[Les Paul]

Fresh out of college mid 70’s I worked at a Carbon Black plant. Women were pretty much new in the workforce there and in a plant of 100 people there were only 6 or 7 women. There were 4 shifts of 8-10 with operators in charge of units with 4-7 furnace reactors per unit, there were 5 units that made various types of carbon black that was then peletized in a separate unit, another unit for adding acetic acid, and then finally the packers which through a vacuum system filled heavy paper bags/sacks anywhere from 25lbs to 60lbs. Stacked on a pallet of 40-50 bags the stacked pallets were transferred to storage in massive warehouses using fork lifts. The beginning job was a packer and there were 4-5 of them. Because it was a union job there were 3 breaks of 30 minutes in an 8 hr shift. The foreman were mostly WW2 vets mostly marine. Most had been there 30+ years and knew every job top to bottom. The pay was great the downside you had to work in carbon black. To counteract you would coat your face with talcum powder wear cotton long underwear year round which pretty much kept it off your body. If you didn’t rub your face it would be mostly white at the end of your shift. You were paid 30 minutes overtime to bathe out using a 5 gallon bucket lined with soap bars and the hottest water you could stand.

Our shift had a woman that flirted with every guy no matter who they were. She was 30 and to me not that hot. I was 22 and married to a tall good looking gal. She would try to flirt but I just ignored her. I worked with another guy same situation young married to a babe and he ignored her too. My wife had cooked pot roast for dinner that we ate at 6pm. She had made me a sandwich out of it which I ate at 2am on the midnight shift. My friend was about 10 feet from me and all of a sudden starts barfing uncontrollably. I’m standing there watching and the same thing happens to me. We both finished our shift and at the time I thought the roast had made me sick. Long story short she had poisoned both of us. Had the audacity to put rat poison it in our sandwiches since neither of us drank coffee. Couple months later the plant was down for a major turnaround and everyone on shift was working days to help with the maintenance. That little hag would go to the different break rooms and make coffee for everyone and then spike it. When 30 guys got sick in one day someone should have figured something wasn’t right. Several months later I started a job in another city and kind of forgot about it. Then a guy she was bonking out in the country when they were supposed to be at the monthly union meeting had a severe car crash. The guy thought he was going to die so he spilled the story to his wife. She had been poisoning guys she didn’t like for years. She had been blowing the plant manager in his office during breaks. There was a big trial and probably 6 or 7 guys including the plant manager were fired. She went to prison for some years. She only got me that one time but had been spiking the coffee for years. Good old reverse harassment.