Let me explain...

Like I said, I can't make this stuff up...
Yesterday, a newer one of the brilliant staff approached me to discuss a late order. Her trainer, it seems, told her to email the company telling them they had better get their act together and fix this mess because the customer is "royally pissed off". We're not supposed to use such terrible language in the workplace, so this woman decided to come talk to us instead of emailing, since her trainer was telling her that the point wouldn't come across unless she used that phrase. She was worried someone would take offense and she would be written up for an inappropriate email. I emailed her supervisor about it for her so she wouldn't feel as if she were telling on her trainer. This is what I got in response. "

"Team,

Please make sure that when you are sending emails internally or externally you keep it professional at all times.  We want to make our points but we need to keep it calm with our customers and our internal departments.  Please refrain from bolding text, tons of explanation marks, etc.   If you are not getting the answers you need in a timely fashion or feel like you are getting ignored by other departments, please see me on those and I will address with them and their manager."

I know this sounds like a normal response, but what you may have missed is the fact that she used the word "explanation" instead of "exclamation". I went to her office to alert her privately that her email included a spelling error that may have caused some giggles when it was supposed to be a serious matter. "Hey, you used explanation mark instead of exclamation. I just wanted you to be aware in case anyone brought it up."

"What are you talking about, Pete? It's explanation, like when you have to explain something extra to someone about what you just said. I'll use smaller words for you next time," she laughed.

Now, she said that last part in a joking manner, but this is one of my struggles. How the hell do you even respond to something like that? I just smiled and walked out of her office and wrote this little entry. We all make spelling errors that our spell check won't necessarily catch from time to time, but to back it up like you're very certain of your stupidity is just hilarious. I guess the entire world deals with these types of people and issues, but the lack of intelligence seems to be much more prevalent in my company than others.

Oh well, fantasy football draft tomorrow and again on Sunday!

Harmony

The door behind my desk, you know, the one that leads to the perfume-soaked coworker, developed a creaking noise in one of its hinges. Calvin, my chemist friend in the lab, decided he could no longer stand the creaking. He threw open the door a few days ago, armed with a large can of WD-40, and listened intently to each hinge as he repeatedly opened and closed the door. I turned around and told him I thought it sounded like the middle hinge.
He asked me, “Why, what does a middle hinge sound like? Does the low hinge a lower sound and the higher hinge make a higher sound when they creak?” Now, I knew Calvin was joking in his usual deadpan manner, but Katie, the smart one, happened to be walking into my office at that point.

“Seriously?” she said, “The higher the hinge is on the door, the higher the noise it makes?”

I jumped, no, I dove at the opportunity… “You would think that,” I said, “but you’d be wrong. Higher notes rise and lower notes fall. So, the higher the hinge, the lower the tone it will make, and the lower the hinge, the higher the note it will make. That’s why all notes meet in the middle at ear level. High notes have to rise from the ground, and low notes have to fall from the ceiling in order to meet in the middle and make harmonies in your ears. This creak sounds like a middle note, so it’s probably the middle hinge.”

Katie looked at both of us, who had very serious looks going at this point. “I never knew that,” she said, “That makes so much sense! I can’t believe no one ever explained it to me like that before. Is that why guys are always in the back of choirs up on the high rises like that? So the sound balances out to the middle at ear level?”

“That’s absolutely correct,” Calvin said, as he sprayed WD-40 on the middle hinge. Miraculously, THAT was the squeaky hinge, and the door was silent when Calvin opened and closed it one more time. I looked like a genius to poor Katie. She walked out with a surprised look of wonder on her face. 10 seconds later, Calvin and I looked at each other and all he said was, “Really? High notes rise and low notes fall… TO EAR LEVEL??? You’re a dick, and I love it.”

Am I a dick? Maybe. Or, maybe I just need to have a little bit of fun with these dumb people in order to keep from wanting to blow my brains out at work every hour of every day. Who really cares? You can’t make this stuff up. This is real life, and these are real idiots. Have a great week.  

Balls

There was a company bowling event I was forced to attend last Saturday. I made the best of it. We got some free pizza, a few free drinks, and got to get drunk with coworkers all while making fun of each other and competing for gift cards. My team came in second place, and I was the best bowler of our team. This is all completely irrelevant because I was made fun of for something I don't quite understand. Maybe I'm alone in this, but I don't think so. I was in the restroom washing my hands, when another employee came in to use the urinal. He proceeded to hi-five the wall and rest his forehead against it. I dried my hands off and moved over to the urinal next to him so I could go as well. "What the hell are you doing?" he asked. I replied that I was "taking a piss" and asked what he thought I was doing. "Why the f*ck did you wash your hands first? You're supposed to wash your hands when you're done so you don't get your d*ck germs all over the balls!" I told him that the finger holes of bowling balls are crawling with germs, and I didn't particularly want to take my fingers out of a house ball and rub it casually all over my junk, which would inevitably spread some horrible disease from the bowling alley to my privates. He started laughing and told me I'm a hypochondriac, (which didn't really fit, but I let it slide) and he proceeded to walk out of the bathroom without washing his hands. I washed mine and went to find him. "You're the reason I wash my hands BEFORE I take a piss," I said. "Oh, calm down," he replied, "everyone forgets to wash sometimes." "Yep," I said, "and you and every other guy who does that may as well be taking turns f*cking every hole of every bowling ball in this place. Every time you stick your fingers in a ball, just think of the dude's d*ck that was in this ball before you."

