Typical Day

This is how my day at work typically goes.  I arrive, find a parking spot, fill my lunchbox with ice, clock in, and begin making my way to my work area.  Before I even get there, someone from tubing runs over with a bin of adapter tubes, "Becky, somebody on a previous shift ordered these legs.  Do you know what they are?"

Um, no, I just got here.

I take the bin of parts, saying I will figure it out, then continue on to my brazing stand.  I get there, but before I even get my tool bag off my shoulder, the dispatcher runs over asking, "Do you know anything about these 30 headers someone on a previous shift ordered?  Do you know where the legs (adapter tubes, for those of you not up on ADP vernacular) are?" 

Um, no, I haven't even gotten my bag off my shoulder yet.  Just set them down and I'll figure it out.

I set my tool bag down, and go get a schedule.  (For those of you not up on ADP vernacular, the schedule is the list of customer orders we are going to make that day.)  I get back to my stand to find Third Shift Sub-Brazer and Third Shift Group Leader having...let's say, an enthusiastic discussion.  Right in the middle of my work area.  They finally clear out, when my Supervisor comes over and asks me what they were arguing about. 

I don't know.  Maybe he was fussing because she didn't leave us any headers on the line.

Now, for those of you not up on ADP procedural policy, each shift is supposed to leave approximately an hours worth of parts set up for the next shift.  In terms of header assemblies, this is 50 or so.  This morning, there weren't but about 15, which put us behind from the get-go. 

Before Supervisor and I even finish our conversation, someone is tapping me on the shoulder, "Do you know what these unlabeled parts are?  Do you know what this unmarked order is?  Do you have two extra headers for this order third shift ran two hours before we even got here?  Do you know what happened to the headers for this partial order that's been sitting in the floor for two weeks?"

And all this happens before my shift even begins.

At this point, I threw up my hands and told Group Leader, "This is why I need to be coming in early!"  Whereupon she replied, "I would never have stopped."  Yeah, no...

When Production Superintendent tells you to stop coming in early, you stop coming in early. 

Sometime later, I talked to Supervisor about starting to come in early again, recounting the tale of my typical morning.  He said, "I don't have a problem with it, at least not until I get fussed at again."  So, starting Monday, I'll be going in at 5 again.  At least, I'll have a little bit of an evening, until Production Superintendent tells me to stop coming in early.  Second Shift Supervisor will be disappointed, but he'll get over it.

Good news is, I have a little bloom on my little tomato plant!

Tomato sandwiches coming soon!  Unless I kill it. 

Which wouldn't surprise me a bit.