekly production status report. "Oh, the pain of being a hard working sheepdog. I don't even have time to keep my hair cut so I don't walk into things." Not a bad report, he muttered, both airships were on time, they might even end up slightly ahead of schedule next week if the rain held off, and both were definitely under budget. Mr. McCary would like that. Royce smiled, dreaming of a nice year-end bonus he would receive as site supervisor.
He lifted his head at a knock on his door and his secretary stuck her head in. The squirrel had her head fur cut in the latest style, haphazardly shaved with multi-colored tuffs of hair; a style Royce couldn't understand although his daughter had her coat cut the same way. "Mr. Fullerman, an urgent message from Adam on airship #2." She came up and handed him a folded green sheet of paper.
Through the open door he could see the messenger rabbit still standing there. He sighed, a waiting rabbit meant Adam wanted an immediate response and it was never good when your unit coordinator wanted anything immediately. He unfolded the note and started to read. His already drooped ears drooped farther. "Oh hell, the ferrets and badgers are at it again. Why do they have to be so..." He looked out at the messenger. "Did Adam send notes to the guild masters?"
The rabbit shrugged. "I think those were the notes he was writing when he sent me off, but I'm not sure."
"Ok. Go tell Adam I'll be there momentarily."
The rabbit nodded, "Tell Adam you'll be there momentarily. Yes, sir." He hopped off.
Royce crumpled the note between his paws as he turned to look out his window. Black coal smoke from the airship-construction company's huge boilers and from other nearby factories drifted across the complex; a downdraft grabbed the smoke as it left the tall chimneys and forced it downward to roll across the ground in black waves. From six floors up, except for the obscuring black smoke, he had a great view of the airship construction area. Multiple canals crisscrossed the yard, the building-lined roads spanned them with high-arch bridges. Two partially completed steel frames soared out of the construction docks rising from below the ground to higher than his window. The even taller cranes gave the frames the appearance of upside down spiders. Beyond the two docks were piles of dirt from three new docks that were under construction. McCary and the board were betting the company on this expansion, but the expansion was based on their belief that war was eminent and they would soon receive huge government contracts for more airships. Of course, Royce thought, if these non-stop ferret and badger feuds don't stop soon the company may not be around to get those contracts. And, more practically, if I don't figure out how to stop them, I may not be around for my year-end bonus. Or maybe even my month-end paycheck.
With a deep-throated growl, he ripped the crumpled note in two and slammed it into the trash.
The hike to the construction site didn't improve his disposition since he had to wait at an open drawbridge while a slow tug pushed three barges of iron ingots past. He coughed as a cloud of the black smoke pouring out of the tug' stack rolled over him. The iron delivery was two days late and he'd been worried about it affecting his schedule, but any relief he felt at seeing its arrival was overshadowed by the reason he needed to be on the other side of the canal. Why did the ferrets and badgers not get along? Granted, they didn't get along with anyone outside of their species and no one really liked them either, but they were by far the best riggers and cable pullers. Royce would love to fire the lot of them, but rigging and cable pulling were the two fundamental jobs of building an airship frame. Thus, he had no choice but to put up with them, but this current round of feuding made both of them unbearable.
Airship #2 was the farthest one from his office, but as he walked past #1, he saw that work there had stopped, also. His lips drew back, exposing teeth. Whatever problem was causing this current stoppage had better involve multiple dead bodies or he'd soon be creating them.
The head rigger for airship #1 jogged up to him as he walked past. Royce glared at the badger. "Why did you stop work? Are you planning on making up the slippage at no-time?"
"Hey, hey, Mr. Fullerman," the badger held out his paws, "the guild master called the stoppage because of the ferrets on #2. We're within rules. You know I'd never go against the rules."
"Yeah, and last week I bet on your grandma in a cage fight against two lions," Royce muttered. Louder he said, "Come on. Let's go get this all straightened out."
The badger fell in beside him and they walked in silence to airship #2.
