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Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Master Of Floor Space

Big Dog and I went over a proposed floor layout for our department. We're moving across the county to one of our older factory sites. It's a little confusing because we currently are located in building 2 Lower here and this move will dump us in building 2 Lower over there. Does that make any sense? Probably not. Anyway in our current location we have more square footage than we could ever possibly use. It's been a luxury to spread out and get some distance between us. At the new spot it looks like they're trying to cram us into the smallest amount of space imaginable. It's not going to work well for us. Big Dog has already raised a number of important issues with management concerning this lack of available factory real estate but each time they send him away without listening to him. We realize it's going to be a tight fit.

Each product line or department in this company is treated like it's own little individual business. We have to pay the company every month for our electricity, phone bill, rent, etc. The rent is based on a fixed rate per square foot. Since things are financially in a downward spiral nobody wants to pay much for expenses if they can somehow get away with it. So that's what is driving this mad dash to consolidate us into a tiny allocation of floor space. Less square feet for our department means cheaper rent. Corporate is also in a rush to close as many US manufacturing sites as possible to sell them for quick revenue. Can you say "Shareholder Value?" Super Geek sure can!

I've had to make some concessions in order for MI/EI to work. Big Dog asked me to give up some equipment. Instead of moving six technical workbenches I am going to abandon two of them here along with some office furniture and shelving. The other thing I just don't have any room or use for is that damned pneumatic Ergo Lift piece of shit. That dangerous eyesore is going to be ditched here as well. I am not being given enough room anyway. I'm the only person currently working in the Button Up area so why in the hell would I need six workbenches for one employee? B-Rad is supposedly coming back soon as a temporary worker which is great news. That will take up one more bench and give us some desperately needed help.

A potentially serious problem with our new area is the floor tiles in that building are electrically hot. Real hot. We measured it for static electricity and resistance recently, and those tiles are poison for sensitive electronic devices. Even with a coating of special wax that is supposed to help electrically ground the tiles and dampen static discharges our test data shows it's far out of tolerance. In order to stay in compliance with our internal company ESD policy and meet ISO:9000 requirements we must do something to find a solution. Ripping out the floor tiles to expose bare concrete would greatly reduce electrical resistance and static charge buildup. Nobody with management authority wants to take on the cost and pay a construction crew to do the work though. Typical.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Planning A Move

Looks like this place is dust just like the rumors said it would be. In a few weeks we will be relocating our entire manufacturing division to another site in the county. Our home base here will be vacated and put up for sale. The Bossman has elected me to prepare all of MI/EI's equipment for the move and come up with a floorplan for my area to use at the other factory location. A decent floorplan layout won't be too difficult. Actually I'm more concerned about securing all of my gear and packing the workbenches to load them on trucks. Every move I've been through here has been a serious pain in the ass. Usually the hassles that erupt during a site to site move are caused by our own idiot employees. They fail to properly label or mark where items are supposed to go, who they belong to etc. So shit goes missing. Or they don't pack critical items securely enough and then stuff inevitably is damaged.

I have six technical workbenches, three test stations, and a variety of random equipment and office furniture to concern myself with. That's nothing compared to what the folks up in assembly or over in forward flow test are going to have to handle.

In theory relocating an instrument line should be straightforward and simple. The floorplan is created with each individual test system and workbench being assigned a corresponding number. Everything is labeled according to the floorplan layout prior to leaving on trucks. We pack our equipment and then professional movers come in to haul it all away. They use the floorplan numbers to properly drop our stuff in right spots at the other factory. Once that is accomplished we arrive shortly afterward and begin the process of unpacking equipment and firing up all our test systems.

Never seems to work out that way.

Big Dog has been tapped on the shoulder by the boss to be the floorplan master. I have to hang out with him to see how many square feet of real estate at the other site I'm being given to work with. He's been real busy lately so I don't know when he might have some free time to sit down with me and yap about it. Should be cool, we get along well together. I don't expect any weirdness or headaches from dealing with him. I'm sure there will be plenty of other oddball junk issues that will mess everything up though before we're finished.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Crossdressing Halloween Horrors



Last year Greasy Guy showed up to work on Halloween dressed as what he called a "Female Soviet Wrestler." He wandered around all four buildings in the factory showing himself off. As I recall, coworkers warned me when I started my shift that afternoon so I was ready. When Greasy Guy finally located me in the chamber area dealing with a test system that had completely barfed he hovered off my left shoulder until I acknowledged his presence. He had a big shit eating grin on his face and the only thing I said to him was "Get the fuck away from me."

This year has been far more horrible. Greasy Guy ratcheted the eye-burning nightmare up a few notches by coming in to work dressed as Little Bo Peep. Ugh.

Some of us here are considering if there is an underlying personal problem, maybe this is a kind of cry for help from Greasy Guy. Crossdressing on Halloween once can be overlooked but doing it two years in a row is starting to make us wonder. Perhaps there is more crossdressing going on at home? Employees are speculating this is the case.

I've seen some terrible crossdressing costumes over the years here on the job at Halloween. Probably one of the all time worst was when Mr. Fussy appeared walking the hallways at work dressed in a sexy French maid outfit complete with spiked high heels and fishnet stockings. Just thinking about that mental image still makes me cringe. I enjoy spreading the hate. Every once in a while I will describe Mr. Fussy's French maid costume to fellow employees who knew him while they have a mouthful of food at lunchtime and watch them promptly spit up their grub. It never fails.

Monday, October 23, 2006

Halfshirt's Revenge

Assembly fell behind schedule again. It's no surprise. With all the outsourcing and subcontract vendors involved we have nearly zero direct control over manufacturing our instruments anymore. Usually what happens is one or more outside companies we depend on either can't get their act together to ship us parts on time or they send us damaged goods. Something was put together with the wrong mechanical tolerances, critical hardware is missing, or maybe the stuff just shows up completely broken. While we're waiting for good replacements to arrive our entire area is effectively shut down. Slow periods might last a few days to a couple of weeks. As soon as fresh parts and supplies get here we have to work like insane animals to catch up to schedule. Overtime goes through the roof. Things are a mess here doing business this way.

