Leap Day

Did you know 1836 was also a Leap Year?  It was.



And apparently, it was a slow day in the siege, for which I'm sure the men were grateful.

It's also a slow day here, so that's all I have for you.

On Good Authority

Remember a few days ago, when I said I had rewarded myself for surviving a rough week by buying books? 

Anybody got a library for sale? 

It was rough, I tell ya.  Real rough.  Early this morning, one of the assembly line supervisors came up front and was asking me about some parts.  I was trying to answer, but I finally just said, "I don't know what happened to them.  We're just trying to keep our heads above water up here." 

That's how it was all day long.  We've had a lot of people out all week, and were down four brazers again today.  We spent the day scrambling to stay ahead of the lines.  I sure hope they get some people hired and trained, and soon, because they're killing their employees. 

The good news is, our Saturday hours are going to be 5-1 from now on.  I got that straight from the horse's mouth -- the horse being The Boss Who Must Not Be Named.  He said if it were up to him, we'd be working 9-5 on Saturdays.  I replied, "Nobody would like you if you did that!" 

Speaking of bosses, I've heard TBWMNBN isn't going to be our boss any more.  He is going to be over the assembly lines, and Other Boss is going to be our boss.  (Just for clarification, New Boss is over the whole plant.  His official title is Director of Operations, while TBWMNBN is the Production Manager.  Other Boss will also be a Production Manager.)  Right now, that's just rumor, and I haven't heard anything official, so I don't know if it's true or not.  But when we heard who was going to be over us, we all went, "Ugh, no!  Not him!"  Oh, he's nice enough and all.  We just don't think he has enough butt -- so to speak -- to run a plant of this size. 

Hmmm, maybe I'll reward myself by ordering some new stationery from Amazon...

In the meantime, here is your Texas History moment for today:

New Medal

Now that I'm getting a little overtime again, I decided to do another of my Yes.Fit races.  This one was Nessie, and as you might guess, it took place near Loch Ness, Scotland.

To be honest, I was a bit disappointed in this one.  The route was all around the lake shore, but you could hardly even see the water for the trees.  Still, the medal is pretty cool. 

We are working this weekend again.  Here's the deal.  When we first started working Saturdays, we were working 6-2.  Then someone in sheet metal department wanted to work 5-1, so we switched.  Then last week, sheet metal wanted to go back to 6-2.  I guess they didn't like that, because now we're back to 5-1.  And everyone in tubing/sub-brazing is asking, "Why do we always have to do what sheet metal wants?"  I just hope they pick a time and stick with it.  I'm tired of changing my clocks. 

I had something else I wanted to tell you, but right now, I'm so tired, I can't even think of what it was, so I'll just leave you with your Texas History moment for the day. 

Knackered

Knackered. 

That's what I am.  Plumb knackered. 

Knackered is the British way of saying tuckered. 

We had four brazers out today.  Four.  As if that weren't trouble enough, the parts stager was out as well, so Group Leader Shark had to pull a brazer off his stand to stage.  All in all, we were down five. 

They sent us one guy from the back to help out.  ONE.  So, we were still down four brazers.  Which is no excuse for not having enough headers brazed up -- unless you're second shift.  Then it's a perfectly valid excuse, because they know day shift will have to take up the slack.  Because we have a completely different set of rules we have to follow, you know. 

To make a long story short, I'm so exhausted, I can barely lift my arms.  I've got to find the energy to practice my piano, but then, I'm going to bed. 

But before I go, here is your Texas history for today -- February 26, the fourth day of The Seige.





And yes, that is Queen Elizabeth, visiting the Alamo.

I wonder if she remembers. 

The Last One

And with this arrival, my collection is complete. 

There are other records that National Geographic has put out, but this is the last of the American themed ones.  Hopefully, this weekend, I can get my record player out and listen to all of them. 

In other news, Stalker was out of sorts all day today. Out at the plant, they've decided to try once again to open up a third shift -- because the first five times worked out so well.  Anyway, they brought back an old supervisor to run it.  Old as in  "worked here before", not old as in aged. 

Yesterday, he came around and was speaking to all the employees he'd known when he was there before.  Except me.  He walked over and gave me a hug. 

When Stalker found out, he was livid.

He spent all day today stomping up and down behind me.  You could almost hear him growling like an angry bear.  Shortly after lunch, things only got worse.

Now, let me preface this by saying, I've known The Boss Who Must Not Be Named for a long time.  I even taught his kid in karate, way back when I was still in karate.  He was my friend before he was my boss, and no matter how bossy he gets, there will always be an element of friendship there.

This afternoon, along about 1:00, TBWMNBN was heading upstairs to his office.  He glanced over towards the sub-brazing department, and I smiled.  No big deal, right?  It shouldn't have been...but Stalker saw it.

