boys are weird, part 2

The lab was really busy last night, with every zone going and going strong. We were supposed to have five lab techs, which would have been manageable, but someone called in, so there were only four of us.

I was in the least busy zone, making me the only one with any time to spare, which meant I did every one of the daily tasks and then ran around helping everyone else. I've had busier nights, but because I was trying to run my own zone and help with four others, I was really overwhelmed and scattered.

Also, I was tired and in kind of a bad mood before I even went to work and I was getting really angry with the one person who was not quite pulling his weight in terms of the workload we had.

I went into the blending control room for something and was venting a little (okay, a lot...) and out of nowhere, as I am frazzled and kind of yelling and insane, #1 looks at me and says, "you're cute."

WHAT?

boys are weird

Before last night, MH was off for three nights in a row, while I suffered without my best workfriend. Apparently, she spent a fair amount of her time off drunk, and so she spent most of the night telling hilarious stories about the weekend.

There is a guy at work (not any of the numbers) who has a crush on MH and has been insistently trying to get her to hang out with him for a couple of weeks. On one of her nights off, while she was bar-hopping, he was text messaging and calling her in order to try and meet up with her. Even had she wanted to spend time with him, it sounds as if she was too drunk to arrange such a thing.

Texting her from twenty yards away on the floor, he mentioned that while drunk and talking to him on the phone, she had repeatedly told him to shut up, even when he wasn't talking.

This, he says, was "adorable."

Another guy she had met at a bar told her that the way she was stumbling drunk and saying mean things was "cute."

She is an attractive girl, no mistake, but what is with these guys' perception of cute?

best DK moment ever

The rheometer is an instrument used to test viscosity. This morning, when a line fill for nectar came in, our rheometer would not work. The only test we do on a nectar line fill is the rehometer.
DK was still there at this point and he tried to get it to work, but was unsuccessful. He said, "fine, just do a bostwick on it."

Bostwick is also a test for viscosity, but we don't usually use it for nectar, which is too thin to get any kind of accurate or meaningful result. Therefore, we have no specification for what the result of a bostwick on nectar should be.

I did a bostwick on the nectar. I got a result of about four seconds.

DK left without mentioning what result should be accepted.

save the last case?

I was in tetra tonight. I was in a pretty good mood because it was a slow night and everything was pretty much done before one. #4 even saved me a case I didn't really need when his line started up.

Then, the soup running on C and D ended around 0220. When I was getting my audit at 0210 I asked the stackers on both lines to save me the last case. Both of them made eye contact and acknowledged my request.

Around 0230, when I had finished the rest of my audit, I went to grab my end cases.

There were no end cases.

I know that they are temps and that they are being paid $8/hr to stack boxes, but seriously how difficult is it to follow simple instructions?

That's two whiny complaining blogs in a row. Sorry, internet, hopefully no one screws me over tonight.

autoclaves

It was about a month ago that we had a lab meeting, during which CK and DK assured us that we would soon not only have a new autoclave, they were going to rework the plumbing that feeds the autoclaves because the pipes run the wrong way and that's pretty much the reason that we wear down an autoclave that should last twenty years in less than five.

As of now, there has been no further mention of this plan. We still have one working autoclave (and one busted one). The one that is supposedly working must be cooled down almost completely in between runs. This takes about an hour. Each run takes about an hour. Assuming someone is watching closely and that everything that needs to be autoclaved is ready to go in at the right time, the autoclave could be run four times a shift. Realistically, it is more like three.

On third shift, we have to make VRB every day. That takes up one autoclave run. Plates take up another (why we have to sterilize garbage is beyond me...). That leaves one autoclave run for anything else we might possibly need.

Last night, plates went in first, because there were about three shifts' worth from the Christmas break. After that, we needed VRB bottles and we needed flasks. Luckily, these two items can go together. Unluckily, the autoclave failed THREE times before we managed to get it running.

If we only have one semi-working autoclave...how are we supposed to get everything done if 'semi-working' becomes....'occasionally maybe working'?

what we do

Last night I got paid to watch movies and eat Chinese food.

Merry Christmas, internet.

bad timing

DK actually had off for Christmas, so last night CK was in late to make sure everything was okay for the holiday. She said her goodbyes and merry Christmases around midnight.

Shortly after she left the lab, MH and I went for a coffee break. As we were walking out, CK walked out of the restroom, on her way out of the building. This encounter would not be a problem, except that MH and I were having a conversation about the fight MH was having with her mother. MH was explaining how she didn't even want to go to her family's Christmas celebration because she was so mad and didn't want her mother to enjoy the holiday. As we walked out of the hallway, I said, "yeah, I can just see you walking up to your mom and saying..." and as CK walked into our path...