Volunteering to help out the assembly folks I spent the majority of my time during the past week working in their area dropping microcircuit decks and PC boards into instrument chassis. The work is relatively straightforward and easy for me. A whole unit can be loaded and cabled up in a little over an hour or so. One of the other guys who frequently doubles as an assembler when things are slammed in assembly is EH. He's probably the most experienced instrument builder we have left but his actual full time forty hour a week job is in another aspect of our department. On Friday afternoon both of us were knocking out chassis after chassis bullshitting about random subjects when we started talking about Halfshirt. EH mentioned something that really got my attention.

"I can probably get away with telling you this now since it was months ago, but you lost your job in the last round of layoffs."
"Huh? You're shittin' me." I said.
EH explained, "Halfshirt was bitter about losing his job. Because Halfshirt was angry he made up his mind to try and wreck the department by getting rid of everyone in production. He eliminated everybody except for his personal butt snorkel, James. He was trying to protect that kiss ass by sparing him from job cuts. When other supervisors realized what Halfshirt was doing they confronted him. Instead of keeping James they threw him out and saved you. The Bossman told Halfshirt he had no say in the matter so there was nothing he could do about it."

Wow. I had no idea at all that had taken place. Nobody said anything about it to me so I was completely unaware until now. EH and I both had a good laugh over James getting the boot. That guy really was a fuckup. So is Halfshirt for that matter. I can only hope Halfshirt was extra pissed off that I survived and kept my job here despite his efforts to ditch me. What I don't understand though is why a few other key employees weren't spared. If other managers were able to override Halfshirt's decisions why wasn't B-Rad shielded from the axe? He should have been. They need him here badly. And why in the world would they allow a supervisor who himself had been thrown out to make critical staffing decisions? That didn't make much sense to me.

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Hang 'Em High

Give someone enough rope, they might be able to hang themselves with it.

I handed Miss Auschwitz a whole heap of rope. Yes sir.

The Bossman gave me the word today when I rolled in that Miss Auschwitz had re-tested our instrument storage racks this morning. A representative of OSHA was present, I believe. Eagerly anticipating the outcome from her results I couldn't wait to hear what the verdict was. According to the boss those racks are well within safe ergonomic physical limits. After measuring the force required to slide a heavy instrument across the surface of a rack she ended up with totally different data compared to her first evaluation some years ago. Nothing has changed in that time. It's laughable how far off the data is between both tests she conducted. Miss Auschwitz mentioned to my supervisor how *surprised* she was to discover such a low amount of resistance. That means hardly any physical strain would be experienced by an employee shoving or pulling a unit over a storage rack.

Keep in mind her first evaluation test results showed the exact opposite data and was the basis for letting an employee go with a hefty disability settlement.

I have triumphed over evil once again. Miss Auschwitz has been served a humiliating defeat. Not only will she have to abandon hassling me about those storage racks but she will also have to answer to the Bossman and some other interested individuals concerning her work. Honestly I would not want to be in her shoes right now. Unfortunately I don't think she will be fired over this incident although in my opinion she probably has earned getting canned. Things won't be very comfortable for Miss Auschwitz for a while that's certain. I'm entirely amused and don't feel a bit sorry for her. Due to her vindictive, caustic nature I have a hunch this won't be the last time I run up against Miss Auschwitz. She is going to remember this episode and carry a grudge against me. She's mad as hell right now. I can sense it. All I have to do is be aware of that fact and stay a couple steps ahead of her...

Final score at the end of round one game time: Factory Peasant- 1 Miss Auschwitz- 0.

Monday, October 16, 2006

Factory Peasant Instrument Delivery Service

There was something about this incident with Miss Auschwitz that didn't make much sense. Why was a full time Ergonomics department employee all of a sudden delivering and picking up broken instruments for our In-house repair group? She shouldn't have anything to do with In-house repair unless someone dropped an eighty five pound instrument on their foot or something dumb like that. I barely knew one of the technicians over there but I decided to give him a call and do a little investigative digging. I was curious about Miss Auschwitz showing up on our line since I had not seen her anywhere on site in years.

In-house repair functions primarily as a one stop do it all fix-it shop for most pieces of test and measurement equipment we manufacture. Their technicians have to be able to work on a wide variety of product families instead of specializing in one kind of instrument like most techs here. If the In-house repair department is unable to service an instrument for whatever reasons it will then be sent out to a product's original line. Each instrument line has hundreds of units installed in racks for their test processes and they have to maintain calibrated spares of each piece of gear just in case something prematurely fries itself. Even if an individual box doesn't crap out, there is a mandatory once a year re-calibration that has to be performed. The In-house repair group facilitates all of this for every product line and more. It's a huge work load. Those guys also come out to every line once a year with mobile test stations and re-calibrate most instruments on the spot. With a fully staffed technician group they were always trying to catch up to schedule. Now they're really hurting since most of their employees have been laid off.

Calling up the repair group I got Adolph on the phone. He's the tech guy I knew just a little bit from passing in hallways and from handling one or two special repair cases a long time ago. He seemed like a good person, talking with him was always a positive experience. I asked him about Miss Auschwitz.

"Hi Adolph, it's Factory Peasant down in Sources. Hey man, I have a quick question for you. Miss Auschwitz recently appeared on the line here dropping off broken Sig Gens from you guys. I thought she worked exclusively in Ergonomics handling safety issues. Why is she delivering busted units now?"

Adolph said, "We lost most of our staff during the layoffs. Both women we had running delivery and pickup of broken instruments are gone. There are only a few technicians left and we're buried in work so none of us have time to do that job anymore. Miss Auschwitz is here two or three days a week working part time at the front desk. She's on permanent loan to help us out with instrument delivery."