A circle of the various critters working on the site formed an outer ring surrounding the ferrets and badgers, who stood in their own groups hissing at each other. Between them stood Adam, their respective site foremen, and the ferret cable-pulling guild master. Royce looked over his shoulder and saw a fat badger, the rigging guild master, hurrying across a bridge toward the group.
He walked into the group, stood beside Adam and was content to just alternate stares and head shakes at each group until the puffing and wheezing badger guild master joined them.
He turned toward a ferret. "Rudy, what's your side?"
The badger foreman spoke up, "Well, Mr. Fullerman, these scum sucking..."
Royce whirled on him and poked a paw into his chest. "Ferrets first, then your turn. Each speaks in turn when asked, or I resolve this for the group that can keep its mouth shut unless spoken to. Understand?" He moved to glare at each critter in turn and waited until they all dropped their eyes toward the ground and grumbled something resembling an affirmative answer.
"Ok, now, Rudy, you were saying?"
"Well, these rat eaters were"
A growl went though the badger ranks.
"Language!" Royce said, lips drawing back to show his teeth.
Rudy's eyes flashed for a second before his shoulders dropped. "Ok, we had a crew pulling cable into the area below the rigging area. The rivet crews had finished earlier today so it was our turn. Then, after we got the first cable pulled through and partially tensioned--it was one of the two incher main cables--the badgers were jumping on it. Bouncing down off their perch onto the cable, bouncing a few times, and then letting their safety lines catch them. Tore loose one of the connectors."
Royce turned to the badger foreman. "Frank, your side."
The badger guild master cut in. "None of the badgers would ever do anything like that. It's unsafe. I'm sure it's nothing but a story these ferrets made up to cause trouble."
Royce stepped toward to him, gums rolled back. "Were you an eye witness?"
"As the guild master, I speak for..."
"Were you an eye witness?"
"Well, no. I was in my office."
"Right." He turned back to Frank. "And?"
"Well these wiggle...." he clenched his teeth. "these ferrets had run the cable. But none of my people jumped on it. Louis took a fall and happened to come in contact with it. Sort of lucky for Louis. It took some of the shock of the safety line stopping him. They can cause good bruises."
Rudy muttered, "And what about the other four that just happened to fall?"
Royce raised his voice and addressed the crowd. "Any witnesses? Especially any inspector?"
His eyes scanned over the silent critters, who all felt an urge to look somewhere else.
"Ok everyone, back to work. We'll have a full investigation into this."
The badger and ferret guild masters spoke in unison, "No!"
"What do you mean, no?"
The ferret spoke up, "We refuse to work on the site as long as these critters are violating safety rules and causing damage to our work."
The badger nodded, "For once we agree on something. As long as these wiggle snakes are making up untrue stories, we will not work."
Royce stared at both of them, contemplating what species could replace the whole lot of them. And then he rocked back and smiled. With a big smile on his face he kept looking between Frank, Rudy, and the two guild masters. The smile grew bigger as he watched deep worry lines wrinkle the fur on faces as they struggled to understand why he was smiling. Expressions that turned to fear when he laughed out loud.
Finally, Royce nodded. "Ok, I agree. Since you both refuse to work with the other species, you don't have too." A collective gasp went up from the crowd. "However, since the work must still be done, you'll have to do it yourself. Ferrets get to do rigging and pulling on #1 and badgers get rigging and pulling on #2."
In unison, the guild masters said "What? Impossible, they are not qualified."
Royce tilted his head. "Oh. Ok then, you agree that you have to work together as you have been."
Both guild masters stood stunned, open and closing their mouths wordlessly.
Frank stepped forward. "Oh bloody hell, if a stinking ferret can pull cables it's got to be trivial for a badger."
"Yeah, what's so hard about sticking pieces of metal together? If a badger can do it, a ferret can do it better. It ain't nothing like the real work of pulling and tensioning a cable through tight spaces."
Royce slapped both foremen on the back. "Good. Now that you are all happy, everyone back to work. We are barely on schedule and I don't want any slippage." Leaving shocked faces, Royce walked off.