"I hope your Christmas sucks!"

pleasant as HELL

A conversation with one of the guys in tetra from last night:

Him: Hey, why aren't you smiling?
Me: I didn't realize it was part of my job description to be smiling 100% of the time.
Him: Oh it is. You need to smile more. You should be pleasant all the time. You should be pleasant like a motherfucker.
Me: Exactly how pleasant would a motherfucker be?
Him: Soooo pleasant. Pleasant like a motherfucker.
Me: Really, though, I'd imagine a motherfucker wouldn't be all that pleasant.
Him: ...depends on how many mothers are around.

oh, boys

#2 was picking on me all night, presumably insulted by my comments last night, to the point where MH asked me something about my 'boyfriend', because obviously he must like me (again). Apparently the guys in the plant all express interest in a girl by being mean to her, since of course we are all ten years old.

Later on, I was taking readings on steam infusion when #2 came up to me and asked if I knew where my 'boyfriend', #1, was. I gave him a look of such disgust that he apologized on the spot.

I didn't realize I had a boyfriend at all...last night I had two? Crazy.

$100 for your thoughts

#2 dyed his hair so bleach blond it just kind of blends in with his skin.

I happened to mention that I think he looks like a giant penis. GP offered me one hundred dollars to tell that to #2.

While he was very serious about the offer, I would not have taken his money if he had tried to give it to me.

The reaction from #2 was payment enough for me.

guilty

That pudding mishap I mentioned yesterday - the start-up and end of the run had to be tested. I tested the end of the run, which was at 2323 and plated the three samples that were there, but the start-up was at 2148, which is a second shift time. Obviously, I was really annoyed that I didn't know pudding was running in the first place, so I left those start-up samples for Tea to test instead of doing it myself.

I knew it was kind of bitchy, but Tea had screwed me over and it was her responsibility to begin with.

Now, however, I feel awful about it, because I came in last night to find that another second shifter, MC, had tested the samples I left for Tea.

I got Tea'd. So bad.

Last night was going quite well, really, until about 4am. I was in tetra and it was really, really slow for midweek. I had one filler of soup and some horizon, which ended halfway through the shift. I had a full hour without any tetra audit because horizon had ended and the soup was having problems.
Around 4, when I was coming back from lunch, the soup had started running again and I was going to check on a possible start-up when one of the guys who runs 4oz stopped me and told me that there were some samples sitting over there from a flavor change yesterday.

Wait, what? I was in 4oz yesterday...it ended before I came in. Second shift told me that pudding was finished and all I had was BNB.

No. Tea TOLD me that pudding ended at 2120. She just didn't happen to notice that they changed flavors at 2120 and came back up at 2148. How do you not know whether or not a run is finished? They ran for more than an hour and a half - that's about 1000 cases of pudding. How do you not notice they still have vanilla in the surge? How do you not notice that they aren't cleaning up and shutting down the machines?

Luckily they saved the samples and I was able to test and plate the stuff, but I know DK is going to have an epic freakout when he sees this.

sticky

I freely admit that I am clumsy. I drop things, I spill things, I trip over my own feet - I am almost entirely lacking anything that could possibly be called grace.

Island Oasis is one of the thickest, stickiest products we run. It is packaged on the 'bag-in-a-box' filler, which is exactly what it sounds like. The product come off line in these 2 or 2.5 gallon slippery metallic bags. The lab tech must take a big, heavy bag of liquid back to the lab, cut open a corner and pour it into comically over-sized graduated cylinders to measure the volume.

I was running bag-in-a-box all night.

I didn't spill a goddamn drop of the crap.

Instead, I managed to wrangle 2 gallon bags all night without problem, but dropped a 250ml pak of Enlive with the top cut open while moving it from four inches away from the sink to the sink - all over myself and the floor.

personal day

In the interest of updating five days a week, and since I did get paid for last night, here is a non-work related update:

Yesterday was my last personal day of the year. I strung it together with my regular days off to get a five day weekend and go on a road trip. What this boils down to, essentially, is that yesterday I got paid to go to an Islanders game (first time I've seen them win in person in two years) and fall asleep watching Lost with my best friend (whom I haven't seen since April).

Best night of 'work' ever.

start-ups

When I arrived at work at 10pm, I was told that ESL had gone down due to a power failure and that the run would restart around 2am.
Around 3am, I was told that ESL was going to start up around 4:30.
Around 5am, I asked the PO if ESL was ever going to start up and he said, "maybe around 5:30."
When I left at 6:30am, ESL had not yet started.

beavisisms

In a shocking, but amazing moment of clarity this evening, I realized that almost everything Beavis ever says makes a perfect 'that's what she said.'

whoops

I was standing in the blending control room writing down my inventories, innocently minding my own business, when VM snuck up behind me and poked me in the side of the neck with, I think, a pen.

This action was rather upsetting to me, as I HATE having my neck touched at all, but that is a post for another day, internet.

Later on, at the end of our shift, I told MH about the neck-poking incident and we got into an incredibly inappropriate but hilarious discussion of what VM could have poked me with, if not a pen, and the logistics thereof.

