Too Hot For This

So, there I was on a Sunday afternoon, sitting in my recliner watching my friend Marcy's latest vlog -- which is like two weeks old, but this is the first time I've had time to sit down and relax.  I was only a few minutes into it when the power flickered, then went off altogether.  

 No power means no air conditioning, and it's 101° outside. 

But, thanks to modern technology, I was still able to watch Marcy's vlog on my phone and read my Kindle book when I'd finished with that, and thanks to the foresight of my buying a solar charger, I didn't have to worry about my battery running down.  And thanks to whoever built this house back in the 60s, it's pretty tight, so it didn't get unbearably hot in here.  Oh, it got warm but not nearly as hot as it gets at work.  Still, I was actually in the bathroom getting ready to go ride around in my car for a bit to cool off when the power came back on.

I'm not completely sure what caused the outage, because for once, Entergy didn't send me a text.  Some people in one of the local groups said it was another car wreck -- we'd had one earlier this week that knocked the power out but I was already at work for that one -- and others said a power line fell for no apparent reason and set a pasture on fire.  I guess we'll never know for sure, but at least the air is back on now.  

And I got this much done on a new hat while I was in the dark.  Well, the semi-dark.  I still had my Harvey lantern to light my way.  

OK, moving right along...

Some of you have been asking why we can't have insulated mugs at work, especially when it's so hot in the plant.  Short answer is, I don't know other than because they said so. 

The story is, about three years ago, we got a new HR director whose name I won't call here, but her nickname on the shop floor was Karen, and it fit her perfectly.  She even had the Karen hair cut to go along with the Karen attitude.  She would stand up in the employee meetings and literally yell and scream at employees.  I know I use that term a lot speaking figuratively, but this time, I mean it literally.   She yelled at us.  Literally.

Well, she came in and one of the first thing she did was to state that we were no longer able to have any food or drinks on the shop floor at all, except for water.  To make sure that we weren't drinking --Heaven forbid -- coffee or a Coca~Cola -- we had to start drinking out of clear cups.  She never gave a reason for that policy change, and when we asked why, she just yelled and screamed at us. 

When we pointed out to her that some people were coming in at 3:00 AM and with this policy, they wouldn't be able to eat or drink anything until their lunch break at 11:00 AM -- which is 8 hours straight, she just stood there and yelled, "This is now company policy and it will be followed!"  

I don't know how true it is, but word on the shop floor is that she fired someone on the spot because she caught him putting a single piece of chocolate candy into his mouth. She fired another lady for going into the break room outside of her regular lunch break to get something to eat because she was so very hungry.  Karen didn't last but about a year after that, and no one was sorry to see her go. 

Since then, the plant has kind of eased up on the water-only policy, but we still have to drink from clear cups, as Cuz says, "So we can see what kind of sugary drinks you're spilling into the machines" which makes absolutely no sense, but it's policy.  Still, those clear cups don't keep your drink cold when it's that hot out on the floor, and honestly, when I'm watching Junior and Cuz walk all over the plant with their insulated mugs or gas station Styrofoam cups, I'm pretty sure the policy exists only to show us that they think we are beneath them.  

I can understand that they don't want us to have cell phones, because they pay us to work not play on our phones, and I can kind of understand the PPE -- but would understand it more if they took us seriously when we bring up safety issues, but not letting us have insulated cups has never made any sense.  

And yes, we do have a safety department, but they're kind of like the King of England.  They're just for show and don't have any real authority out there.  If The Big Man Up Front or the Maintenance Supervisor overrules them, there's nothing they can do about it.   

In other news, I finally got that vlog recorded, and even better, YouTube let me embed it.   Here you go, enjoy.