Walter has always wanted to go to college, but his parents cannot pay for it. So without a word to them, he takes a job at the town's auto assembly plant. The work is grueling and dehumanizing, but for an unskilled position, it pays well. Throughout his year on the job, he makes friends with many of the other workers, learning from some as he fields harsh criticism from others. But he learns the most from the mysterious, ascetic, gray-haired man who works next to him on the metal-finishing line. He calls himself Joe, the Vanishing American. Even as he helps the other workers show Walter the practical ropes of the job, Joe tells him how the world works. He explains how the union works, how he should be more efficient on the line, and more. His most important lessons, however, deal less with the practical realities of the job and more with the other men who do it. He entreats Walter to never forget what it's like for the people who make the things he buys when he makes it in the world. From Joe, Walter finally learns the meaning of being trapped in a meaningless, hard job for an entire lifetime — the destruction of self-respect, the predisposition to conspiracism, the hatred, the poor mental health. More than that, he begins to understand that his feelings, even their intensity and timbre, are not unique, and that life can be more than earning money and living from day to day. Walter, Joe tells him, needs to pursue what he really loves, not what seems sensible and will make him the most cash. One day, Walter tells Joe he doesn't know what he would've done at the job without him. Joe's face darkens when he hears this statement of appreciation, and he does not come to work for three days. On the fourth, he returns, but only to quit. Walter, he says, will make out all right.