Another DK classic

There is a customer or a representative from an equipment company or... Someone who is emailing DK ...whose last name is Bonekat. We imagine this name is probably pronounced Bon-kaht or something along those lines, but DK kept saying "Bone-cat" and then meowing. Not likely to please Mr. Bonekat, but it made my night.

I'm not actually sure this happened...

I think last night at some point Junior said something ridiculously awkward and then whistled part of the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme in the deafening silence that followed.
It was perfect.

Zen-frickin-soy

My very first day at the factory, zensoy was running in ESL. I tested it my very first day of work. It was the first thing I learned to do.
It runs about once a month. Since my very first day, I have tested zensoy base from tankers and after recieving, I have tested blends of zensoy, maybe even prismas... but until last night, I hadn't tested zensoy offline in ESL for the entire year and nine months I have had this job.

Escape

I know I'm repeating myself, but gelatin makes me want to clock out for lunch, walk straight past the breakroom, take everything out of my locker, get in my car, drive away and never come back.
Especially when I am simultaneously running main lab because my best beloved Smitty quit without giving notice and they didnt change the schedule to compensate.

Beavis love

As much as other lab techs get frustrated and even angry with Beavis and his crazy ranting and not being able to understand what he's talking about half the time...I really miss him when he's not here.

Nightmares

I have this recurring nightmare where I'm in ESL and I keep trying to get my audit, but everytime I walk out of the lab, the filler's down and then when I walk back in, it starts up again. This happens a bunch of times and then I go out to the filler to tell the operators to pull my samples for me when it starts up but they can't hear me or can't understand what I'm saying...

Pudding/bnb

Last night, I was in pudding and bag in a box. For twelve hours.

Neither was running or blending. I had no five day, nothing for second shift, no day 1s, no 14 day, no cream receipt, no tetra lines...

I had 48 hour that I had to wait until 2200 to do. That's about it.

I thought summer was supposed to be the busy season?

Just a slow week

Seems like whenever I'm in main lab lately there's nothing going on.

Karmic forces are clearly trying to atone for all those billion plating sample nights I had a few months ago.

Thanks, karma, but this is getting boring.

No, I'm not having a bad day...

One of the filler operators asked me, while I was in the liter filler room and cursing TEA for I don't even remember what, if I was having a bad day.

I looked at him, confused. I wasn't having a bad day at all. It was a really easy shift, I had junior there and not much was going on that we were overwhelmed or anything.

I told him, I'm not having a bad day, I'm just having a bad minute.

I had a lot of those in the course of the night.

Not sure whose judgement I question more...

#1 (I think we are still not friends but he did finally apologize for being such a jerk) had an accident last week and got 15 stitches in his right forearm.

Last night, in the blending control room, with GP and myself looking on, he had JB remove them.

A Welcome Change

For a few weeks now, mostly since RD moved to first shift and since SK, the new girl, came to nights, I've been noticing that I am one of the most senior lab techs on 3rd shift. The newer people come to me with questions, as if I know anything, and trust my answers. 

It's weird!

Last night, however, SK was there, but so were the only two other third shifters who have more seniority than me. The most pressing thing anyone asked me was when I was planning on taking my lunch break. It was nice

Let out early after a significant amount of whining about having nothing to do

This here is half a blog post for my half a shift last night.

Enjoy it as I did the extra sleep.

Junior is literally killing me

I hate to admit this, even to you, Internet, but I occassionally smoke cigarettes. Very occassionally. I have been about a pack a year smoker since middle school. It is not really a big deal or much of a health issue because it is so rare.

Every now and then, when we are having a rough night at work, pretty much everyone wants a cigarette.

I occassionally smoke on my way home. Junior occassionally "borrows" a cigarette from someone and takes a smoke break.
The last time she took me with her and we discussed buying an "emergency" pack to keep at work for nights when it was just necessary.

I decided I couldn't do that, because that's a slippery slope and it wouldn't take long for my pack a year to become a pack a day.

Junior brought in an emergency pack of cigarettes last night.

It was a slow, easy night.

...we took two smoke breaks.

Apparently working at the factory is basically an emergency in itself,

(but probably not)

Just three techs on last night, though they promised us that the only time we wouldn't have all five workstations filled was on weekends and holidays. 

It wasn't actually too busy, but with all the weekly tasks needing to get done, it wasn't as relaxed as it could have been. I covered main lab as well as all the pudding silos. I signed off as having done the water baths after changing two out of the three of them.

At about 0555 I made up a number for the last one without even testing it. Maybe I'll change it tomorrow.

More about sleep

Last night was so slow and I was so wiped out that I literally did my tetra audit each hour and then sat at the main lab bench, put my head down and dozed.

Beavis told me, "you always look so cute when you're sleeping."

Do you ever get used to working nights?

I worked Wednesday night. Without sleeping, I spent all day Thursday moving. I then slept from approximately 2130 on Thursday until 0330 Friday. I continued moving and running errands all day. I tried to take a nap, but couldn't fall asleep. I went to work from 1800 until 0600.

I couldn't sleep when I got home.

People ask all the time how long it takes to adjust to working the night shift.
You don't get used to working nights, you get used to being exhausted all the time.

Lofty goals

I don't even remember exactly what I said to him, but I said something to embarrass V-dogg last night.
Since I'm working twelves and I don't really deal with any of the numbers at present, if MH and Junior aren't there, I am basically bored out of my mind. In order to remedy this situation, I have to decided to begin keeping track of how many shades of red I can make V-dogg's face and, of course, set my sights ever darker.

Bigger stronger faster

When we started working twelve hour shifts last week, the night crew consisted of nine ladies, including myself.

This week, since HG has been let go and two other night-shifters are on vacation, we are down to six women...and one dude.

Essentially, our boy MC has come to nights to replace three other lab techs.

Oddly, none of our supervisors thought it was funny when I made jokes about one man doing the work of three women.