He worked the lathe deftly, cheating a bit by lifting the guard slightly, to get a better edge on the metal he was turning. It was perverse, he thought, but in his role as shop steward he’d bawl out anybody who tried to cut corners by flouting the safety regulations in this way. Risk losing some fingers for a bonus for a bunch of rich shareholders living in Surrey or somewhere? Fuck that, he was mad. But it was the job, the process of actually doing it. It was your own world and you lived almost exclusively in it from nine till five-thirty. You strived to make it better, in every way.