Granted, we had been drinking, so this may have been a little uncalled for, but you get the point. Am I the only one in the world who washes their hands before they use the facilities? I don't know about you, but my privates are generally clean, washed, and free of odors and sweat during normal daily activities. My nethers are cleaner than a bowling ball, and I would like to keep them that way. It's almost as bad as eating finger food while bowling. You just don't do it. I lived through the bowling ball disease of '11 (when my room mate hurt his finger while bowling and popped it right into his mouth without thinking, just to try and ease the pain) We were violently ill for weeks. I'm not taking the same risk with my junk. You've been to a bowling alley. You see the type filthy people who also stick their fingers in balls. Why would you risk it?

I am Legend

I’m beginning to like certain things about my job here. I don’t like my job or the position I hold in this company, so don’t get me wrong there. I’m just biding my time here until I make a power play and take over someone else’s position which I’ve had my eye on for some time. However, there are some perks of being me and being the scheduler in this plant. Mostly, I’ve become a legend out on the production floor. Granted, there are people out there who know my story and know better. But, there are a couple dozen employees who look at me like I’m a god. Don’t ask me how they came to this conclusion on their own, but I hear these stories that just make my day.

Take Ken, for example: Ken is a low level vat washer. He’s around number 2 from the bottom of the manufacturing totem pole. Ken is a short, round, excited and hardworking African-American guy who started as a TEMP and got himself hired full time. He’s a nice guy about 5 years younger than me. I overheard him in the locker room the other day talking to another TEMP about how he worked hard enough to get hired. I walked past them and Ken said, “Aw Man! What’s up, Pete?!” I said hello to him, asked him how he was, and continued on my way. Around the bank of lockers, I heard him lower his voice and say to the TEMP in an excited voice, “That’s Pete. He’s the Scheduler for this place. Everyone has to do what he says! He tells us what to run, when to run, and how to do it. Did you know he started out as a TEMP vat washer just like us? He worked his way all the way up to Upper Management, and now he tells everyone else what to do! I wanna work my way up there some day just like that!” By this time, I was laughing almost audibly. I did NOT start as a TEMP, NOR as a vat washer, NOR am I ANYWHERE close to upper management. I certainly don’t tell everyone what to do, and they absolutely do NOT listen to me when I tell them to do anything. But hell, I let it slide.

Being a Production Scheduler is definitely an important role in a manufacturing facility. In fact, in most companies, schedulers make quite a bit more money than I do, have quite a bit more authority, and a hell of a lot more respect. My place is a bit different, which is one reason I don’t like my job very much. The other main reason is because of the people I deal with, but there are plenty more entries to talk about them. I do like that, even with the traditional “Us vs. Them” mentality of production and the office staff (and vice a versa), both sides see me as an ally in the fight against the other in most circumstances. At other times, however, I’m frequently called a Traitor by one side or the other. This makes my job wonderfully interesting at times. Little do they know, I’m no Traitor. I’m just not really a fan of anyone, yet everyone seems to like me more often than not. Good for them. It’s nice to feel like someone understands you sometimes. (Even if that person is just pretending so you will leave sooner…)

How did I get here?

Let me tell you about how I became the Production Scheduler at my company.  I started as a filler. That’s on the lower middle range of plant floor workers. I was the only person in the bulk filling department when I was hired, so my work load was a bit heavier than normal, but we didn’t do much bulk. This allowed me to find plenty of other things to do, for example, learn aerosol filling and packaging. I became well-versed in many aspects of our production process, which helped me make friends and gain knowledge. Then, we purchased another bulk filling company and my life changed. I had more work than I could handle on my own, so we hired 3 extra people. None of them were brighter than a burned-out bulb, so they didn’t last.

 

After 5 months of this, I gave up. I saw a job advertisement for my own company in the paper. This was for a customer service position, which is a department I have plenty of experience working in. I was a little upset that there wasn’t an internal posting, but I applied anyway. They called me in with HR the next day and asked me why I never gave them my resume before. I told them it was right there in my file, which it was, and that they never bothered to look it over when we got rid of our old HR department. They offered me the job on the spot, and I moved from the floor into the office one week later. (Just long enough to partially train my own replacement.)