That sucks.

"Adolph, she's been causing trouble down here and I'd like to nip it in the bud. Tell you what. It would be faster if you guys call me directly when boxes come in for us to fix. I will volunteer to pick up and return units personally so I can keep Miss Auschwitz off of my line. The extra work to do that is worth it to me to get her out of here. All you have to do is call my extension each time you get a box for us and show me where your pick up and drop off points are."

"Are you sure you want to do that?" Adolph asked.
"Absolutely. If you have a few minutes why don't you come on over and walk me back up to your area. I'm located in Building 2 lower. Come through the main hallway from Building 1 and before you get to the Credit Union make a left in the aisle. Sources MI/EI will be on your immediate left. I'll keep an eye out for you."

Adolph said he was on the way and hung up. Not ten minutes later I saw Adolph walking down the aisle and I yelled to get his attention. Joining him, we headed out along the back of Building 1. As we were passing the shipping department Miss Auschwitz appeared from fucking nowhere like a well trained Viet Cong guerrilla. She went straight for Adolph and as soon as she was standing in front of him she began apologizing to him over and over again. I kept my mouth shut and just listened. From the gist of it, things sounded like Miss Auschwitz was being stupid in Adolph's group too and she had started a bad argument with Adolph over something entirely petty. Adolph's reaction to Miss Auschwitz incessant and over dramatic apologizing told me he wanted to end the conversation quickly.

When she finally left, Adolph cringed, looked at me with an unimpressed expression on his face and sighed. I said, "I know dude. I know. Miss Auschwitz causes fights with people everywhere she goes in this company. That's why I'm setting this up with you. I don't want her anywhere near Sources again if I can help it."

Once we arrived in Adolph's area he directed me to a set of metal storage shelves for instrument pick up and showed me where to drop off freshly repaired, calibrated boxes. I already was familiar with filling out their paperwork forms but I also needed to use a computer terminal located in front of their drop off point to log some items in. That was no problem. My main concern was making sure Miss Auschwitz never got to handle another one of our boxes in the future. I could expedite delivery on my own which would be good for In-house repair and allow us to avoid Miss Auschwitz like the plague that she is.

Hopefully.

Saturday, October 14, 2006

Company Vendetta

Two hours after I settled in at my workbench Miss Auschwitz arrived in Button Up with a delivery from the In-house repair department. She was dropping off another broken signal generator for us to fix and retest. As I anticipated, she glared at me and started babbling about those damned instrument racks. I told her to go have a talk with the Bossman, then to come back and see me. I said, "You and I are going to step outside. We're going to have a serious chat." Miss Auschwitz seemed a little confused about what was going on. Like an obedient robot she made a fast trip over to my boss' desk. I guess she was talking with him for about twenty minutes or so, then she reappeared next to my bench. Her face was suddenly pale white. She was nervous.

I stood up and walked her through our department outside behind Building 2. Pointing to a vacant picnic table I told her to have a seat. It was a beautiful late afternoon with clear skies and no wind at all. Sunset was still hours away. I chose to sit facing a mostly empty parking lot so I could take in a better view of trees and the skyline at the edge of our site's property line. The view was almost perfect, except for being polluted by Miss Auschwitz annoying presence.

Much to my shock Miss Auschwitz actually apologized for arguing with me the other day. Then she started running her mouth at length giving me reasons why she decided to steal those Button Up instrument racks. I didn't care or want to hear it. Miss Auschwitz rambled on about her experience investigating a female employee's injury using those racks, assuming I was unaware anyone had been hurt in the area. I let Miss Auschwitz wear herself out talking and then I began the beat down.

I said, "You know what is interesting here? The person who supposedly was hurt happened to be a scrawny, short Asian girl. She hasn't worked here for over two years. All of a sudden you come down here and start squeaking about equipment that nobody has a problem with. Didn't it cross your mind that I'm not a four foot tall Asian girl? I'm six foot two and I weigh over 200 pounds. I don't have any physical problems sliding instruments on and off those racks in their trays. I can do it with little effort. That's part of your job as an Ergonomics Assessor, to keep in mind every person is different. What works for one person might not work for somebody else and vice versa. Right? I find it very strange you're trying to remove useful equipment based on someone else's on the job injury that has nothing to do with me. It's a totally different situation."

She didn't say anything.

"Okay. Now that you've talked to the Bossman I'm certain he told you before removing those instrument racks you're going to re-measure them first. That's fine with me. If they do prove to be unsafe and you pull them for good I want to make one thing very clear. You will find a replacement solution for me and you will make it happen quickly. I am the only person left working MI/EI now and I can't wait for you guys in the ergonomics department to come up with some expensive overkill solution seven or eight months from now. It has to be simple, effective, and low cost. I really hate it when Ergo engineers spend tens of thousands of dollars on elaborate solutions that don't work properly and nobody ends up using them anyway. That's a total waste of our company's money and it pisses me off."

Miss Auschwitz gave me the same old tired story I've heard year after year from various Ergo department employees about how important safe working practices are. It was like listening to a bad television re-run. She told me that our division still has some of the highest on the job injury rates in the entire company and she even threw in some statistics to try and prove her point. It went in one ear and right out the other. After making a series of angry comments that demonstrated to me how much contempt Miss Auschwitz has for Bill and Dave's company, she fell silent. Then she held up both her arms to show me her wrists and she said with a vengeful tone in her voice, "I'm not getting hurt for THIS company AGAIN."

Something unexpected hit me, it started to make sense. When she made that final comment it was like a piece of the puzzle fell into place. Miss Auschwitz had a private vendetta against Bill and Dave's company. She blamed the company for her carpal tunnel and she was going out of her way to willingly help employees file dubious or outright false work injury claims. That was her revenge. The whole scam hit me like a ton of bricks. With little to no oversight in the Ergonomics department Miss Auschwitz could easily alter work injury details on a case by case basis however she wanted. Why I hadn't thought of it before now was beyond me.