It wasn't until I walked away from that conversation that I realized we were just a thin wall away from the blending control room. I glanced in and found VM, Beavis, SW and two other blenders there, in easy earshot of the entire thing.

getting Smitty'd

On second shift, there are a couple of people who probably should not be working in the lab. One of them, HG, has been there for a very long time and she just doesn't care about the job, so she often causes problems for the following shift by omitting necessary information or giving us information that is completely wrong. Therefore, on third shift, whether it is her fault or not, if one of us gets screwed over through someone else's negligence, we call it "getting HG'd".

The other second shifter I referred to is Tea, who means well, but just can't seem to keep up sometimes and tends to cause problems for the following shift by leaving messes and giving wrong information because she doesn't know better. Therefore, on third shift, whether it is her fault or not, if one of us gets screwed over through someone else's ignorance, we call it "getting Tea'd".

Tonight, I got Smitty'd. I'm not sure how much I've said about Smitty in this blog, but she is pretty much a superhero. When I said something about "getting Smitty'd," I think everyone was a little horrified that I would ever say anything bad about our beloved Smitty, until I explained...getting Smitty'd is what happens when you are not particularly busy, but someone else (who is probably Smitty and who probably has other things to do, as well) gets all your work done before you get a chance to start it.

Getting Smitty'd is...awesome.

and the opposite

Last night nothing happened, tonight was not busy in general, but there was one ten minute span of time in which EVERYTHING went wrong. It was kind of unbelievable.

I walked into the plating prep room and the stir bar was skipping around the edge of my VRB rather than actually stirring it, the autoclave had been finished running for at least an hour (it's only supposed to sit for twenty minutes max after it's done), and the plating room table was a mess. I fixed all of these things, turned up the temperature on the VRB and went to plate. When I walked out of the plating room, the VRB was boiling over everywhere. When I poured it, I sloshed boiling agar all over the counter and my arm. When I finally cleaned up that disaster and went back to plating, I managed to get chicken broth in my eye.

The rest of the night went perfectly smoothly.

nothing important happened today

I think this probably happens at all jobs, I know it has happened at every job I've ever had...there are shifts that just go by in a blur. Of course this happens when it's so busy you don't have to time to even look at the clock (and maybe you write down two sets of readings for 2345 on one steritank, WHOOPS) but it also happens on nights like last where I basically did nothing for eight hours, I think.

I know I got to work and I know it wasn't busy. I did some 48 hour rheometer readings, read some plates...each of those activities takes half an hour at the absolute most. I have absolutely no idea what I did the rest of the night, but next thing I knew...six AM. Crazy.

antics

On my way to work tonight, #4 almost ran me off the road. When I was in the parking lot getting my stuff together, he opened my door and said, "hey, sorry about that."

There was a mandatory meeting at the beginning of our shift last night. MH made me snort - loud - right in the middle of it. DK said he could hear it all the way out in the hall.

Later on, #4 started throwing paks of nectar at me. I think he expected me to catch them, but I batted them out of the way so they exploded on the floor. I told him if he was going to try to kill me, he was also going to have to clean up his own messes.

Around three, I was playing with the stapler and I got it all jammed. In fixing it, I cut my finger twice. Next hour, I promptly poured straight sulfuric acid all over it (my hand, not the stapler). I thought salt in your wounds was bad...

Also, MH stopped me on the floor of the plant just to tell me that the 4oz processor, nicknamed 'Unsterile' because of how often he screws up the 4oz systems, had just sprayed her in the face with a hose. I laughed so loud (again) that #2 not only stopped what he was doing, but parked his forklift to come find out what had happened.

This is just an average night.

lesson learned

Last night I made a mistake that I will never make again. I asked DK to help me with bloaters (bloaters are basically what they sound like - paks that have something wrong with them so that the product inside rots and curdles and blows the pak up) before I took my lunch break.

Had I been a smarter lab tech, I could have taken a lunch break that a) was earlier, b) was longer, and c) involved actually eating my lunch.

it's true, though

I checked one last silo before my shift ended this morning. The blender was standing in the lab, just waiting for the results. I told him it was good and gave him the number. There was just the slightest little pause before his face lit up and he said, "you're the shit, Rach!"

so not kosher

A soy tanker came in last night around 2am. #1 brought in the paperwork. The new guy, GR, was in main lab but it was his first night on his own and he had never received soy before, so I offered my help.

In order to accept a soy tanker, we need to have it's number on a list that says it's kosher. This particular tanker was on one such list, but it said on the list that those tankers were only acceptable if they also had a kosher wash ticket.

I asked #1 for a wash ticket. He said they didn't have one. He said that our sheets were out-dated and that they didn't need one anymore. He was so sure. I almost believed him. He tried to pull up an e-mail saying so, he offered to write a note and sign off on the sheet, he told me to call DK and ask him and even found his cell number and offered me his phone to text (because my battery was dead and I was too scared to call DK, who has been unbelievably crabby for a week.)

I asked the other techs, but no one was sure. None of our supervisors or any of the blending supervisors were working until morning.

Poor GR, whom I was trying to train, didn't get the best learning opportunity. #1 was very persuasive, but I held my ground - I wasn't going to allow this tanker to be received unless I had PROOF.

