Useless

It's getting so a guy can't work in power supply test without tripping over boxes full of dead PC boards. Between the power supply test rack and a Herman Miller shelf unit filled with brand new boards, I have multiple boxes of junked boards placed on a shiny chrome rolling metro cart crammed to the brim. No more room on that cart means starting new boxes of dead boards and leaving them on the floor. I'm not cool with that. The power supply consists of three main circuitboards. As we discover defective ones they are dumped into a box sorted by board part number and placed in a ESD bag with test data showing what failed. Whoever is supposed to be taking care of repairing these suckers isn't doing their job. Why not expedite sending them out for repair? I decided to look into why so many were left lying around.

Treehead is one of our Material Coordinators in the production area. The one thing I bug her about all the time is part orders. If we're low on an item, or we're completely out of stock, I need to know when to expect a replenishment so I can plan to work around it. Seems like we're constantly running out of one part or another which screws up the flow of work coming from assembly into test. Treehead is also a go-to person for solving mysteries, like the mess of dead power supply boards. Treehead was sitting in her cubicle so I told her about the problem back in my area and asked what to do about it. She said in order to fix those boards we would have to write up some extra paperwork and then hand them off to a technician named Useless. Useless would ship them out to South Korea for rework and repair. I asked, "Why South Korea?" Treehead said nobody in the United States repairs them anymore. That's typical of this place. Instead of having employees close by our division who can fix these circuitboards quickly, we have to send them half way around the world for simple repairs. Who knows when we might get them back.

I spent a few hours going over every board reviewing failed test data. With each one I filled out a non-conform slip. Basically it's a carbon copy sheet with a bunch of fill in the blank stuff like part numbers and information about my production line. After making sure everything was packed up proper and had the appropriate forms completed, I placed all boxes containing defective boards on Useless' desk. I don't know Useless, never spoke to him. Sometimes I see him wandering in the hallways, but most of the time he just hides out at his desk in the back of our test area. He doesn't seem to do much.

I left for the night satisfied that early tomorrow morning all of those crap circuitboards would be on their way to South Korea.

Next afternoon when I walked into assembly and began to settle in for swing shift, I saw every single box I had packed up was tossed back onto the chrome metro cart or dumped in front of it on the floor. Not a damn thing was done with them. What the hell? I walked back to Useless' desk and caught him as he was about to leave for the day. I asked him if there was a problem with those boards or their paperwork and I wanted to know why he put the shit back without doing anything. He said, "There's no problem. I'm not sending them back." I mentioned that Treehead pointed me in his direction, that he was responsible for facilitating repair of these PC boards. Useless shrugged, and walked away. I couldn't believe it.

Useless is apparently just another example of a spoiled employee. We have too many of them here. They show up and try to do as little work as possible while collecting fat paychecks. I despise people like him and I wish they would all end up getting fired. They're garbage.