I didn't say much more to her after that and we both went back inside the building. I had diabolical plotting to do.

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Systems Check

Brawling with Miss Auschwitz is going to be a chore. She throws her brand of lousy attitude around anywhere she pleases. Most employees who have run afoul of her in the past are unaware Miss Auschwitz has very little actual authority over anyone working here. If they did figure out that she is a nobody, more people would probably kick her out of their production areas and not think twice about it. They also wouldn't have to put up with her verbally abusive comments. Instead the vast majority of employees go along with whatever it is she happens to be harassing them about just to get rid of her as fast as possible.

If I am going to successfully put Miss Auschwitz in her place I need backup. And that has to start with the Bossman.

Cruising past my supervisor's area I peeked over a cubicle wall to see if the Bossman was sitting at his desk. I spotted him busily typing away on his computer keyboard taking infrequent pauses between pecking at keys to write notes on a piece of paper. Navigating my way through abandoned cubicles I walked up to his desk and asked him if he had a few minutes to talk. He said yes. I sat down at the edge of his cubicle in an aisle and waited. When he finished typing, the Bossman turned in his chair to face me and asked what was up.

"I got a problem over in MI/EI. It's nothing serious. More of a personal aggravation than anything else. The other day when I came in to work someone had gone into Button Up and stole both our black roller instrument storage racks. Totally would have crippled me for the shift because I had nowhere to offload finished boxes. So I pulled two identical racks out of equipment mothball storage and set them up. Next day I hear someone from the Ergonomics department saw those two racks were back and went into a rage about it. Turns out my Ergo pest is Miss Auschwitz."

As soon as I spoke her name, the Bossman let out an angry grunt and threw his pen at his desk. He was not pleased at the news.

Continuing I said, "Miss Auschwitz lame ass explanation for removing those racks had something to do with a girl who used to work here. I don't remember the girl personally, but she isn't working here anymore and hasn't been for quite some time. I asked around about her on day shift and a few people told me she was hired in up at assembly. She claimed an on the job injury there so they moved her out of assembly to another job on the line. Then she complained about getting hurt in her new spot as well. Finally she was manage-moved to Button Up and the same thing happened again. This girl claimed another injury. She told Miss Auschwitz it was too difficult to slide instruments across those racks and it was hurting her back or some shit like that. From the sound of things most people think that girl was faking her injuries so she could get a lucrative disability settlement out of the company. Like I said I don't remember her but to be honest that's what it sounds like to me, too. I suspect Miss Auschwitz helped her file a bogus claim with OSHA."

The Bossman sat there and listened.

"I'm not having any physical problems at all moving instruments on and off those racks. I haven't complained to the Ergo department. I already told Miss Auschwitz I need the racks for storage and that I'm not having any issues using them. All she did was argue with me about it. What I want is for Miss Auschwitz to take a fucking hike and stay the hell out of the area. If she swipes those racks it's really going to impact the area, Boss. So I want to stop that nitwit broad in her tracks."

The Bossman said, "You know, that's a problem with many of our Ergo people. Their ears are closed. They come out to product lines telling employees what kinds of tools to use and they don't listen when things aren't working for an individual. Miss Auschwitz was injured on the job, right?"

I replied, "Yeah. Back in PCAC years ago she claimed getting carpal tunnel from using lead clippers and manual screwdrivers on hand load lines building circuitboards. I'm skeptical that her carpal tunnel in both wrists is for real."

"When you have a person that has been injured on the job they like to move them into the Ergonomic department because they'll be more understanding of other employee's work related injury situations. It's makes them more passionate about keeping others from getting hurt."

"That makes sense and all Boss, but Miss Auschwitz is just being a tyrant because she thinks she can get away with it. I want to stomp her guts out. Can you help me do that?"

The Bossman thought about it for a short while. Then he asked, "You mentioned Miss Auschwitz originally investigated an Ergo issue with those racks?"
I said, "That's what some folks told me. It was a couple years ago, I think."

With a slight smile on his face the Bossman looked at me and said, "Let's do a systems check."
"Huh? What's that?" I asked.

"A systems check. I'll give you an example. Occasionally I have to write feedback for my department manager's reviews. He never read any of my feedback comments for him and I knew it. What's the point of writing a review if nobody is going to read it? What I did was, I wrote that my boss wasn't paying attention and that he was a big jerk. When I sat down with him to go over his feedback he told me everything looked great in his review. So I knew he hadn't even looked at it. Then I told him maybe he better read the beginning of the third paragraph. After reading it, he got my point. That's a systems check."

I laughed out loud.

"So what I propose we do is, this. Let's force Miss Auschwitz to come out here with all her Ergonomic equipment and re-measure those racks. Let's force her to bring OSHA back into it. We'll see if her measurements are the same as last time... or not. If we're in tolerance for safety and physical limitations then Miss Auschwitz will have nowhere to go with it. And if there is a discrepancy with her test results but no real change in our setup then we will know she either falsified the results from her first tests or she's incompetent. That will leave Miss Auschwitz open to some very uncomfortable questions from myself and a few other managers."

Man, that was a kick ass plan. I had an evil grin on my face that caused my fangs to poke out.

I asked him, "If she comes back into the area later this week to fuck with me, is it cool if I just send her your way?"
He said, "Sure."

Heh.

You know, I really like working with my supervisor. I can appreciate the way he goes about solving problems around this place...

Miss Auschwitz

Yesterday afternoon the guys on day shift told me about a weird woman who blazed through the area earlier and came unglued when she saw identical rolling storage racks sitting in MI/EI again. She asked for me by name. When told I wasn't in until five she angrily said she'd be back and then split. Nobody could tell me anything about who she was or why she was up in my shit all of a sudden over these two rack units.

A half hour later the mystery female showed up again. As soon as I saw her I knew this was going to be a real pain dealing with her. Standing in front of me with her stringy, unkept dirty blonde hair and crazy look in her eyes I recognized the woman immediately. It was our infamous ergonomic department Nazi, Miss Auschwitz. I can't stand talking to Miss Auschwitz much less having to look at the sight of her. She's positively annoying. I should have known she caused my storage racks to disappear.

Since the early 1990s when I first got a job with Bill and Dave's company I've observed Miss Auschwitz do little more than wander around in hallways trying to duck her work. She's a chronic time waster. Back in the PC board days I frequently saw her wandering around in a light blue ESD smock hanging out at coffee stations or bullshitting with other employees in break rooms. Seldom if ever was she to be found working in the component handload lines which is where she should have been. I suspect she hated production work. One way to escape production work is to feign an on the job injury of some kind and that's what Miss Auschwitz did. She conjured up a case of carpal tunnel in her wrists and was reassigned to the Ergonomic department. Over the years working in Ergo she has become a tyrant, known well in two separate manufacturing divisions as a pain in the ass and a problem employee. Nobody I know anywhere in the company likes her. In fact, if you even mention her by name eyes will start to roll back into people's skulls. It's that bad.

The thing I despise Miss Auschwitz the most for is her habit of coming into employee's work areas uninvited and stealing useful equipment citing vague or completely bogus injury hazards. It's almost always bullshit of course. She just enjoys being a total asshole to people. Years ago someone came in to Team Loser's assembly area and stole all our tall instrument carts when I was working there. My partner and I started having back and neck pain due to using shorter carts that were supposedly "safer" because they wouldn't tip over. We never had one of the tall ones tip over. Not once. Nobody asked us if we were okay with using shorter carts and I found out long afterward that the person responsible for screwing up our area was Miss Auschwitz. She was the one who arbitrarily decided to swipe our tooling. Bitch.

With a wide eyed crazy stressed out expression on her dumb face Miss Auschwitz started to lecture me about how unsafe those two storage racks are. She rambled on and on about employees who have previously been injured using them. Then she decreed that I can't use them. They've got to go. I began questioning her.

"Who was hurt and when? I haven't had any problems using these racks. It's actually real easy to slide heavy instruments on and off of the rollers. Who gave you permission to take equipment out of my area without informing me first?"

Miss Auschwitz didn't have valid answers. Instead, she came back at me yelling and as I expected our conversation quickly turned into a shouting match. I told her to stay the fuck out of my area and if she stole anything else I'd work through the management chain to have her busted. That didn't go over well with her. In response she threatened me with OSHA regulations and Ergo department rules which of course didn't make any sense. I laughed at her. Frustrated that I wasn't backing down Miss Auschwitz stormed out of the area saying she'd return soon.

Oh good. I finally get to go to war with Miss Auschwitz. Revenge for what she did to me and Gary years ago in Team Loser's area is long overdue. I'm going to make her look stupid to management if I can. I'm going to enjoy this immensely...

Round one of the Factory Peasant vs. Miss Auschwitz brawl is about to begin!

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Disappearing Equipment

Got an interesting surprise when I showed up today. Someone went through Button Up and removed two portable storage racks that are used for holding finished instruments. I'm real angry about this. Nobody on day shift seems to know who the responsible person is or why they removed the racks. I need them. After a unit is finished here in MI/EI it's placed on top of a black fiberglass tray and then I slide it on to one of those racks. Doesn't take much physical strength to push an eighty five pound unit over the rack. The following morning someone from shipping comes out to the line and slides each unit over to a cruiser table and then hauls them away. Each of these two special racks will hold about fifteen instruments. Now I've got nowhere to put any instruments when I'm done with them except for a few rolling tables. I can't use rolling tables for storing boxes that are ready to ship though. Those are for staging work in progress. Weak.

Fortunately, I have two identical rack units stashed elsewhere in the building. Since I really need those racks to do my job I went over to my secret equipment stash and pulled both racks out. I set them up exactly where the two missing ones were. Hopefully whoever stole my gear will see the racks magically back in place and freak out. In the meantime I'm asking around to try to locate the first two racks and find out why in the hell someone swiped them. Man, this place is so fucked up sometimes. You don't just go into other employee's work areas and take whatever you please. I wouldn't dare do that and not just because it's rude. It's also because someone might get injured if they don't have proper tooling or equipment available.

When I catch whoever did this crap I'm going to make sure they pay for their crimes.

Monday, October 09, 2006

Skeleton Crew

Day shift has a little less than twenty people left. On swing shift there are only four or five of us now. It's weird walking through buildings where hundreds of people used to work and see nothing but empty floor space. Other areas had large groups of employees working in cubicle mazes doing who knows what. The cubicles are all still there, but no one occupies them anymore. It's as if everyone suddenly died from disease.

There are three main instrument product groups left in this division, Network Analyzers, Spectrum Analyzers, and Sources. All three product groups had a rather large amount of employees assigned to support production. Now they're a shadow of what they once were. Network only has a couple of technicians on swing shift. Same goes for SA. The only people I see walking in the hallways anymore at night are custodial staff and an occasional security guard. That's it.

B-Rad and Garden Gnome are gone. Their last day came and went already. I had a good time working with both of them while it lasted. Too bad I didn't get to hang out for a couple more months with that Garden Gnome character. God damn that guy is hilarious. B-Rad is funny as hell on his own but both of those guys kinda played off each other well. Made coming in to work fun again even if it only lasted for a few weeks.

Boozealler has been swept away by a recent wave of layoffs. I think he wanted to go, but I still feel awkward about the Bossman's comment after I approached him asking to keep Boozealler out of Button Up. I wasn't trying to get the man fired. I just wanted him out of my hair.

Yahoo Stock Forums

Web surfing while on the job is no big deal here. Traditionally employees at Bill and Dave's company enjoy an unusual amount of personal freedom. Nobody is looking over your shoulder or breathing down your shirt collar to get more work out of you every minute of the day. We manage our own time and to a large degree self-direct our areas of production. You have to completely mess up stuff or abuse your on the job freedom before gaining the wary eye of superiors around this place. In the meantime as long as your work is completed on schedule you can pretty much hang out and do whatever you please.

There's one thing I just won't do from work though. I absolutely will not hit Yahoo's stock forums website. Disgruntled former and current employees of this company have been going berzerk on our stock page at Yahoo. Some of them have been leaking company sensitive information deliberately to try and embarrass management or at the very least to try to negatively influence our stock share price. Petty vengeance. A particularly interesting tidbit of company info that was leaked on the Yahoo website a while ago was a rumor that this manufacturing site would be closed soon. With a drastically reduced workforce it would make sense to shut down this factory and relocate survivors to another site in the area. Most of the time these posted rumors have proved to be based in truth which has angered managers over their public dissemination on Yahoo.

Right now it looks like that rumor was very accurate. We got the news this week that we will be moved in a few months to a sister division located nearby. Once vacated, this factory will be put up for sale.

Management has since been actively trying to identify the source of these leaks. They are watching our Yahoo stock forum and might be attempting to trace posts back to their authors. Here at work it would be relatively easy for site IT to tag Yahoo's website for hits and identify specific computers on campus. I don't even bother to look at Yahoo stocks from work anymore. I'll read posts from home but there's no way in hell I would write anything on there about what is going on at work unless I went to use an internet cafe computer or one at the public library. It's too dangerous.

The Superior Intellect

I saw him walking through the building's main hallway for the first time today. It was him, I'm sure of it because the description of his physical features perfectly matched the way he looked. When some of our engineers told me about the guy at first I thought they were joking, just pulling my leg. Now I realize this whole time they were telling the truth.

This man is a highly respected engineer who I'm told happens to be a PhD and who also holds a number of technology patents for stuff he has invented in his spare time. By all accounts from his peers in engineering that I have spoken with about him, he truly is a bright individual. They nicknamed him "The Superior Intellect." It's a reference to Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan. It's due to the fact that this man not only looks very similar to Ricardo Montalban's character as Khan in the movie, it's also because like Khan the man has an arrogant attitude about his own levels of intelligence. Compared to all us lowly corporate wage slaves and factory peasants anyway.

I have to admit The Superior Intellect really does look like Khan. His hair is long and silver colored which he usually wears pulled back into a pony tail.

The Superior Intellect won't be working here for much longer. He got himself laid off. Apparently The Superior Intellect has spent a great deal of time training young, inexperienced engineers in our Malaysia divisions. From what I hear he is very critical of their abilities. In department meetings with management The Superior Intellect has been vocal about Malaysian employees lack of skill and schooling. A few months ago The Superior Intellect was in a coffee talk with hundreds of fellow employees. If I haven't mentioned it before now, a coffee talk is an informal meeting that any mid to upper level manager might hold with his department or a division to communicate general information and take questions. I think it's something Bill and Dave started long ago as a way to build closer ties with their workforce.

Anyway during this particular coffee talk The Superior Intellect shot his mouth off big time. He trashed management for shifting our work overseas to Malaysia and he openly criticized the workforce there as substandard. Well, many Malay were seated in the audience during his rant and naturally they took offense to it. As soon as that meeting was over some of the Malay got on the phone and called back to their division relating everything The Superior Intellect had said. When he returned to Malaysia for another tour of duty they were waiting for him.

Things were comfortable for The Superior Intellect in Malaysia. He had his own place and apparently he even had his own motorcycle to cruise around Penang with. Not long after his arrival some Malay destroyed his bike and left a threat letter at his residence. After contacting Malay authorities they quickly investigated The Superior Intellect's situation and came to the conclusion that they could not guarantee his safety in country. The police advised him to leave Malaysia as soon as possible.

Not long after coming back to the States, The Superior Intellect was informed he was to be let go. No doubt having to remove himself from Malaysia under such strange circumstances must have had something to do with that decision. Ironically for being such a smart man I'm surprised he didn't have enough common sense in his noggin to approach management privately with his opinions and concerns about ongoing production operations in Malaysia. Shooting off his mouth like that in front of dozens of Malay employees was entirely foolish. I mean what did he expect was going to happen after beating them down like that? Maybe The Superior Intellect has more in common with Khan than anyone realized.

Friday, October 06, 2006

Get Lost Already

Enough is enough.

I've had it with that Boozealler guy. Last couple of weeks all he's been doing is occupy space and little else. I don't get it. He did such a great job helping me support environmental lab projects and running the chamber area while Greasy Guy was in Malaysia for three months. Now Boozealler is just a total dud. Maybe he's given up on this place, who knows. What I do know is I'm sick of dealing with his bullshit. Something snapped, I reached my threshold of tolerance for his lame attitude. Today I did something about it.

Walking over to where Boozealler was sitting once again I discovered he was studying real estate instead of working on instruments. His daily habit. Gritting my teeth I tried to keep my temper down while speaking to him in a civil manner.

"Boozealler. Do you have anything else you could be doing right now?"
Looking up at me with a slightly confused expression on his face he said, "Ummm. Yeah."
"Okay. Cool. Look man, I'm gonna be honest with you. It's obvious to everyone you just don't want to be here. You don't want to do this job at all so you're not interested in training on it. Whatever. I need the workbench you're using when I come in to start my shift and I don't want to wait around for you to leave. It slows me down and wastes time. So I'll tell you what. Let's make a deal here, okay? You don't want to be here and I don't want you to be here either. If you got better stuff to be doing just go with that from now on and don't even bother to worry about MI/EI anymore. I don't want to run this whole thing by myself but even if you're here it seems that's what I'm going to be doing anyway. If you bail out though at least I won't have to trip over you every day right? So what do you say? Fair deal?"