I think #1 was kind of insulted. I felt bad about not believing him...until a lab supervisor, KS, came in at 6 and I asked him about it and he printed out the e-mail saying absolutely YES we need a wash ticket.

I showed the e-mail to #1, who persisted and said that KS could talk to the blending supervisor, SW, because he was definitely right and we don't need the certificate anymore.

I left it at that, not really caring as long as it was out of my hands and not my responsibility anymore, but I had to laugh when I ran back into the lab at 0645 because I had forgotten my phone and there was SW explaining how we can't accept the tanker unless we get a kosher wash ticket from the company.

#1's truck was still idling in the parking lot when I left.

holidays

The worst thing about holidays when you work third shift is that if you actually have to work on a holiday - you're only getting paid double time and a half for two hours of it. Ten to midnight.

The best thing about holidays when you work third shift is that if you work the night before the holiday - you're getting paid double time and a half for six hours of not working a holiday. Midnight to six.

The best thing ever is if you work the night before a holiday and then have the holiday off.

Happy Thanksgiving, internet.

smarty pants

Last night, #1 proved that not only is he the ONLY one capable of blending pudding, because he is a GENIUS at everything and everyone else is stupid, but also that he can do science, too.

But no matter how many science experiments we do...sugar-free pudding still tastes like poison.

the uniform

At my job, like many factories, we wear a uniform. Our uniform is thus: navy blue pants and a light blue snap-front shirt with an embroidered name tag on one side. There is also a navy blue jacket, again with the name tag.

You may recognize this uniform as being the standard for many auto mechanics and gas station attendants nationwide.

As horrible as this uniform looks and feels when I, for instance, run into Starbucks to grab a froofy girl-drink before work, it is...uniform. Everyone at work looks the same and you become very adjusted to the way everyone looks in their horrible, shapeless, unattractive outfits.

When someone comes in wearing their street clothes (their 'civies' I like to say), it is WEIRD. Even if it's someone you've seen outside of work before, they just seem so out of place it's incredible.

#1 was supposed to be off tonight, but he came in for a few hours (I don't know why, because when I asked he said, "just to see you.") and he was not in uniform.

I could not stop staring, but I am relatively certain I would have had the same reaction to a less attractive co-worker in normal-people clothes.

gelatin

Every time I have to run gelatin, the blender will have me check it and then I will tell him how much water to add and he will refuse to add that much and add however much he feels like and then I re-check it and it calls for exactly the difference.

Why do they even bother asking?

snarky

Two significant events last night:

Deciding to go to lunch, despite three lines that were supposed to start up (none of them did), I left a note at each filler to tell the stacker how many cases I needed. For example, "Please save 3 cases for the lab!!" I turned the two exclamation points into a smiley face on each note.
Returning from lunch, it was reported to me that #4 was upset that I had "stolen his smiley face." Obviously, no one has ever drawn a smile under two exclamation points before. I would love to see the copyright he has on that.

Secondly, I taught my boss a new word. The schedule wasn't out and it was getting toward quitting time. I said to DK, "If I ask you a question will you just give me the answer instead of some snarky comeback?...What's the status of next week's schedule?"
Rather than just answering me, he spent probably two full minutes wondering if 'snarky' is really a word.

blender preferences

I noticed something kind of funny tonight. One of the blenders in the raw dairy (I cannot refer to him by his initials because I have absolutely NO idea what his last name is) frequently calls into the main plant to talk to one of the blenders in charge.
He used to page either Beavis or #1, since they are the shift leads and that...makes sense.

The past couple of days, I noticed that when #1 is working, he pages #1 or sometimes #1 or VM, BUT when Beavis is working, he pages VM every time.

Beavis said something about this to VM while I was in the room. He was just joking until I blurted out, "I noticed that!"

just doing my job

Nearly everything that could possibly go wrong tonight went wrong tonight. It was not busy or even that stressful, it was just...bad.
There was burn-on in the milk, which has been a problem for a few nights in a row now. I was told we are the only plant that even checks for sediment. One of the supervisors, we'll call him Mr. G, complained that we put milk on hold for sediment because it's not like anybody filters their milk to check for sediment at home. I've used the same argument for things like high fat or low volume...no one checks this at home. The difference is, if I found somehow that my liter of soymilk contained four milliliters less than the volume on the label, I would a) not care, b) pay the same price for it, and c) have no qualms about drinking the product. If, however, I were to find out about burn-on in a carton of milk...well, I sure as hell wouldn't be drinking that milk.

Anyway, they separated off to do a wash, which got rid of the sediment, but when they separated back on, the cryo dropped out. Mr. G had to go and pull samples for me to check from before it went bad to find out the last good time. Every one I checked was fine. Finally, he brought in a carton from the exact same time I'd gotten a bad result. It came out good, too. Mr. G was not exactly happy that he'd had to search for cartons for me and they were all okay.

Finally, after several minutes of whining and sarcasm, he conceded that I was just doing my job.


