So it's okay if you get hit by a bus!

DK likes to believe that the lab would fall apart and we would all waste away without him. He makes sure there are certain things that only he can do.

When a CEM runs out of tape, I have asked him to show me how to replace it so that we don't have to go to hum every time. He gives his, "what would happen if I got run over by a bus?" speech but won't show me how to do it.

Last night, he wasn't working and one of the CEM needed a new roll of tape.

I figured out how to open it (it basically just flips up) and how to change the roll (just slightly above the level of difficulty of changing a roll of toilet paper!). The biggest challenge was snooping through the supplies in the office to find the right size paper.

Not exactly rocket science.

This is why no one on third shift will ever get certified to do phosphatase testing. Unless DK actually gets hit by a bus, I suppose.

Foam wars

Does it make you feel better to think the people who make your food sometimes have fun doing it?

Probably not, if the food is aseptically packaged milk and soup and the making it involves sensitive machinery and complicated sanitization processes.

But anyway, we use this alcohol sanitizer for sterilizing our gloves and I think they probably use it for cleaning, too. And it comes in these aeresol cans, kind of like redi-whip, and comes out as foam.

The filler operators in the liter filler room today may have spent as much time sneaking up and spraying each other with it as they did operating their fillers. It was hilarious and got to a point where I contemplated arming myself before I walked in.

I'm sure the milk's fine.

Early morning rush

I was in main lab (the workstation formerly known as main lab) again last night. I was bored out of my mind for the first five hours.

I had one silo check. One! I had a tetra product running, but even that only took up a few minutes of each hour. I tried to find little things to do. I tried to help everyone else. And then I finally had another check- they needed a first check on some soy that was waiting to run. And then a soup silo finished blending. And milk finished recieving. Then they needed a check on enlive. And while I was getting the soup, #2 asked me to check the medpass at 0530. And when I had some of that under control, I got called to recheck the silk. And the enlive. And the milk. Oh and could you check the BSN at 0520?

V-dogg, the most impatient human in the world, told me to just take my time because he knows they're throwing a lot at me all at once. Whoa.

Sweating in your plating...not sterile.

Once upon a time, a long time ago, KS told us that we would get an air conditioner for the plating room, but only if we learned to keep the door closed.

We've had doors that shut automatically for several months now, which means there is no ventilation and all that hot air is trapped in the plating room. We are also, due to an upcoming audit, cracking down on certain regulations including wearing smocks while plating. The smocks provided are not only an extra layer of clothing, but an upper layer of non-breathable way too big on all us little girls clothing.

I checked today and found that the plating room was approximately 86 degrees Fahrenheit.

I do believe we will get that air conditioner...but probably not before someone passes out or throws up from the heat.

No, seriously can you guys just blend something?

I was in the workstation formerly known as main lab last night. For the first half of the shift I had one tetra product running, plus all of the dailies, so at least I had something to do. Honey ended just after 0200 and I did bloaters (almost always the last daily task) after lunch.

The rest of the night I sat around waiting. If I was a puppy, my tail would have wagged every time a blender walked in, thinking he would tell me to check something. Anything. No such luck.

Terrible

Bag in a box and pudding last night. Lots of silos of cream, transfers, rechecks, jello blends, bnb start-up.

Also, more problems with #1.

I actually cannot remember the last time I was in bnb and did not end up at least near tears at some point.

It's contagious!

Last night, both Beavis and Smitty, two of the most wonderfully clueless people in the universe, intentionally joined in on our continuous stream of that's what she said's.

It was both magical and highly disturbing.

Bzzz

I was not very busy last night.

In tetra, unless it is a really slow night, you can only fit in a lunch break at quarter to rather than quarter after any given hour.

My horizon flavor change started at 0115 and did not end until 0345. In that time, I was almost constantly working. I did seven horizon audits. And if I wasn't completely half-assing the last one, I would not have been able to take a lunch until 0445, an hour and a half before I clock out. Ridiculous!

Let's make a deal

I did bloaters last night even though they were assigned to Junior. I think I am the only person on third who ever does bloaters when I don't have to. I guess I just treat them like any other daily task, but everyone else sees them as this horrible torture that must be avoided if at all possible. I worry that people are going to stop doing them because they know I'll get around to it if they wait long enough.

But last night I had to. Junior told me shed bring me coffee tonight if I did bloaters for her.

Essentially, I just made an extra $3 for doing something I would have probably done anyway.

But I wasn't!

This morning, my second favorite blender on days came in to talk to me and told me he had been warned that I was cranky.

He refused to tell me who had told him. He denied that it was V-Dogg. I hadn't talked to #1 all night and he would have said crabby not cranky. I cannot think of who else it might have been and now it's driving me crazy.

The kicker is that I was in a pretty good mood all night. Two nights ago I was crabby as heck and no one noticed.

On hold for high/low/high solids

Last night I ran soy in ESL for the first time since my very first day.

My very first day, I did not realize how much it sucks to run soy in ESL.

There is no agitation in the steritanks. For milk that just went through a homogenizer, this is no big deal. For soy? Disaster. I don't know why these customers stay with us when half of every run gets put on hold because it's settling out in the tank and the solids bounce around like crazy.

And that's not even taking in to account the bloaters. I put my samples away and had four leakers within twenty minutes. The hot room is going to be a mess of rotten soy. Lovely.

Inconcievable!

I was in main lab (ws4) last night. Since we changed to the workstation system, we have these sheets with a list of tasks that we have to sign off on each night. For workstation 4, this includes auditing silos, enlive controls, hot ICs, audit lines J, K and H, and plating. Other than auditing silos and plating, a lot of these are usually "na" or done by someone else. Just silos and plating could be acreally busy night.

