Friday, June 6, 2008

The People of State College Part Eight: The Glass Blower

I went to the stockroom to get supplies the other day. No one was there. On the way back I passed the glass blower. I was with my conservative lab mate and he stopped in to say hi and borrow some glue. The glass blower kept us there for fifteen minutes. 

First I will describe him. His nose is curved and very pointy at the end. He has a complete head of hair (although very thin). His head is spherical. His stomach does not fit with the rest of his body. It bulges out unnaturally. The shirt he was wearing was a little too big for him. He talks in spurts. For ten seconds nothing and then he shoves three sentences into four seconds.

So anyway, he showed us the project he was working on. He told us all the professors think they know how to blow glass better than him. They tell him "I would blow this myself if I had any time." He was laughing when he said this. He showed us his posted rates. It said:

Glass blowing: 20 per hour
If you wait: 40 per hour
If you watch: 60 per hour
If you help: 80 per hour
If you've worked on it already: 100 per hour

He showed us different types of glass: low quality, high quality, intermediate quality. He told us a lot about glass quality. He told us how he heated up some bottles with a funnel coming out of them. The funnel broke off because of poor glass quality and now he has to fix them. He showed us glass that was contorted in some really weird ways.

He's friends with the building janitor, too. I 've seen them talking. They are birds of a feather. Nobody would give so much unsolicited information in New York City. But it's not boring. I would listen to either of them for a long time.

No comments: