Hectic

Yesterday was somewhat of a hectic day for me.  I had my usual 11 hour shift out at the plant, then had to run into the dentist straight after work to get my new crown put on.  That didn't take but a few minutes.  I pulled into the dentist office parking lot at 4:12, and pulled back out at 4:21.  The bad news is, insurance wouldn't pay anything towards my replacement crown, so all of it had to come out of my pocket.  I was so excited, because I'd gotten that credit card down to $2K and some change.  Now, it's back up over $3K.  Sigh...a few more months...

Anyway, I was relieved to get it done.  The most stressful part is getting out of the plant, then flying across town to get there in only 15 minutes.  I said to myself, no more 4:15 appointments for me!  I'm not going to give myself a stroke trying to get there on time.  It's only going to get worse in the future, because the plant is installing these turnstiles over the employee entrance.

Eventually, they're going to have it so you have to scan your badge to get into the plant, and scan it again to get out.  They were saying there would be a 6 second delay between employees, but I think they're going to shorten that.  If they left it at 6 seconds, it'd take about 20 minutes just to get all of the employees out the door at the end of the day. 

Funny thing, today they were working on them, and tripped a breaker or something, plunging the entire plant into darkness.  OK, it wasn't really that dark, because they do have emergency lights up, but still...After milling around in the dark a few moments, someone in management said to send all the employees outside.  Out we went, and were just hanging around in the parking lot, when someone said, "Go to your designated area."

And by designated area, they mean the place each department is supposed to report to in the event of a fire alarm, bomb threat, or any other reason they'd need to evacuate the plant. 

Now, this is the first time we've ever had to evacuate since they moved the sub-brazers into the tubing department.  We haven't even had a fire drill since I don't remember when.  I'm pretty sure that's a violation of some sort of fire code or something.  So, all us brazers were wandering around the parking lot, looking for the sign that said Tubing. 

"There's Fin Press.  There's Line 1...That's Line 7...Where is Tubing?"

We eventually found our sign. 

Do you see it?  It's there.  Really, it is.  Honest and for true.

We got all the way out there and one of my coworkers said, "Dang, I got all the way out here and now I need to pee!"  To which I replied, "You can go behind them weeds," and another coworker said, "Nobody going to see you back there!" 

But I digress...

Back to yesterday. 

I got out of the dentist office, then had to go vote in the runoff on the way home.  It didn't take a minute, either, and I got another sticker. 

Finally, I made it home.  I sat down at the computer, because I had something really funny to tell you.   I logged on, and got the little notification, "Your computer needs a restart".  OK, no problem.  I hit the "Restart Now" icon and waited for the computer to reboot.  That's when I saw the dreaded line:  "Your computer is updating.  This may take a while." 

Three hours later, it still wasn't done.  It wasn't even close to being done. "Them people ain't gonna get no blog post today,"  I said to myself.  I cringed at my own grammar and went to bed. 

On the bright side, you now get to hear the funny thing I was going to tell you yesterday, but had to wait until today, due to stupid computer updates. 

Out at the plant, I have a coworker named Gladiola.  Like the flower.  One of the dispatchers insists on calling her Gladolia, and it sets my teeth on edge every single time.  But that's not what this story is about. 

Gladiola is a person of color.  Remember that.  It is significant.

Yesterday, one of the HR people was walking around the plant with a police officer and a sheriff's deputy.   I'm not sure what was going on, but they were out there getting a tour of the facilities.  The police officer was white, and the sheriff's deputy was black.  Normally, I wouldn't even make such a distinction, but that point must be made, or nothing that follows will seem even slightly humorous. 

As they were walking down the aisle, one of the other sub-brazers said, "That's Gladiola's son."  And Edna Who Loves To See Her Name In My Blog replied, "Which one?" 

Which one?  Which one?????  Yes, she really did say that. 

I thought Coworker Dorothy was going to hurt herself from laughing.

Once we could breathe again, I told Edna, "Don't feel too bad.  Just wait until you hear what Vanessa asked me yesterday." 

"Oh, Becky, don't tell that!"  But it was too late...the story is as follows. 

There I was at work, just a working away, when Vanessa said, "Becky, it's stupid question time."  She looked at me and said in all seriousness, "Are there girl horses and boy horses?" 

I stared at her for a moment, dumbfounded, and blurted out, "Where do you think baby horses come from?"

Then I dissolved into fits of laughter and was completely useless and unproductive for the rest of the day. 

One last thing before I let you go for today.  Someone has started referring to our Group Leader as "Group Leader Shark".  You know, like Baby shark do do do do.

Not only has it stuck, it's spreading.  We're going to try to make it go plant wide. 

OK, that's it for today.  Isn't that enough?