The ESD Police
Two things happened back in the 1970s and 1980s that drastically altered the way the electronics industry manufactured products. One of them was the discovery that static electricity partially damaged or completely destroyed electronic components, and the other was the Dendrite crystal scare of the 1980s. Before these things were recognized for the serious problems that they are, our employees ate lunch at their workbenches and practically used the test instruments they were building as a dining table. Ashtrays were installed into the workstations and smoking was permitted on the instrument lines. My, how things have changed since then.
ESD stands for Electro Static Discharge. If you work in the tech industry, you know what this shit is, and it's poison for your electronic gadgets. Basically it's static electricity generated by objects sliding across each other. A classic example is when you walk across a carpet and then grab a door knob. What happens? You get zapped. The voltage generated by that static discharge is enough for you to feel a small shock and maybe see a flash in low light conditions. If anything, it's nothing more than a minor annoyance. Working with electronic components that same static discharge will completely fuck shit up. I've seen electron beam microscope photos of ICs and other parts that have holes blown clean through them and it's all thanks to a similar, seemingly harmless static discharge.
In the late 1970s Bill and Dave's company did some experiments to discover why some product divisions were experiencing higher component failure rates. If a part fails in the field, it will also bring down the unit it's in more often than not. So they ended up figuring out ESD was a huge issue and they implemented a bunch of stuff to help eliminate the problem. They forced their manufacturing workforce to wear grounding wrist and foot straps, and came up with special ESD containers for transporting PC boards and components around on the shop floor, just to name a few things. By the early 1980s some people still doubted the severity or existence of the ESD problem...
Every day when I come in to work I have to put on ESD foot straps. Sometimes I forget I've got them on when I leave the factory to go out for lunch. People stare at my feet like I'm some kind of retarded when they see those foot straps. Depending on the kind of work I'm doing I might also have to use a grounded wrist strap and a special smock that has metal fibers weaved into the fabric. To be honest, it's all kind of a pain in the ass but we've got to go with it.
The real problem I have here is with certain zealous employees who for dubious reasons become an ESD cop. I can deal with the ESD foot straps and shit. What I don't like are dead end co-workers who have little to offer and latch onto any and every extra assignment or job to try to offset their lack of usefulness. One of those available extra assignments is joining the ESD Police. ESD cops are individuals that fall into two categories.
The first category would be the cool ESD cop. The cool ESD cop is a person that has better things to do with their time on the job but somehow got fingered by management to appear and perform in the area making daily or monthly checks of workbenches and employees' sign in sheets. This individual isn't thrilled about the extra work and might care less about it but will at least go through the motions. If you forgot to sign in on the ESD check in one day, or you skipped a couple months on your bench check this person isn't going to fuck with you about it. They'll just get it fixed and move on. No big deal.
Category number two ESD cop is the worker I'd like to haul outside and shoot execution style in the back of the head and watch them fall into a shallow ditch. These assholes are ESD fanatics and they volunteered for the job because they saw it as some sort of stepping stone to bigger and better things. Or they discovered they hate/suck at working their production job. Give me a break. Running around with a clipboard in your hand writing up ESD citations isn't going to get you into a high paying corporate job that comes complete with a plush cubicle. These shit breathers come out of nowhere and try to find any and every excuse to fuck with you. Oh, you forgot to check your ESD footstraps before coming into the area yesterday, huh? We'll just have to tell your supervisor about this now won't we? And oh my, you didn't use a wrist strap while you built that box there at your bench. You're in trouble now buddy! Let's see here. Hmmm. This log is missing your bench check for the past couple of months. That's no good mister! No good at all!
Yeah, well, fuck you. I just spent the last two days fixing instruments that you installed everything upsidedown and backwards 'cause you can't read plain English and have the IQ of a dented hubcap.
ESD stands for Electro Static Discharge. If you work in the tech industry, you know what this shit is, and it's poison for your electronic gadgets. Basically it's static electricity generated by objects sliding across each other. A classic example is when you walk across a carpet and then grab a door knob. What happens? You get zapped. The voltage generated by that static discharge is enough for you to feel a small shock and maybe see a flash in low light conditions. If anything, it's nothing more than a minor annoyance. Working with electronic components that same static discharge will completely fuck shit up. I've seen electron beam microscope photos of ICs and other parts that have holes blown clean through them and it's all thanks to a similar, seemingly harmless static discharge.
In the late 1970s Bill and Dave's company did some experiments to discover why some product divisions were experiencing higher component failure rates. If a part fails in the field, it will also bring down the unit it's in more often than not. So they ended up figuring out ESD was a huge issue and they implemented a bunch of stuff to help eliminate the problem. They forced their manufacturing workforce to wear grounding wrist and foot straps, and came up with special ESD containers for transporting PC boards and components around on the shop floor, just to name a few things. By the early 1980s some people still doubted the severity or existence of the ESD problem...
Every day when I come in to work I have to put on ESD foot straps. Sometimes I forget I've got them on when I leave the factory to go out for lunch. People stare at my feet like I'm some kind of retarded when they see those foot straps. Depending on the kind of work I'm doing I might also have to use a grounded wrist strap and a special smock that has metal fibers weaved into the fabric. To be honest, it's all kind of a pain in the ass but we've got to go with it.
The real problem I have here is with certain zealous employees who for dubious reasons become an ESD cop. I can deal with the ESD foot straps and shit. What I don't like are dead end co-workers who have little to offer and latch onto any and every extra assignment or job to try to offset their lack of usefulness. One of those available extra assignments is joining the ESD Police. ESD cops are individuals that fall into two categories.
The first category would be the cool ESD cop. The cool ESD cop is a person that has better things to do with their time on the job but somehow got fingered by management to appear and perform in the area making daily or monthly checks of workbenches and employees' sign in sheets. This individual isn't thrilled about the extra work and might care less about it but will at least go through the motions. If you forgot to sign in on the ESD check in one day, or you skipped a couple months on your bench check this person isn't going to fuck with you about it. They'll just get it fixed and move on. No big deal.
Category number two ESD cop is the worker I'd like to haul outside and shoot execution style in the back of the head and watch them fall into a shallow ditch. These assholes are ESD fanatics and they volunteered for the job because they saw it as some sort of stepping stone to bigger and better things. Or they discovered they hate/suck at working their production job. Give me a break. Running around with a clipboard in your hand writing up ESD citations isn't going to get you into a high paying corporate job that comes complete with a plush cubicle. These shit breathers come out of nowhere and try to find any and every excuse to fuck with you. Oh, you forgot to check your ESD footstraps before coming into the area yesterday, huh? We'll just have to tell your supervisor about this now won't we? And oh my, you didn't use a wrist strap while you built that box there at your bench. You're in trouble now buddy! Let's see here. Hmmm. This log is missing your bench check for the past couple of months. That's no good mister! No good at all!
Yeah, well, fuck you. I just spent the last two days fixing instruments that you installed everything upsidedown and backwards 'cause you can't read plain English and have the IQ of a dented hubcap.
posted by factory_peasant at 6:29 PM
1 Comments:
Electro-Static Discharge? What the hell is that? The way things worked at Bill and Dave's I always thought ESD stood for Employing Serious Dumbasses.
Yeah those ESD cops were f'ing worthless.
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