#
Mr. McCary drummed the polished walnut desk with his paw. "Royce, it's been two days since you split the ferrets and badgers and our framing schedules are slipping. Something which greatly concerns me since the carriage units are ahead of schedule. I was hoping to deliver these two airships well ahead of schedule and not have to make excuses for worker strikes. Plus, we've got three more orders to start. We need to get going on two of them as soon as those docks are cleared."
Royce stood before his boss's desk and refused to wither under the large wolf's piercing gaze.
"Sir, that was the fifth stoppage in the last two months. Those two groups are looking to stop at the slighted reason. And that was seriously affecting the long-term schedule since it always seems to take a day or two to return to normal productivity. Frankly, I'm surprised they haven't given up on doing the other's task. Right now, I'm sure they are both stubbornly waiting and hoping for the other one to give up first. In the meantime, the inspectors are passing the work. Both species are paranoid that a failed inspection would prove they can't do the other's job. I'm confident that in another day or so things will return to normal."
"Ok, a few days, but no more than a few. No overtime pay to get back on schedule. When they get done being jerks, production goals go up until we're back on schedule."
Royce kept his face blank as he replied "Yes, Mr. McCary." But he knew that was going to be a difficult thing to pull off. Work schedules were already stretched to the breaking point. Increasing production goals would only result in a schedule slip since the work could not go faster.
A messenger rabbit waited outside McCary's office. "Mr. Fullerman, I know this message is urgent, but Mr. McCary's secretary wouldn't interrupt. But, anyway, there's was fight on number one. A badger was found sneaking onto the frame."
Royce growled and bared his teeth as the rabbit cowered against the wall. "I am going to kill the lot of them. I'm going to push them off the highest crane." Leaving the poor trembling rabbit, he left at a full run.
Everyone was back at work when he arrived. Adam explained that the badgers had sent a critter sneaking over to see how badly the ferrets were rigging. He was noticed before even getting into the framing itself, so he had made up some sort of pitiful excuse. Lucky for him, Adam was one of the first critters there and was able to get him hustled off site #1 before the incident progressed beyond jeers and insults.
Royce called the ferret foreman and guild master, told them the matter was closed, and any ferrets found in airship #2 were fired. Then he leaned in close, showed his teeth, and told them that they would accompany the trespassing ferret out the gate. As they stood pale in their fur, he assured them that the badgers would receive the same notice.
A few hours later, still fuming over the on-going ferret-badger feud, he walked out the shipyard gate and down to the canal dock at end of the street, glad that his day was over and he could go home. He looked at his usual water bus puffing steam from its boiler and shaking from the engine vibration. He shook his head and walked past it to a hand-rowed gondola. He nodded to the burly bear gondolier as he climbed in, admiring the finely tooled brass under his paw, and told the bear his home address. A rowed boat would take longer, but would be quiet and smooth. Right now, he needed time to think and did not want to deal with the shake of a steam turbine. And he certainly didn't want any critter trying to strike up a sports conversation; the city was abuzz about the local team being in the final eight of the national push-and-roll championships, a sport he despised. In his current state of mind, he didn't trust himself to just nod noncommittally to some gushing crazed fan.
For the first part of the trip, he sank back into the cushions and let his mind go blank while the boat moved along the side canal and merged into Grand Canal. Other boats, both animal-powered and steam-powered moved though the canal and more boats bobbed at their moorings along the canal's sides. In the buildings lining the canals, the flickering of gas lights filled the windows. He loved traveling the canals at dusk, with the lights glowing and people moving about. His stomach rumbled as the odors of cooking food wafted past his nostrils.
An airship passed overhead, with its nose slightly up as it worked to gain more altitude for its cruise to wherever it was bound. From the carriage design he knew it was a model his yard had built a few years ago. He could see a couple of other airships floating on tethers from the mooring poles topping the tall buildings on the inland side of the city.
