Rivethead: Tales from the Assembly Line [Paperback]

Ben Hamper (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0446394009 | ISBN-13: 978-0446394000 | Publication Date: July 1, 1992

The man the Detroit Free Press calls "a blue collar Tom Wolfe" delivers a full-barreled blast of truth and gritty reality in Rivethead, a no-holds-barred journey through the belly of the American industrial beast.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In a voice often as powerful as the riveting gun he wielded in the 1970s and '80s in a Flint, Mich., General Motors assembly plant, Hamper nails down the excruciating boredom of a shoprat's life on the line. These roughly chronological essays, many published in the local press, bare the rage and humor that, with booze and drugs, friendships and enmities, served to speed along the timeclock's "suffocating minute hand." A fourth-generation factory worker, raised on hard music, hard liquor and soft drugs, given a parochial school education, Hamper was the eldest of eight children deserted by their father, supported by their mother. He was determined not to be an auto worker but soon after high school, married and a father, he needed the steady work GM offered. With free-ranging intelligence and a sharply anarchic sensibility, he tries to figure out and establish some control over his place in GM's massive corporate system. While these essays might best satisfy in small doses, Hamper, no longer a GM employee, writes with unrelenting energy. BOMC and QPB selections; film rights to Warner Bros.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Hamper, a son, a grandson, and a great-grandson of General Motors' "shoprats," chronicles ten years spent in an abusive marriage with GM in Flint, Michigan. Despite exploitative management policies, arrogant and/or incompetent supervisors, and mind-numbing working conditions, Hamper, like the abused spouse who keeps returning to the abuser, becomes de pressed during layoffs and revives when recalled to the assembly line. Hamper copes with his perceived limited options by consuming impressive quantities of alcohol and writing an irreverent, cynically humorous column about shoprat life for an alternative newspaper. How much of Hamper's alienation and later panic disorder are the result of his ten years at GM and how much are due to genetics and choices is unexplored. Another weakness is Hamper's graceless style and his overuse of four-letter words. Despite these shortcomings, blue-collar voices are rarely heard, and therefore this is recommended for public libraries.
- Andrea C. Dragon, Coll. of St. Elizabeth, Convent Station, N.J.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 260 pages
• Publisher: Warner Books (July 1, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446394009
• ISBN-13: 978-0446394000
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.8 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (57 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #29,286 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #76 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Professionals & Academics > Business
  • #90 in Books > Business & Investing > Biography & History > Company Profiles

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Rivethead" describes life on the GM assembly line., August 22, 1997

By 

Russell Fanelli (Longmeadow, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Rivethead: Tales from the Assembly Line (Paperback)

Ben Hamper's outrageous description of life on the car and truck assembly line had me laughing out loud at the antics of both workers and bosses at the GM factory in Flint, Michigan. Hamper uses words like rivets and blasts them at the nearest human target; no one escapes his savage attack, not even himself. Hamper is a "flake" and he knows it, but he is an observant flake who is just as adept at turning a phrase as he is finding ways to avoid work. He seeks to please no one, not even himself, and he succeeds beyond even his expectations. Read at your own risk is how Hamper himself might caution us about "Rivethead."

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A highly entertaining, insightful look at factory life., March 20, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Rivethead: Tales from the Assembly Line (Paperback)

Ben Hamper shaped this darkly humorous account of his years working on a General Motors truck assembly line with considerable skill. While his engaging prose firmly establishes the mind-numbing, repetitive nature of factory work, he also reveals how he and those around him on the line maintained some level of humanity by using humor and other diversions in their never-ending battle with the clock. Hamper's take on GM's outmoded management techniques and bumbling efforts to maintain market share in the face of global competition during the 1980s (for example, assigning an employee to dress in a cat costume and patrol the factory as a mascot for quality) is especially amusing.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You Are What You Do, January 12, 2005

By 

Aimee Pi (Irvine, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Rivethead: Tales from the Assembly Line (Paperback)

Its not often that I read a book that consistently makes me laugh out loud, but Hamper was able to do so for me with every passing page in Rivethead. I read it for a class assignment, but have re-read it since then, and have also recommended it to others. Its a first-hand account of how one man took the default path in life and followed in his father's footsteps, joining the GM assembly line. Hamper goes through how he came to this profession, and the steps in his life that 'messed up' his aspirations of breaking away from such a path. But more than that, it shows how in American society, we are defined by what we do from 9-5 rather than who we are in our time off work. Hamper subscribes to this belief as a columnist while working on the assemblyline, and although we may not realize it, we may also subscribe to such a belief. Ultimately, the daily grind ends up consuming Hamper, and he is forced to take time away from 'work' and recognize the part of him that exists off the job.