He parked his behind behind me for the rest of the day.  Every time I put a header down, he'd run over and snatch it up, peering at it as if he were hoping to find something wrong.  Every once in a while, he'd wander over and look at someone else's headers, but it was perfectly clear -- to everyone -- that he was trying to intimidate me.

I just laughed at him.  It's going to take a whole lot more than a pathetic loser like him glowering at me to intimidate me.  I put him out of my mind, and took my imaginary boyfriend alligator hunting.  Only not really hunting, because we had no intention of killing one.  But I wanted to show a Cornish man a real dragon, so we went and found some. 

He asked if they breathe fire.  I said, "Nope...but the ants do."  And I showed him a fire ant bed.  And a trash panda.  And ..."[Unwholesome word!]  Cottonmouth!"  Heh, you should have seen our old, fat butts trying to run!  After all that, ain't no way Stalker is going to intimidate me with a few dirty looks. 

OK, enough of that.  Here is your Texas History lesson for today.  Day three of the Siege.



Now, I'm headed for bed.  To dream of dragons and knights in battle tested armor.

So That Happened Again, Again

There I was at work, just a working away, when I turned around and found a coworker behind me.  She told me she and her husband had been having a conversation about work.  He'd asked her a question, and she replied, "I usually just check Becky's blog." 

He said, "Who's Becky?" 

She showed him the blog, and well, he told her to tell me I have a new fan.  So, now I'm feeling the pressure to write captivating and interesting posts.

Which you will not get today.  Because I'm tired. 

I will, however, show you my two new books. 

The one on the left is about the Galveston Hurricane.  I thought it was a bit ironic that the book had just a bit of water damage.  A book about a hurricane, having water damage...get it?   OK, moving right along...

The one on the right is the autobiography of Sam Houston.  I had to open it to the title page because it was a library binding, and the cover was just solid blue.  I was a little disappointed, because the picture on Amazon showed a photo on the cover, but that wasn't what I received.  Still, the insides are the same, and it's still readable. 

Three things:

1.  I am a Texan.
2.  This is the anniversary of the Siege of the Alamo.
3.  I have an imaginary boyfriend.

Putting one and two and three together, as you can imagine, the aforementioned imaginary boyfriend got an imaginary earful of real Texas history all afternoon.  This date is significant, as it is the day Lt Col Travis wrote his letter to the people of Texas and all Americans in the world. 

I have included the text in its entirety.  Do take a moment to read it. 


Commandancy of the Alamo
Bejar, Feby. 24, 1836

To the People of Texas & All Americans in the World

Fellow citizens & compatriots

I am besieged, by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna I have sustained a continual Bombardment & cannonade for 24 hours & have not lost a man The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion, otherwise, the garrison are to be put to the sword, if the fort is taken I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, & our flag still waves proudly from the walls I shall never surrender or retreat. Then, I call on you in the name of Liberty, of patriotism & everything dear to the American character, to come to our aid, with all dispatch The enemy is receiving reinforcements daily & will no doubt increase to three or four thousand in four or five days. If this call is neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible & die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor & that of his country VICTORY OR DEATH.
William Barret Travis,

Lt. Col. comdt.

P.S. The Lord is on our side. When the enemy appeared in sight we had not three bushels of corn. We have since found in deserted houses 80 or 90 bushels and got into the walls 20 or 30 head of Beeves. Travis

Rewarding Myself

But first, a bit of good news.  Apparently, the plant decided to scrap that idiotic idea of only allowing us to use two turnstiles to exit the building, because no one was out there guarding them.  So, that's one small victory.

Other than that, it was a rough week.  I really rough week.  Second shift tubing has been undermanned for quite some time already, then I heard they went and fired three people last week.  I don't know why, but that has put them into a serious bind -- which puts all of us into a serious bind.

And of course, nobody comes over there and asks, "Why is there nothing ready for the brazers?"  No... they're all up in our grills screaming, "WHY DON'T YOU HAVE ANY HEADERS READY FOR THE LINES????"

I'm telling you, when we got there Friday, there was nothing on the lines, and nothing ready for us to ever start on.  We've taken to calling my stalker The Warden, because he patrols the brazing department like a prison warden guarding a chain gang.  He was over there saying something to Group Leader Shark.  I wish I knew what he'd said, but she had a look of pure disgust on her face, and was saying, "But it's not the brazers' fault!"  We're doing the best we can, but all we can do is all we can do.

One of my coworkers said she was going to reward herself for surviving the week by buying some muffins from Wal-Mart.  The expensive ones.

Me, I buy books.

I haven't started reading it yet, though.  One of my friends suggested I read The Raven first.  Not the Poe poem.  The autobiography of Sam Houston.  I ordered it from a used book store, and am still waiting for it to arrive.   While I was on Amazon, I found a book about the Galveston hurricane called Isaac's Storm.  Which I had to buy as well. 