The boat slipped past the moorings of Badgertown. Loud music and laughter came from the bars that lined the canal. A few leather collared badgers leaned on the rails at the top of a mooring step. Badgertown was not an area he would ever go after dark...or, truth be told, any time of day. He wondered why each species lived together in a city, but then insisted on living within enclaves of just their own or related species. And why consistently between cities some were nice areas and others were seriously dangerous. He didn't know of a single city where Badgertown wasn't the worst hellhole in the city. Nothing but a cesspit of drinking and fighting. He was sure all of the yard's badgers lived in Badgertown and most had grown up there. Looking at it that way, he could understand why they had such a rough outlook on life. He couldn't imagine growing up in that sort of place. Of course, he lived in a higher-end canine area himself, so he was just as guilty of staying species-centric. Other than some very swank areas he couldn't afford, like where McCary lived, he wasn't sure if he could safely live anywhere else in the city, even if he wanted to.
Royce sighed. If the ferret-badger job switch didn't get resolved soon, that old critter McCary had more than enough pull in this city to ensure that he would be lucky to get a job as a sewer cleaner. Then he would have no choice but to uproot his family and move back to the town where he and his wife had grown up. At least the inspectors were not failing everything. To be honest, he had expected that all the work would fail inspection and after a half a day both species would be forced to admit they couldn't do the work. Tomorrow he would have to look at the inspection reports more closely and see what types of comments were being made. Passing inspection was different from doing work at the quality he, and McCary, expected. Perhaps the reports would provide the stick he needed to end this feud.
He rocked back in the cushion and took a deep breath; he needed to relax and forget about work. His wife had mentioned something about a dinner party and someone's daughter playing music with a group. He hoped it was a nice classical quartet or chamber orchestra. He shuddered at the thought that it might be some of this newer stuff that was billed as music or someone's not-so-talented daughter's paws torturing a musical instrument. At a tea party last month, he had suffered through a performance that more closely sounded like a ferret-badger fight than music. If given a choice between a repeat of that recital and being in a backstreet Badgertown fisticuffs, he'd pick the fight.
#
Twenty stories above the street, Royce pulled his cape tighter around his shoulders as a cold wind ruffled his fur. He. Several other critters stood around him forming a haphazard line before the gate that blocked a narrow walkway leading to a waiting airship. It rocked slowly on its nose tether attached to the building's mast.
Royce looked over the airship with his experienced eye. It was a Briggerton airship, larger than the ones he built, but designed on the same basic principle. A two level carriage hung from a maze of cables wrapped around the large covered airframe. In true overdone Briggerton fashion, the outside of the carriage had all of the seams covered in brass with mosaic designs filling most of the areas in between. The transport company logo of a rabbit surfing on a stylized airship covered the front end. Four large prop motors were attached to the back in the standard configuration, but their engine design looked different. He made a mental note to check into that. He had noticed that the trip to the capital would be quicker than he expected; it had to be these engines. McCary would want to know if they needed to change engine suppliers so he could make a faster product.
Not that a faster product would be an issue if the reason for this trip came to be reality. The war department was holding a meeting of airship companies, and he had heard invitations had gone out to other war equipment companies, to gather information about what they could expect in terms of production. McCary had traveled to the capital three days ago and had telegraphed for Royce to come and engage in a more detailed level of discussion. If war did come, he wouldn't be mounting any engines since the military had a new propless design that greatly increased the range and speed of an airship. But those engines were a military secret and installed by the military after delivery.
A rabbit in a uniform over-laden with gold braid climbed through the airship door, walked down the swaying walkway, and opened the gate. Then he stepped aside and let the assembled critters walk past.
Inside the door were stairs going up and a doorway to the left. A couple of cute cat hostesses stood on each side of the doorway to greet the first class passengers. Through the door he could see cushy seats, an open bar, and it sounded like a small band was playing. Royce sighed and dutifully climbed the stairs. In the upper level, he found wooden benches and muffled music drifting up from below.