...how dare I.

trendy

Just over a week ago, #1 (I guess we're friends again now. It's kind of weird) spent like ten minutes trying to convince me that on my day off I should come to the strip club with him. He was supposed to go with GP, but GP couldn't find a babysitter or something and he still really wanted to go.

Tonight, #3 text messaged me to ask if I was doing anything on Friday, because it is his birthday. I gave him a non-commital, it's my night off but I might have plans, let me know what you're up to and maybe I'll come out. He told me he is going out with a big group of people and I should defnitely come.

Where are they going?
...a strip club.

I've never been invited to a strip club before in my life (except once, but it was in Canada and the strippers were male and I ended up not going anyway), did someone suddenly declare November to be ask-RC-to-go-see-ladies-take-their-clothes-off-month?

successful sunday

According the employee handbook, an employee working an eight hour shift gets an unpaid half hour lunch and two ten minute breaks. I might need both hands, but I could definitely count on my fingers the number of times I have actually taken three breaks in a single shift.
We did it tonight for the second Sunday running, and that feels like an accomplishment.

Granted, we didn't finish our weekly tasks (which usually get done Sundays) but...well, we have all week.

my hero

I've been having no end of trouble the past few nights with translating from Beavis to English, but I was fascinated last night when he started ranting for a while after I mentioned some high solids on the second batch of Enlive.
He was telling me how he could fix it even though all the blend systems were tied up. He was going on and on about how this happened one time and he and DK went and calculated the amount of water they needed and how many gallons per minute the hose would spray and how many pounds per gallon and then they put the water in from the hose in the balance tank as it was processing and honestly, internet, I only understood half of what he was saying but it was amazing.

I realize the story sounds a little mundane, but it was something in the telling that made it sound like they were folk heroes and somehow, if I picture Beavis and DK hosing water into a tank, that's exactly how I see it.

the schedule

We usually get our schedule for the following week on Thursday nights, but sometimes not until Friday. If the schedule isn't out yet when third shift leaves Friday morning, someone will generally offer or be asked to text message the schedule to anyone who is off Friday and Saturday nights.

(An aside: If the schedule is not out and I happen to be obnoxious enough to ask about it, without fail DK tells me that I am scheduled to work all seven days next week, twelve hour shifts every day, all in tetra.)

Since I am working this weekend (of course) and the schedule was not out yet Friday morning, both MH and RD asked me to send the schedule to them. When I got in to work last night, I looked at the schedule (I have next weekend off!) and took out my phone to send messages to the other girls. Before I got a chance, I hear, "I don't need you to text me the schedule."

Getting called in on your day off is somehow worse than if you really had seven twelve hour shifts in tetra. Sorry MH.

the c-word

Ups and downs and in betweens of a twelve-hour shift:

VM says "how are we looking?" referring, I would assume to one of the eight trillion products he's had me test in the past twenty minutes. I say, "Good. I guess. Wait. What are we looking at?" He gives me creepy eyes and says, "you."

Considering I slept about four and a half hours yesterday and woke up at 8am (which is earlier than I usually go to sleep), I am feeling pretty energetic and positive all night. #1 disagrees. He stops me on my way back to the lab and asks me if I am crabby. I am not. We have a two week-old joke in the lab about "the c-word" which is, of course, cranky. The reactions from the other girls when I tell them that #1 called me the other c-word are, I tell you internet, priceless.

Not twenty minutes after #1 told me I seemed crabby, #2 asks why I am so goofy. He says I am a little crazy (another c-word!) and that I make him laugh. He says this as if I have somehow done something wrong. Sorry for being silly, #2.

I am beginning to see why #1 and #2 hate each other so much.

spiders

MH has a sore throat. Because of the recent nationwide panic attack about swine flu, of course that was our first idea for what might be wrong with her.

Now, however, we have discovered the real problem....while she was sleeping a spider crawled in to her throat and laid eggs!

Well, either that or she has strep or something.

imitation is the sincerest form of...making fun of you

MH mentioned a while back that #1, when he does not hear or understand what someone is saying, says, "huh?"

This seems pretty normal, most people have done the same at some point. However, she says that he does this VERY frequently and that he sounds like a canadian goose. In telling me this, she then imitated the noise. We talked about it a lot and imitated the "huh" noise over and over again. Every time #1 mumbles something, one of us will go, "huh" and the other will crack up. I had never even noticed before, but now every time the three of us have a conversation, at some point #1 will say, "huh?" and MH and I will just about die laughing.

The really funny thing about it now is that he doesn't even sound anything like our imitation of him. He just says, "huh?" It's not that big a deal. It doesn't actually sound like a canadian goose in reality. It sounds like a human being saying, "huh?".

But it gets funnier and funnier every time.

I am a little worried that #1 will catch on someday when I am laughing in his face and he doesn't know why.

busy week

Since my last nights off, I feel as if every time I come into work I just spend eight hours running laps around the plant.
This was my third night in main lab this week, and I complained about how busy I was Wednesday night when I had five FB's and a couple of other plating samples. Thursday night, that was trumped by seven FB's, a receiving and a few transfers. I complained about that, too.
Tonight I had EIGHT receiving samples, two AR's, three FBs, two transfers and three 24 hours. Plus re-checks and regular eight hour checks?
If it had been too busy for someone else to get my plating done, it would not have been physically possible for me to do it myself and leave even remotely on time.