Boozealler thought about it for a half minute or so and his facial expression changed to one of relief. He seemed suddenly happy. He jumped at the chance to abandon working in Button Up. Boozealler said, "Sounds great!" After that he packed up some of his text books and headed off towards his cubicle with a grin on his face.

About an hour later I spotted the Bossman walking into the area past a row of EI test racks. I called out to him and asked if he had a minute to talk. Giving me a quick nod that he did I walked towards where he was standing in the aisle. By that time of the afternoon everyone had pretty much left for the day. No one was around. I told the Bossman that I talked to Boozealler and essentially asked him to keep out of Button Up from now on. He wasn't willing to learn the process or do any work at all. So, I said I cut a deal with him to stay away and I would cover the area by myself. What I wanted to know was, would that be cool with the Bossman? Maybe not.

The Bossman looked me in the eye and asked, "Do you realistically think you can handle it without another person?"
I said, "For now, yes. But later on when our orders increase... I'm not sure. I'll be very busy but I can probably stay on top of it."
He replied, "All right. Go for it. If you start to fall behind though talk to me. Let me know if things look like it's getting out of control. I can temporarily move someone else over to help out."

That sounded good to me.

Before leaving the Bossman said, "Someone just earned himself an extra spot on the next round of layoffs." Then he walked away.

Uh oh.

Thursday, October 05, 2006

The Corpse Isn't Cold Yet

This afternoon I arrived in the area to discover Boozealler hard at work for a change. He wasn't glued to a computer monitor intently reading real estate information nor did he have any of his school text books spread across his workbench. He was animated and enthusiastic, which was a surprise. Hand tools of various kinds were strewn about and miscellaneous bits of hardware were scattered over the bench. There wasn't a single instrument anywhere near where Boozealler was sitting. At the workbench next to him there was a large pile of metal shelving, ergonomic accessories, an overhead torque tool boom, and other junk. It completely covered the entire workbench so no one could use it until everything was relocated elsewhere. Curious.

Approaching Boozealler I pointed towards the heap of crap and asked him what was going on. Boozealler replied he didn't like the workbench layout of shelves and ergonomic tool locations. It was uncomfortable for him he said, so Boozealler took it upon himself to redesign everything to suit his personal needs by removing pieces of the workbench. Interesting. I guess it never crossed his mind that three other people need to share the station from time to time and maybe the way Boozealler has re-set it up might be uncomfortable for us. Apparently his physical well being while on the job is more important than we are so that makes it okay. Yeah. B-Rad sat at that particular workbench frequently. It was not exclusively Boozealler's to do with as he pleased.

B-Rad didn't say anything about it until a while later. When Boozealler stood up and walked out of the area for a few minutes B-Rad looked at me and said, "Man. The corpse isn't even cold yet. I'm still here and he's acting like I'm dead and gone already." B-Rad laughed about it but I got his point. I could tell he was annoyed. I was too. It bugged me because Boozealler was being insensitive to the fact that B-Rad wasn't going to be here for much longer. He could have waited until after B-Rad's last day at the least. That would have been tactful instead of rubbing in the fact that B-Rad was given the axe. Also, I was irritated because until someone spent time to pack up all that junk from the other work bench nobody could use it. So we were down one more available spot. I sure as hell wasn't going to clean up after Boozealler. Screw that noise.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Studying Real Estate

B-Rad is an early dayshift kinda guy. He's out of here by two or three in the afternoon. Working swingshift I usually don't like to appear and perform until a couple of hours later. Usually around five. That isn't helpful for training purposes so I have been coming in to work around noon or one to spend a couple hours a day with B-Rad learning the Button Up processes. Boozealler is also supposed to be training with B-Rad for part of his shift. Instead of scheduling time to work alongside his most righteous instrument inspection mentor, Boozealler continues to evade any worthwhile training. When he does get stuck in the area he prefers to sit at one of the workbenches and read up on real estate laws. I guess he's taking classes at the local junior college to become a real estate agent. Looking over his shoulder at his computer screen I notice he's always got what appears to be online course material for real estate.

He's dumb.

First of all, we've already been through round after round of layoffs. With each layoff hundreds of employees have enrolled in school to become x-ray technicians, nurses, pharmacy technicians, and real estate agents. I read in the newspaper there are approximately 300 more real estate agents in the county now and they're all former employees of Bill and Dave's company. None of them noticed the real estate market was already over saturated with established real estate agents. Things haven't been very lucrative for the rookies in that arena to say the least. Boozealler is making a bad choice of career move in my humble opinion.

Second, we need him to pay attention to his job here. If he doesn't snap out of it soon the Bossman is probably going to take notice and trash him. It's inevitable. Losing B-Rad and Garden Gnome means I will be the last man standing in this area. I don't want to be left running the whole deal by myself. I need help to do this. Boozealler needs to get with it quick like or else.

Third, I'm getting sick of tripping over him every day when I come in to start work. When Boozealler is loafing around studying real estate course material at the only open workbench in Button Up I have to stand around waiting for him to vacate. Might be a couple of hours. I do try to test boxes or run paperwork while he's being lame but without an actual bench to rip open instruments at there isn't a whole bunch I can do. Boozealler is wasting my time. That makes me angry. I've already talked to him about this crap a couple of times but he keeps ignoring me. Boozealler is a dick.