After stuffing his bag under the bench and sitting down, Royce frowned as he wondered what the military would think if they heard his schedules were slipping because those damn badgers and ferrets both refused to admit they couldn't do both jobs. It had been over a week now. After a few days of a rapidly sliding schedule, they had at least stabilized. Not slipping, but not making up time, either. McCary was beyond impatient and Royce knew that in six days when he returned, he was going to have to address this situation head on. It was not going to be pretty. And it risked his own management credibility that he was going to have to end it instead of allowing either the badgers or ferrets to curl up in their den.
#
After the morning senior management briefings, his first update after returning late last night from his trip to the capital, Royce stood staring out his office window at the new docks. He had not been too happy about the meetings. War seemed much too eminent with the government almost pushing to start it. Senior management had spent the morning meeting too upbeat at the prospects of high profits. The beating war drums the company's government contacts reported from the Parliament halls and that had echoed through the military meetings were starting to sound in the newspapers, too. McCary had been almost jubilant as he talked about working three shifts on five docks to supply military airships. He had changed the construction contract so the crews would work two shifts a day to get the new docks built faster. In addition, he had told all of his managers, Royce included, that he wanted plans for hiring and training the new crews required to work the new docks. McCary had strongly suggested he expected both a single shift and full 24/7 shift hiring plans with larger crews. Royce was happy that they should be out of range of enemy airships, at least as long as a war went well. However, he didn't really relish the idea of managing more supervisors across three shifts and weekends. At the same time, he knew he wouldn't be happy if McCary hired a new super-supervisor and left him just in charge of this shift. However he sniffed it, it seemed he was destined to be living in this office.
The good news was that during his time away, the schedule hadn't slipped, so McCary wouldn't tear the fur off his back about that. Sighing, he turned back to his desk which was covered in piles of paper. He looked at the stacks and shook his head. Attacking those mounds of paper would have to wait until the ferret and badger issue was resolved. He had so hoped that they would give it up during his time away and he would return to find both critters doing their normal work. First, he would review the inspection reports and then he would walk over and do a personal inspection. He would find the stick he needed. On schedule or not, the feud ended today.
His secretary opened his office door, breaking into his thoughts. "Mr. Fullerman, a messenger just arrived from airship #1. Rigging work has stopped."
He buried his face into his paws. "Now what? Now why have the ferrets stopped?"
He was a herding dog, but the only place he wanted to herd these ferrets and badgers was over a cliff. The mental image of them tumbling over the edge looked so sweet.
When he arrived at airship #1, Rudy was standing on the bridge to the dock waiting for him. No other ferrets were in sight.
"Ok, Rudy, what's the problem? Why did you stop work?"
"We only stopped rigging, My Fullerman. I put everyone on pulling, but that'll only keep us busy for the rest of shift and maybe into tomorrow. We'll rig again tomorrow, but only maybe until noon."
"Ok." Royce sighed. "Why did you stop rigging?"
"No frames. We're working too fast."
Royce caught a growl in his throat. With a shake of his head, he said, "Wait, what? You are working too fast?"
"Yes, we're a few days ahead of the badgers on rigging. As far as I can tell, they are working right on normal pace. Rigging anyway. But we're going faster and the fabrication shop only tends to work a day or so ahead of rigging. They're worse than badgers about not working any harder than they have to. Anyway, we've installed everything they have ready. They couldn't keep up. Sorry, sir, but we've fallen off the front of the schedule."
"Fallen off the front of the schedule? Wait, you said you've rigged all the frames that are ready to install. I need to get fabrication working faster?" Oh, yes, he thought, Charles will really love being told his guys needed to work faster. The way he already endlessly complains about being understaffed. Of course, Rudy's comment about the fab shop only working as hard as it was forced to was, unfortunately, also true.
Rudy nodded. "Fallen off the front. One of the guys described it that way. I think it fits."
"How are the rivet crews keeping up?"
"Easily. I don't think they work all that hard. If I had frames and could hire another rigger team or two then we could really fly. Hmm, that may require another crane. Pulling is an issue though. We found we can rig faster than we can pull. Never had that problem with badgers rigging."