Insanity.

Because it has been so busy, I have been really, really, really crazy and I may or may not have at one point tonight freaked out at #'s 1&2 about a kosher wash certificate to the point where I was kind of embarrassed and thought neither of them would ever want to speak to me again and at another point hid from DK in the blending control room (with #'s 1&2, who apparently had no qualms about speaking to me again) for at least ten minutes because I got air in the lactoscope and I didn't want to show my face until it got fixed.

KB Seafood

Does it say something about me that I would rather test a product that is really difficult to test than a product that is easy to test, but smells awful?

my parents ruined me

I was in main lab again tonight, and it was another ridiculously busy shift.
EVERY final blend check I did came out .01 away from target.
Any normal human being would be thrilled that all of the solids were coming out just about perfect. Any normal lab tech would tell the blenders and the processors that those products were spot on.
As you, oh wise internet, may already know, I am not normal.

When I was a kid and I brought my report card home from school, every 99 I got was met with the question, "what happened to that other point?"
I know they were trying to joke, but it was kind of serious. Mom, Dad, I'm sorry I only got 99s and not 100s on everything. Sometimes my grades dipped as low as 95s. I know I am a huge disappointment.

Beavis, VM, DK, I'm sorry I couldn't get my solids checks right exactly on target. I'm sorry the vanilla medpass was a 38.29 and the zensoy plain was a 9.01 (and then an 8.99 after it transferred) and the KB Beef was a 2.99 in one silo and a 3.01 in the other.

Clearly, I am a failure as a lab tech.

90 days without a lost time accident

We have a brand new digital counter (replacing a chalkboard one) to record the number of days we go without someone getting injured. On one of the bulletin boards is a list of incentives based on the number of days. If we go 60 days, we get a plant-wide pizza party. 90 days gets $25 gas cards for 45 people, drawn randomly. The list goes on from there.
We're at a 101 days as of today, and they finally posted who won those gas cards.
I got a text message from #3 yesterday afternoon saying that I was one of the lucky winners.
I never win anything!
I was super psyched.

On my way to lunch tonight, I noticed the bulletin board where they'd posted the winners. I scanned the 3rd shift section. I didn't see my name. I looked closer. My name was not on the 3rd shift list of winners.

I spent most of my lunch break flipping out about WHY he would LIE TO ME about winning a gas card. Does he think I wouldn't notice? Did he really want to trick me into talking to him? What does he think my name is? WHAT THE HELL, MAN?
Not only did I get tricked into talking to him, I didn't actually get twenty-five bucks? That is like the lamest thing ever.

I ranted about this for our entire break, really.

And then, on the way back in from lunch, one of the maintenance guys said..."Hey, RC, why'd they put your name under 2nd shift?"

serves me right

Leaving work this morning, I was so distracted being outwardly disapproving and inwardly highly amused at #4's antics that I left work, got on the highway and went probably a quarter of the way home before remembering that I needed to stop for gas. Oops.

marshmallow brains

I made cupcakes for Halloween last night and brought them in to work. They had this really light, fluffy, sticky meringue frosting. It was meringue. It was made almost entirely out of egg whites and sugar (and air).
When CD and one of the processors, JK, were talking about the cupcakes, they both said how the frosting was...different. It was sticky and sweet, but light...like marshmallows.
I was standing there, so I told them that is was meringue. And CD said it was like marshmallow fluff. And I said, no, it was meringue. And JK said it was so fluffy, like marshmallows. And I said...it was meringue. And then they said it was homemade, so it was like homemade melted marshmallows. And said, no, it was...meringue.
This went on for maybe a full minute. I don't think I got through to them.

done processing

The words "done processing" are like a magic salve that calms a savage lab tech. When a product is done processing, it means that the main lab tech doesn't have to check it anymore, which makes the main lab tech happy. When a product is done processing, it means an end is in sight for the tetra tech, which makes the tetra tech happy. When a product is done processing, it means the 4oz tech doesn't have to read the system anymore, which makes the 4oz tech happy. It is a wonderful thing.

Unless you are in tetra and the steritank is pretty dang full and you have four products allll night long and then TWO of them end right at the end of your shift.

Yeah. When that happens, it kind of sucks.

the creepiest thing I've ever heard. EVER.

To preface this story: MH refers to her husband as 'the man-child' and they have been fighting about money lately because he spends way too much on food.
We had this conversation:
Her: Hey, I dare you to sit on the bloater chair.
Me: I'll do it for twenty bucks.
Her: Twenty bucks? That's like a whole day of man-child food.
Me: Haha, when you say man-child food I picture like a jar of "man-child food"
We then commenced to discuss what a jar of man-child food would look like. It would have a picture of a grown man, but wearing a bib and bonnet and holding a rattle.
At this point in the conversation, a supervisor from another department, VM, walked out of the office next to us and here is what he said:
"I'd do that for you."
He said that and he kept walking right out the door of the lab. I don't think I have ever seen anyone so deadpan in my entire life. I laughed/wanted to cry/throw up for a full five minutes.