 

I worked doing mostly order entry and reception work and handling everyone else’s excess work, with just 5 accounts of my own. It was alright. All of the customer service women (mostly 15-30 years my senior) loved me and loved working with me. I hated it, but I’m really good at making people think I’m just as friendly as they are. This job only lasted for about 5 months. They then pulled me into HR again, only this time the President, CEO, my boss, the HR manager, and the plant manager were all in the room. My initial thought was that I was being fired, which didn’t make sense to me. They went through all the formalities before finally telling me that I wasn’t working up to my potential. I asked them what I was doing to make them think that. They responded by saying that customer service wasn’t a good fit for me because I could serve the company if I had a different position with more influence and responsibilities. They told me they wanted me to be the one and only Production Scheduler. My heart dropped. I was getting a 20% pay increase, but it wasn’t the money that was the issue. In my past two years working for the company, we had already gone through 4 schedulers. The 4^th was still working there, but was apparently moving to a supervisor position on the weekend crew. Schedulers don’t last long at my company, but I took the job anyway. I mean, Hey, who doesn’t want 20% extra? Well, that was 19 months ago. I’m just as miserable as ever, but I’m adding “valuable experience” to my resume, and biding my time while I wait for my takeover. That day will come, and when it does, it will be glorious.  

Plant Explosion

Over the weekend, I was alerted to the fact that we had an explosion in our plant. We've had a few small ones in the past year, but this one was different. OSHA is here now conducting an investigation to see if we are going to be allowed to continue business in the near future. That gives you an idea of how severe this really is. This fire started from two 55 gallon drums that were being filled by a wall pump. It sounds like the drums weren't grounded by the filler, and static electricity built up enough to create a spark. The initial explosion singed all of the hair off the filler's head and face. Luckily we are required to wear flame-retardant uniforms, so those were the only injuries sustained. The flames shot over 25 feet to the ceiling, which then started on fire. I don't have access to the photographs, or I would add a few. In the 35,000 sq.ft. warehouse this occurred, every single piece of wall is covered in smoke damage and soot. All of the white walls are dark gray now, and the area the fire occurred is completely black. The factory looks like a wasteland. Over 30 sprinkler heads ruptured because of the temperature and flames. Luckily, these put out the fire enough for the fire department to extinguish the rest of it. I wasn't there, but I can imagine how frightening it must have been for the people in the plant. Just walking through the facility this morning was enough to make anyone a little queasy.

I'm not sure why I'm here today, considering we can't do anything other than answer phones and enter orders, which isn't even my department. It's enough to startle anyone into seeking alternate employment. I don't want to just quit my job, but I don't want to risk something even worse happening down the road to more than just the building. If you take all of that into consideration and add in the fact that there is a thunderstorm brewing outside, this makes for the dreariest of Mondays. The week can truly only get better from here.

Work Place Genius

I swear to you that these stories, and everything I write in these notes are absolutely true. Nothing is made up, embellished or exaggerated. Having said that, here are two examples that back up my opening post about how the people I work with are not very bright.

“Dennis” just walked into my office and said, “I need a computer savvy person to help me out.” Everyone in my office pointed at me. I stopped what I was doing and reluctantly followed. I sat down at the laptop and asked what the problem was. Dennis said, “My screen is darker ever since I had it hooked up to the projector.” I simply looked at Dennis, pressed the contrast adjustment, and walked out. “That’s amazing! I didn’t know there was a button to do that! I’m glad I called the expert!” This is what I mean when I say I think the people I work with are just plain stupid.

Here’s another one...

“Katie” was in my office during a production meeting. She had a customer that was very upset that we were not on time with their order, according to her. She told us we were behind, and that my scheduled dates for this order did not comply with their demands. I was puzzled because I was under the impression that we still had a week to go, and we started blending the paint that morning. In my mind, that product would be finished blending tonight, filled on the lines the next day, and ready to ship the day after that. This would mean that we were done with the order 5 days before we needed to ship. “Katie, as we discussed, this customer has a three week lead time with their orders. This order was entered on the 7^th, and it’s the 21^st. We’re going to be 5 days early to ship this on time, so what’s the problem?” Then, in front of about 15 people, she said the most amazing thing. (Katie sounds like a valley-girl already, so remember that when you read this next part.) : “Duh Pete! This got entered on the 7^th and they get a THREE week lead time. SEVEN times THREE is TWENTY-ONE. It’s the 21^st now, so you’re late. Learn how to do your job, and we wouldn’t have this issue.” The entire room was silent. Their jaws dropped to the floor. I opened my mouth and said, “That’s right, Katie, but that’s only three weeks if you start from one, not seven.” Every single person except Katie burst into laughter. She just got an angry look on her face and said, “Whatever, they need the paint, so make it happen.” This is what I deal with on a daily basis.

PS: She gets paid more than me. (A lot more) Have a good night.