I Gave In

I gave in and turned on the heater this morning, but only for a few minutes.  It was down to 63 in the house, and I just didn't want to get ready for work in the cold.  Now, on the weekend, I can build a fire and huddle under a blanket until the house warms up, but on work days, that's just not feasible. 

So, all of you competing in the See How Long I Can Freeze Before Turning On The Heat competition, good luck.  I'm out.

I got to work bright and early this morning -- and I do mean bright.  It was weird going to work with the sky already beginning to get light.  I didn't like it. 

Anyway, I got there and found where they'd moved my department to.  I was hoping they'd spread us out a bit and give us more room, but noooo.  We're as squshed up as we were before.  Sigh...it's like they don't even care about employee safety -- or morale. 

The only good thing is they brought ALL of the jig racks back there to where we are.  They're still totally unorganized, but at least they're there.  We were having a problem with one of the pick lists, so Group Leader called someone down from the office to figure it out.  She asked me, "When they moved all this back here, why didn't they go ahead and organize it?"  I wanted to ask her if she'd forgotten where she works, but she's really nice, so I didn't.

There was a slight hitch in our day.  The brazer that works on the opposite side of my stand and I were leaving tons of leaks.  Naturally, Stalker and Brazing Boss got onto us for using "bad technique."  Instead of asking themselves, "What has changed that two of my best brazers are suddenly leaving a lot of leaks?"  they jump straight to bad technique. 

No, Stupid, people who've been brazing for 20 years don't suddenly forget how to use proper brazing technique.  That's like last year when they switched to a cheaper, lower quality brazing rod and everyone's leak rate skyrocketed.  They decided that every brazer in the plant started using bad technique at the same time.  Duh, the entire department didn't forget how to braze all at once. 

What it all boils down to is, if they acknowledge there is a problem, they'll have to solve it, and it's so much easier just to blame the brazers.

Back to today...a bit of sleuthing revealed that someone had turned the purge gas up full blast.  No matter how good a brazer you are, you cannot, cannot braze leak free when the inside of your header is pressurized.  We cut the gas down to the correct flow, and voila' --no more leaks.  I guess it wasn't our technique after all.  Even though that's what they're going to blame. 

Enough about work...but I don't have much else to talk about.  I got my plant shelf washed and brought inside, and my plants are all settled into their winter home.

Old Farmer's Almanac is predicting another long, snowy winter,  and I'm almost out of firewood.  I'll have to check around and see if anyone has some to sell.