After Andy gave his pitch, there was an awkward moment for both of them. Jimmy Porter kind of sighed, and then he just started chatting to fill up the vacuum. He said something about how half his line workers had called in sick that morning, but he knew better. It was the first day of king salmon season, and if you took a skiff out on Monterey Bay and puttered around the kelp beds, you would see a lot of guys wearing San Juan Cast & Die baseball caps to shield their eyes from the sun. He said most of his workers were lower class, who only cared about three things: fishing, hunting, and fucking. Jimmy Porter said that he got two Laotians in here once and put them on the line, and boy were they hard workers! But when it came time to shut the line down for coffee break, they wouldn't leave their stations. Two weeks like that, never left their stools. Finally, Porter got a translator to come by the plant, and it turned out the two Laotians were afraid if they left their stations, someone would take their place. Porter was so impressed that he got himself two more Laotians, and suddenly the productivity plummeted.

'What do you think it was?' he asked Andy.

Andy leaned forward. He could smell Porter's aftershave.

'Maybe two men and two women?'

That wasn't it. Porter brought the translator back, and it turned out he didn't have four Laotians after all: he had two Cambodians and two Laotians, who apparently are like oil and water, can't work together. His story finished, Porter laughed, then settled down and looked hard at Andy's specification sheet. His eyes looked up.