#2 is on a roll

A couple of nights ago #2 had me in stitches with some conspiratorial (is that seriously a word of which spell check approves?) whispers about a new guy in his department.
Tonight, he was not trying to entertain me, but I definitely had a bit of a laugh at his expense...
Probably a month or so ago, someone in the lab had asked him a question which he needed to ask his supervisor about. He refused to page said supervisor because he didn't know how to pronounce the supervisor's last name. We told him how to pronounce it, but he just said, "I can't say it. I don't want to page him." so someone else did it.
I have never heard him page a supervisor until tonight. There is a different supervisor in his department now than there was a month or so ago. His last name is perhaps easier to pronounce, though neither of them is particularly difficult.
#2 paged his supervisor today using only his first name.

Something about that just cracked me up.

two stories

story A:

On my one of my tetra audits, #4 threw a pack of Horizon Chocolate at me. Not entirely intentionally I knocked over a pack and made the line shut down. Entirely intentionally, I feigned ignorance when he tried to tell me how to start it up again. Obviously this is terrible retaliation, because it made him WALK TEN FEET to PUSH A BUTTON. Aren't I awful?
He sprayed me with the air hose, and then threatened to spray me with water...I quote, "I'll spray you with water, I'll get you all wet."
There was a pause as that little gem sunk in. I snorted in disbelief and walked away.
The only other appropriate response would have been to say, "in your dreams."

story B:

The ESL fillers were having some serious issues today. Just one of those things that happens from time to time. MH was looking out the window, having missed her audit because the filler was down again and exclaimed, "Oh! It's running again!" At this, DK wheeled around and said, "WHAT?!" in a tone that would have been more appropriate if she had said, "I hope your mother gets cancer and dies a slow and painful death." then having noted the EH2 starting up.
Completely unnerved by this disproportionate reaction, she said, "I...I just said that the filler is running again..."
"Ohhhh....I thought you said it was RAINING again!"

old adages die hard

Sunday nights are supposed to be slow. There were actually five lab techs scheduled to work tonight, but Smitty and RD were taking care of the 5day so they were not in the lab very much (except Smitty came in and totally saved us when were all buried in plating samples).
It ended up being pretty busy, just doing routine things around the lab. By the end of the night I was running around trying to get everything done and when I went to put my samples away I dropped one of the cartons, exploding it all over the floor of the hot room.
I was irritated because I had so many other things to do and I couldn't even find the stupid mop, I felt like I might actually cry. Frustrated tears springing to my eyes, I suddenly thought...there's no use crying over spilled milk - and I started to laugh.

five days old

I was off Sunday and Monday nights this past week. During the day Tuesday, I made some cup-pies that I brought in to work Tuesday night. I bake a lot and I bring my baked goods to work so that I don't eat them all. Sometimes I leave a plate out in the break room for anyone, but most of the time I put it in my super-secret hiding place (it has been the same spot for a year and it is really not at all super or secret or hidden) and tell people I like that it is there.

Since we stopped being friends, I hadn't told #1 about any baked goods I brought in. It wasn't that I didn't want him to be able to have any cookies or pie or whatever, I just didn't know how to start that conversation. I realize that sounds stupid, you start (and end) that conversation with, "hey, there are some brownies in the break room if you want some," but I just felt weird extending this friendly gesture to someone I was so very much not friends with anymore.

Anyway, this time I finally went ahead and told him. He kept asking where they were and apparently not understanding when I told him that they were in my usual spot. He asked several times Tuesday night, but didn't have any pie. He was off Wednesday and Thursday night, but by then there were still two cup-pies left. Friday night he asked if there were any left and where they were, but he still didn't have any. When I came in tonight, he asked again if there were any left and I said, "Unless someone threw them out there are still two up there, but I don't know if they'll even still be good." He said he was going to check it out and left.

Twenty minutes later, #1 came back into the lab and said to me, "Those were really good....but...if it had mold on it is it going to make me sick?"

I laughed, because I thought he was joking.

He was not.

DK was there when #1 ate the pies and he told me exactly what had happened:
#1 took the pies out and was looking at them when DK came in. #1 asked if pumpkin pie was supposed to have white stuff on it. DK could not see the surface of the pie from wherever he was standing. He told #1 no, and the pies were almost a week old and it was probably mold.
#1 shrugged, said "eh," and ate the pie anyway.

the forty stupidest minutes of every day

I realized tonight that everyone on first and second shift must think I am absolutely insane. Our shifts overlap by twenty minutes, so that the outgoing shift can fill in the incoming shift on what's going on in whichever zone they'll be covering that day.

This means that I see second shift for twenty minutes at the beginning of my shift, when I am wide awake, fully caffeinated, and usually very much affected by whatever has been going on in my outside life - either happy, sad, excited, angry...etc. Basically, before I settle down and get into work, I am a complete basket case. This is all second shift sees of me.