Royce closed his eyes and thought, Rudy, if you are really going that fast and we really get war orders to fill those three new docks, you'll regret you said that."
"Now if fab isn't keeping up, I'll try and deal with that. Where's Adam?" Royce asked.
"Up supervising whatever. I told him I'd wait down here for you."
"Let's go find him."
They found Adam talking to one of the inspectors. Seeing Royce, he waved and walked over.
"So, tell me Adam, how is the cable pulling going if there are so many ferrets working rigging?"
Adam and Rudy exchanged glances. "Actually, the last four days we've only had four-ferret rigging crews instead of seven. So, we set up some extra rigging crews and the left over critters were sent back to pulling, giving us a couple extra crews there, too. That's why we're almost at a stop on pulling too until tomorrow when we get more frames to rig."
Royce's ears rose. "Badgers need seven-critter crews but ferrets only need four?"
Rudy nodded. "Well, yes. Well, I mean, the badgers are very strong. They rig by just critter-powering the frame into place. That's why they need seven. To deal with it by sheer strength required an eleven-ferret crew and they were seriously stumbling over each other. Too many paws on a single frame. But then we figured out a few shortcuts."
Royce bristled, hair raising on his neck. "Shortcuts? Adam, how can you allow shortcuts?"
"No, no, Mr. Fullerman," Adam stepped back, waving his paws, "not really shortcuts, but more efficient ways to move the frames into place. Rather than brute strength, they finessed. Same result, less critter-power. Safety and quality inspectors didn't see any problems. And it went faster. Lots faster."
Royce looked at the two of them. "I'll be back."
Royce walked over to airship #2 and watched steam pour out of a crane as it lifted a frame and swung it into a group of waiting badgers. A quick count showed seven badgers working the frame. Then he walked into the dock, looking for Kerry, Adam's counterpart airship supervisor on this unit. He found him watching badgers pulling a very thin stiff cable.
"Are we changing the cables we use on this airship?"
Kerry shook his head. "No, Mr. Fullerman. The ferrets are thin, they can slip through those narrow places with the tension cables. Badgers are too big, so they figured out threading that little thing through, tying it onto the cable, and pulling it back. Faster than a ferret actually on any tight fit, which is most of them."
They stood silently watching the working badgers.
"Um, by the way," Kerry said, "this is enough faster that the pulling crews were standing around too much. Two days ago, I divided them up to form another rigger crew. Pulling crews are keeping up just fine."
"So they pull different than ferrets. Do they still rig the same way as before?"
Kerry looked puzzled. "Huh? How else is there to rig a frame?"
"That is what I figured you would say. Meeting in my office the last hour of the shift. You, Frank, rigging guild master."
"Um, ok, Mr. Fullerman."
"By the way, you should tell those badgers...never mind. Just remember ferrets are too wimpy to out-rig a badger and badgers are too big to pull cables."
Royce turned and walked away leaving Kerry with a puzzled look on his face. At the dock entrance, he sent a messenger rabbit to tell the ferrets about the end-of-shift meeting.
His foot half on a canal bridge, Royce stopped and looked into past a brass molding shop. The doors stood wide open to help keep it cooler for the bears working the furnaces. As a bear and a wolf pumped the bellows, flames roared up the sides of crucibles with dull red bottoms. Royce watched as two bears lifted a hot crucible of molten brass, carried it across the floor, and poured it into a mold.
Royce nodded his head. That is how you worked brass. The bears, who claimed to be master brass-smiths, had always done it that way. Of course, the badgers claimed to be master riggers and knew how to best rig. But the ferrets had promptly found a faster way using fewer critters. Was this the best way to work brass? Was there a faster way? How many other trades within the yard could be more efficient if they were forced to work with more limitations and fewer preconceptions?