Or it could be like last night. For third shift, I signed off on those two tasks, but all I did was three checks and some other peoples' plating.

I stayed over into first shift and literally cleared the board. There were no tetra silos. That doesn't even happen on Christmas. I guess it could now, but it has certainly never happened before. For first shift, I filled out the worksheet entirely with "na".

In the comments/instructions portion of the silo sheet, I wrote, "this is not a joke."

Another thrilling Friday night

I went into work last night expecting a calm night in tetra.

Wrong.

The schedule was rearranged so that I was in pudding. My least favorite zone. My most hated product. The supervisors did this, presumably not just to torture me, but so that I would have time to work on allergens.

Fine.

I got the reagents ready for allergens, but before I got going, DK stopped me, told me to put everything away, I had to plate 100 paks of enlive instead.

I finished everything I had to do with the horrible pudding. I plated my 100 paks. I then started getting my stuff ready for allergens again.

When I was done with all of it, it was about ten minutes to six.

Had I started the allergens at the beginning of the shift, I could have been done with all of it around 0400.

Oh well.

I like hockey. Sorry?

So last night the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup. I was very much hoping for that. I watched the first period before I had to leave for work, then spent the beginning of the night doing work and intermittently sneaking out of the lab to check the score. When the game went final, I was thrilled. I let everyone know and maybe did a little happy dance, but it was hours before I could wipe the lunatic grin off my face.

Obviously, looking that happy in a factory is some kind of serious crime.

When Mr. G walked in, he gave me such a look of disgust that I actually said, "I'm sorry" before I realized that I was apologizing for smiling.

We're making creamer, what did you expect?

The entire third shift crew got in trouble with DK last night for "that's what she said"ing and laughing too much in front of a customer.

C'mon, don't you think they want to see happy people producing their stuff?

Explosions

RD, for the third time in recent memory, dropped a big beaker of island oasis (actually one of the three times it was a syringe of pudding) all over the place. It fell in slow motion, she screamed, MH was sadly in the line of fire. There was caramel all over the floor, the counter, MH... in her pockets, in her phone, in her hairnet, in her hair...

They got it cleaned up relatively quickly and we all went back to work.

And then I noticed the splatter all over the ceiling.

What are you doing here? ...Being a champ.

I went to work at 6pm yesterday, because that's what the schedule told me to do. JJ had already left early because there was nothing to do. I was scheduled to work on allergens. JJ is also trained in allergens. Weird.

It took about two hours to get the allergen stuff done. I also changed all three water baths, did the chemical inventory, read plates and did plating controls. Before third shift started.

Glad to be helping out, glad to be working a 52 hour week (well glad as I'll ever be about that...) but I should have saved some work for later. Spent most of third shift making photocopies and re-re-re-checking inventories on products that weren't running.

Zensoy...

Zensoy is the most irritating brand of soy we make. Silk and I think kikkoman are really easy to test, nutrisoy is just slightly more time-consuming, zensoy has every test that takes a long time or is difficult or annoying to do, except a vitamin c.

Last night I had to test two silos of zensoy immediately when I came in. Moments after I finished the second one, #1 told me he was transferring both of them. I said, "is that because of hours or just because you hate me?"

...he did not respond. One of them transferred again later in the night.

Summertime and the livings easy

I misread the production schedule and thought I would have a pudding start-up last night. Instead, I had just about nothing to do all night (again...good thing we're all working so much overtime...).

I kept busy with dailies for the first couple of hours, then got a 'special project' from DK (arts and crafts! my favorite special project!), then did some plating, then played cards in the back room with MH...

...the night ended with a bunch of sample cups stacked up in a pyramid and each of us taking turns bowling it down with a roll of masking tape.

Welcome to the busy season?

Every day is like Sunday

Last night, a wednesday night, where everything went pretty much according to schedule, was as completely dead as a holiday or a slow weekend.
If I had stuck with my assigned workstation tasks, I would have done two yo on the go audits, calibrated the pH meters and read steritanks. That would total about an hours worth of work. As it stands, I probably only did like twice that, which was more than my fair share.

Can't remember the last time it's been that slow on a regular weeknight. Especially in the summer. Weird.

A whole pudding run, just for me.

Have I mentioned lately that I hate pudding?

A short run of fat free pudding was supposed to start at 2200 last night and run until 0600.
Pudding runs are almost never on time.
I say almost because, of course, this one was. I had the start-up at 2225. We audit pudding every two hours, so after FP4 at 0425, I thought I was pretty much done for the night. Instead, I had three finished product audits in the last hour of the shift, plus raw tanks.
The first flavor ended at 0450, the next started at 0457 and the entire run ended at 0551.
Plus I had to check the raw tanks for the next run at 0530 and 0550.

I cannot begin to explain how much I hate pudding.

Hallmark moments

Last night we were discussing buying a greeting card for DK of the 'just for being you' variety and fill it in with all of the amazing things he does and says...

...for calling me a poor little Jew girl.
...for calling me Tea, Tea's sister, Tea's cousin, Tea's twin, Tea's best friend, or Tea's girlfriend every time I mess something up.
...for showing me YouTube videos on your phone when I am actually trying to do work.
...for sharing your views on downs syndrome babies.
...for taking twenty minutes to answer a yes or no question.
...for smacking MH in the mouth and pinching her elbow fat.
...for "the talon" (a new hand signal he invented to look like a chicken foot where you hold down your middle finger and the rest of them are all crooked)
...for the "inverse talon" (just the middle finger...)
...for saying you're leaving, appointing a fire marshall and then showing up two hours later.


In other news, after not speaking to #1 for about two weeks, I wished him a happy birthday. He thinks we're best friends again now. Should have kept my mouth shut.