I see first shift for twenty minutes at the end of my shift, when I am worn down, stressed, tired, sore and usually very much not focused on work anymore. Basically, when I know that my shift is just about over and I get to leave and go home and possibly even sleep soon, I am practically a zombie. This is all first shift sees of me.

Sometimes I am a basket case, and sometimes I am practically a zombie (without any appetite for human flesh thank you very much) but most of the time I am really smart and articulate and funny...it seems a shame that most of the people I work with never see the good parts.

this really happened

Tonight, DK (I kid you not, internet!) referred to me as "a poor little Jew girl." Like, right to my face, without remorse or apology.

It was AMAZING.

are you even speaking English?

When you work with people for a while, you tend to develop the same kind of link that you have with close friends and family, where the other person knows what you're thinking without you saying it or what you're trying to say when you express yourself in the least articulate way possible.

Actual quotes from tonight, understood by everyone present...

"So after that you'll just have one of two and the other one."
"If he comes in here and tells you 3 o'clock, don't do it."
"Yeah, if it comes out I'll do the thing and send you a..." (in all fairness, this last one was accompanied by hand gestures)

everyone has their price?

My fellow lab tech, MH, and I were discussing #3 last night, when GP (a processor), apologizing for eavesdropping, assured me that for a certain price, he would get rid of anyone who was bothering me. Permanently.

Also, for $50, he would screw up the system so they couldn't run the rest of our shift.

Everyone on 3rd shift is so kind-hearted, don't you think?

battle wounds

I've had this small but very dark bruise on my knee for a couple of days and I had no idea where it came from until tonight when it finally hit me. Literally. I was climbing down from a silo and smashed my knee against the top rung of the ladder.

"Ohhhh, that's how I got that bruise!"

It is still small, but very...darker.

hockey

On lunch tonight, someone mentioned the Sabres' current record. I smirked, because he hadn't included that night's win against my poor, pathetic Islanders.
When questioned, I told the guys that, yes, I'm a big hockey fan, but no, I am not into the Sabres.

I was then told, "psh, you don't know the first thing about hockey."
"What?" I said, to the offending party, "I don't know anything about hockey because I'm a girl?"
The silence stretched for probably ten seconds but it felt like eons....he says, "...yeah."

I laughed and then he did the typical guy thing of trying to make me prove it. He asked me the best Islanders player of all time. I didn't really think about it and answered Bossy. Obviously that is the correct answer.

In hindsight, it would have been wayyyy funnier if I had thought about it for a second and said Miroslav Satan.

BVBeef in CT6

The one time I really fell at work, I was in main lab and it was really busy, so I was in a rush. I got a sample of bay valley beef broth out of CT6, slipped in some gelatin slime and fell, like a huge, comic prat-fall, landing with all my weight on my left wrist and then my hip, and sloshing the entire beaker of beef broth directly over my head. It hurt, man. Plus, I was covered in beef broth.

The next time I had to get a sample of bay valley beef from the same silo, I was super careful where I walked as I headed back to the lab. As I left the 4oz lab, I completely just tripped over my own feet and sloshed the sample into my face. I have no idea how that even happened.

Tonight, just before the end of my shift, one of the blenders asked me to check CT6. Bay Valley beef.
...I thought my death might be imminent.

...I got the sample without incident.

Wednesday night

I was a tetra zombie today. I had seven products one hour. I thought my head was going to explode, but at least I had some help this time. By the time my shift was over, there were only three products running...when I told the 1st shift tech what was going on, I felt like I had conquered those four products - like the reason it wasn't busy was not that most of the product had been run and now those systems were turning and that's just how the schedule works, but like it wasn't busy anymore because I KICKED THOSE PRODUCTS' ASSES.

Tuesday night

Tonight there was one of the biggest rainstorms I've ever seen....in the lab. It is just a regular fact of life that our ceiling leaks on occasion - in my experience it's always been water, but my boss, CK, told me today that I should be careful because you never know when it might be caustic! - this usually happens on third shift, so it is practically routine to set out buckets under the largest drips, move all of the electrical equipment out of the way, let someone know to turn the water off and wait for it stop so we can mop up the mess. Our supervisor, DK, is involved in the process.
I stayed over into first shift today and there was a slight drizzle - probably just some water still hanging out above the ceiling tile - and CK freaked out about it - Chops was climbing the counters to find the problem within ten minutes. I don't think he actually fixed anything, but still, why can't we fix things on 3rd?

slow night

There was a thing that happened with #1 last night, but this is way funnier:
A blender, CD, was walking toward the lab as I was on my way to get my tetra audit. I was far enough away from him that it wouldn't have been rude if he hadn't held the door open for me, but he did. So he was standing there, holding the door open for a few seconds while I walked through the filler room.
As I walked through the door, he looked me straight in the eye and mouthed, I think, "what the fuck."
I am going to spend the rest of my life wondering what that meant.