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.