He turned to look at the soaring ribs of the airship frames. Was the entire shipbuilding process efficient? This airship yard was, what, almost 200 years old. Had rigging and pulling always been done the way it was done now? He knew it hadn't changed in his 20 years here. Was he missing clever ways of dramatically cutting construction time? Paws clasped behind his back, Royce walked slowly back to his office, pondering this problem, oblivious to the bustle of the critters working around him.
#
Royce sent his secretary in with a fake apology about a messenger rabbit that needed an immediate response and let everyone stew as they waited at the conference table. He stared out his window an extra 10 minutes still worrying over the question of what procedural changes other trades could make. He needed to figure out to pressure the trades without seeming to pressure them. How could he do it?
As he walked into the quiet conference room, he half-expected both species to be gloating about how they were doing the other's job faster. Instead, he found them silently eyeing each other warily across the table. Badgers sat on the left side of the table and ferrets on the right. For a moment he wondered if whichever critter had arrived first had specifically chosen their side for some reason that only made sense in their own twisted species-centric logic. He was sure both expected him to announce the other had ceded and that they would be returning to normal work assignments.
"So, critters," he said, "we're here to discuss the new training program."
He smiled at the shocked faces. "Why yes, we need to learn the new pulling and rigging methods. Mr. McCary is very happy to learn that we'll be able to add a couple extra rigging and pulling crews to each airship frame without having to hire any new critters."
There were a few moments of silence before Rudy quietly said, "New pulling method?"
Royce nodded. "Yes, the ferrets have to learn new cable pulling methods and the badgers have to learn new rigging methods.
Royce focused on Frank, whose neck hair had popped upright at the suggestion badgers were not perfect riggers. "Something to say Frank?"
"Damn right. Badgers have been rigging here for years and if there were faster ways, we would have found it years ago. There is no faster way that conforms to safety requirements."
Rudy had rocked forward to shout his protest and/or gloat at Frank and badgers in general, when a look of terror crossed his face. He collapsed back into his seat with his paws covering his face. "Uh oh."
Frank leaned toward Rudy. "Right, we figured out faster cable pulling, but rigging can't be improved."
Royce cocked his head. "Then why are the ferrets days ahead of you? Why did they run ahead of the fabrication shop?"
"Of course with their rigging skills, I'm surprised they are not a bunch of days... Wait! Days ahead?"
With a triumphant paw pump in the air, Rudy nodded with Adam joining in.
The ruff on Frank's neck collapsed as he sagged back into his chair. With his voice barely a whisper, he said, "I take it, that somehow the ferrets found a faster way to rig, just like we found a faster way to pull?"
Rudy slumped. "I knew it."
Royce nodded. "Yes. Neither of you could actually do the other critter's job as it was currently done. The ferrets were not strong enough to critter-haul the frames and the badgers couldn't fit through the tight spaces. And both of you were too obnoxious to admit that. So you figured out different ways. Interestingly, the new ways proved both faster and used a smaller crew.
"Mr.McCary is very happy you were able to figure out better ways of doing the work. He feels we'll soon have lots of new orders that will be filling those three new docks and it'll be important to get those airships built as quickly as possible. More important in the short term, I believe at our current pace we're looking at an early completion bonus on these two airships."
"So, are you saying that we go back to working with ferrets tomorrow?"
"No, Frank, you do not," Royce said, "Your badgers need to learn the new rigging methods." He turned to face Rudy. "Just like the ferrets need to learn new pulling methods. No, I think you'll both remain split up for a week or so at least. We need to get the training created."
Royce's voice hardened. "It goes without saying that the supervisors and inspectors will be ensuring the new methods are used once you learn them. And the new schedule and staffing will reflect them. No nodding in training and doing it the old way. Clear?
"I said, clear?"
He shifted his gaze between Frank and Rudy until both mumbled their assent. Both guild masters' foreheads lay on the table as they slowly nodded. The badger guild master whimpered.
"Thank you, critters. Training starts beginning of shift in four days." Royce jabbed his paw at Frank and Rudy. "This meeting--and this round of your feud--is over."