A young man and his coworker Larry manage the payroll at a gas plant. They are below everyone at the company except the Mexican laborers. Among these, the stokers are the highest up the chain, because their job shoveling coal into tiny doors for eight hours is a feat of epic proportion, one the others can't achieve.

The company pays the men only twice a month, and none of the workers can save it for more than three days, so they come around a few times a week to request the money due to them. Eventually the company becomes aware of these abuses of the 'advance' policy and states that no advances be given except in the case of grave emergency. All of a sudden the workers have ill children, mothers and fathers. The company then renounced the policy, so the best stokers quit, leaving the company in dismay. Three days later, the skilled men appeared on the hiring line and were hired immediately, only to quit and be re-hired three days later. Furious, the company announced that no employee could be re-hired within a thirty-day period. Evading this, the stokers began changing their names in the hiring line. Finally they were called into the office, and told that no matter what name they came in on, they'd have to stay in the books that way. So they left for good, saluting the Señores Payroll on their way out.