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Code Wars

Simple manufacturing processes like sheet metal fabrication and instrument assembly were just the first stages of offshoring to Malaysia. In a crazed rush to foist anything and everything overseas with the shortsighted goal of boosting those end-of-quarter earnings we've finally reached a point of no return. Engineering responsibilities are being shifted away in addition to everything else. The Malay's past record of performance dealing with assembly and technical problems is shaky at best. Turning their engineers loose redesigning circuitboards, software, and mechanical parts (like instrument chassis) is dangerous. It's dangerous because they are inexperienced and we have little direct oversight or control of what they're up to at any given time. Lately we have discovered widespread problems after the fact that Malay engineers have been tinkering with programming.

B-Rad, Garden Gnome, and myself have been pulling our hair out dealing with a rash of random test code problems at EI. After each instrument passes mechanical inspection it's shoved over to an electrical inspection test system. Cable everything up, execute the test software and off you go. Then everything turns to shit. It's different every time which makes troubleshooting these problems a real nuisance. See, when an instrument barfs under test generally we don't know what caused it. We have to methodically rule out obvious things like operator error. Were all the cable connections in their proper location? Was the wrong software suite executed? If all that stuff checks out okay then you have to begin looking at more complex aspects of the problem. Is something wrong inside the unit itself like a mis-connected cable or bad firmware? Maybe you hook up another identical instrument to see if the failure repeats. Troubleshooting takes a tremendous amount of time away from production. When all options have been exhausted we frequently come to the conclusion that EI software code is messed up. Then we have to call engineering support. That's when DJ Danny Mac shows up on the shop floor with a pencil behind his ear and a mangy, crumpled, yellow graph paper notepad under his arm.

DJ Danny Mac is a skilled software code monkey. As soon as he's digging around in code guts he can usually figure out what the hell is busted within minutes. That's cool. What isn't cool is the overall cause of so many new software bugs creeping up that waste our time. According to DJ Danny Mac our Malay software engineers are rewriting code as it suits them without alerting anybody in the company that they've made a change. Once they've made an edit to a program, they upload it to master servers located in the Spokane, Washington division. From there the new versions of software are pushed out globally. Every service center and manufacturing division will receive and automatically update in a couple of hours worldwide. Of course by the time guys in our division realize what happened it's far too late. To keep us running, local engineers have to write new code to create a temporary fix. Hours later they will push out that updated version to Spokane's master servers. For whatever reason their revised program edits might cause another unforseen issue that only affects production in Malaysia. Then Malay software code tinkering starts over and the process repeats itself. Welcome to engineering software code wars round number 3! Fight!

What a waste of time and resources. If employees writing new software would think ahead just a little bit to email production divisions a heads-up that an edited program is going live it sure would save everyone a bunch of headaches and frustration. But, that would make things too easy.

Sunday, October 01, 2006

Training In Button Up

Instruments that have passed all phases of our test and calibration processes are stored in a holding queue next to Button Up. A web-based software system called Shop Floor Control (SFC) triggers each unit out of holding for us to work on five to seven days before it's scheduled shipment date. We monitor SFC throughout the day pulling instruments to start the final stages of production. As a step is completed in SFC an operator then moves it to the next stage. This helps us keep everything organized during the shift and it allows any manager or administrator to remotely view how close individual boxes are to actual shipment. The Button Up process consists of two primary functions, screening the instruments for any kind of defect whether electrical or other, and running a final software test executive that checks for basic functionality as well as setting the customer ordered option mix.

Button Up process flow begins with a mechanical inspection. I generally prefer to start with an instrument's front panel controls/keypad by depressing each button to make sure none of them are sticking or have any cosmetic defects. If nothing is missing or damaged there I scan over the top of it's chassis looking for wrecked cables, missing or loose hardware, PC boards that aren't seated all the way, debris (solder splash or metal fragments), loose ribbon cables, and re-torque every screw or nut with calibrated drivers.

After that it's time to look over the rear panel. We check for loose BNC connectors, making sure nothing is damaged, and remove any cosmetic defects like scratches. The rear panels are made out of brushed aluminum which in my opinion was a horrible choice of material. It scratches easily so by the time some of these instruments make it here they're beat up pretty bad. To remove scratches and dings we've been given fiberglass pencils that look like a coarse paint brush. It's a pain in the neck trying to rub deep scratches out of the metal with those damn things.

Scanning over the circuit side of the motherboard for loose hardware or damaged cables is easy. That only takes a minute or two. If nothing is messed up there it's time to install an inner protective cover and then slide a brand new outer cover over the whole chassis. Bottom and rear feet are installed. Then the unit is ready for a semi-automatic software controlled Electrical Inspection on a custom built test rack. EI is a whole other can of worms... ugh.

If there are no serious problems with a finished unit an operator at Button Up should be able to knock a box out every hour or so. That isn't the case though. Already in the short time I've been over here with B-Rad and Garden Gnome I can tell the majority of instruments are really screwed up. It's a time consuming headache trying to figure out what the hell went wrong with almost every box. Many of them have multiple issues. If the customer ordered option mix that's on the calibration certificate doesn't match up with what the instrument says is loaded in on it's front panel display screen we have to find out what happened and why. Maybe while we're running Electrical Inspection tests a rear panel BNC connector is dead. That's our job to repair and retest. The software code in the instrument might barf on us. Screws may be discovered inside the unit that are loose or missing. These are all daily occurrences here and we have to run each one of these problems down and get them fixed. Sometimes it's a very frustrating job.

Giving me an edge coming to MI/EI after so many years is the fact that I have done this kind of work before on older products. I've spent a fair amount of time helping the assembly area build these units when they are behind schedule. If they need help and I want some overtime I'll work a few hours a day catching up on their backlog. Occasionally I will come in on a Saturday to help. Building these units from scratch you become familiar with everything in the box quickly. Naturally when a finished instrument shows up in MI/EI and something doesn't look right to me I catch it almost right away. Saves a bunch of time. That's the difference between placing knowledgeable people in Button Up versus people who have never worked on these products. Because so many new employees were put into jobs like this with no prior experience our worldwide defect rate skyrocketed to unacceptable levels during the past couple of years.