Now that I'm getting a little overtime, I've ordered the last three of the National Geographic Records I wanted.  The first two have arrived.

To be honest, I'm not that keen on jazz, but I wanted to have this one, just to have the complete collection.

As far as I know, these are the last three of the folk and Americana records.

I had a nice surprise when I got home yesterday.  My Whatever Cactus is blooming again!

More good news, I have finally finished that horrible scarf with that horrible yarn!

There are lots of things I didn't like about this yarn.  First of all, it's single ply and very loosely spun.  The plies kept untwisting.  Second, every color change left a gap along the edge.  You can kind of see one when the brown changes to blue on the left edge of the scarf.  I'm not sure what was causing it, because I knit every single row the same.  And third, there were knots.  It's probably a good thing this yarn was discontinued, because I sure wouldn't buy it again.

And lastly, today marks the anniversary of the beginning of the Siege of The Alamo.




We will remember.

Hands Full

If that new boss is going to do something about the high turnover rate, he's going to have his hands full, I'm telling ya.  I think the current management stays up late at night to figure out how they can make our work lives as miserable as possible.

I can hear them now, "OK, this makes the most sense, so let's do just the opposite." 

See, last fall they put these cages up around the doors.

Why?  I'm guessing it's to make the plant feel as prison-like as possible.  They also put up surveillance cameras all over the place -- to complete the prison like atmosphere.  And if we don't like it, we can just quit.  They've got a list a mile long of people waiting to get on out there, so they don't need us.  Seriously.  They said that. 

Back to the cages....

Oh, I'm sure such things work fine for companies with 50-75 employees, but when you're trying to get 300-500 people out the door, nope.  It takes FOR. EV. ER. just to get out of the building. 

Plus, half the time, they don't work the way they are supposed to.  What is supposed to happen is, you scan your employee I.D. and it unlocks the turnstile.  What really happens is, you scan your employee I.D. and it may unlock the turnstile.  Or it may not.  You never know.  It seems to pick a few people at random every day to keep locked in.

When it picks you, you have to stretch your arm through the bars and scan the pad on the opposite side of the cage, then scan the one on your side and hope it works that time.  Sometimes it does.  Sometimes it doesn't.  Sometimes you just have to blow out through the emergency exit. 

Those in thee upper management don't seem to concern themselves with solving this issue, either, just like any other issue.  They just don't care.   THEY can get out their doors just fine, so everything is just peachy dandy, right?

As if the troubles mentioned above weren't enough, today they decided we could only use TWO of the four turnstiles to exit the plant.  They want to leave the other two available for the three, yes three, count 'em three employees who might want to enter early and sit in the break room for a while before their shift starts.  They aren't even allowed to clock in that early, but we gotta let them in.  That's the stupidest thing I ever heard!  They even had HR people out there guarding the turnstiles to make sure we didn't go out them. 

When I was in the Navy, we had a word for that.  An unwholesome word.  A very unwholesome word.  Which I can neither confirm nor deny may or may not have been uttered...let's just say, I had to do a lot of repenting on the way home. 

If that new boss wants to know why his turnover rate is so high, this is a perfect example.  It's because of stupid, idiotic, moronic nonsense like this.


Anybody know of any job openings out there?  I'm about fed up with the one I've got. 

New Boss

We got our new boss out at the plant today.  I was kind of surprised they found one so quickly, as in the past it has taken several months sometimes.  Anyway, he had brief meetings with each department to introduce himself.  The first thing I noticed was that he stood at the door and shook hands with each employee as he entered the room.  It's been ages since we've had a boss who seemed to want to connect with his employees like that.

In the meeting, he told us a little bit about himself.  He's from Indiana and went to Ball State University.   He mentioned a few places he's worked before, but I can't remember any of them right off the top of my head.  The only thing he didn't tell us was his name. 

One thing he mentioned is that he was very concerned about the turnover rate among full time employees.  Not the temps, now.  They come and go every few months.  This is the full time, permanent employees.  He mentioned that when a company has a 7% turnover rate, that company gets very nervous.  Ours is 20%, and he wants to figure out why.  Hmmmm

Horrible and unsafe working conditions, high stress, rampant favoritism, long hours, and low pay, coupled with a general attitude of contempt towards shop floor employees....it shouldn't take a genius to connect those dots. 

We'll see how things work out.  I'm guessing he won't last long.  Everyone who comes in trying to make things better for the employees gets fired pretty quickly. 

In piano news, I'm almost finished with my first book of my Alfred's piano course. 



Yesterday evening, I began to wonder if I'd moved through the course too quickly.  Was I really building the skills I needed to play successfully?  What about theory?  Was I learning enough? 

Naturally, I did the only thing I could think of.  I went back to the beginning and started over. 

Not really, though.  I'm just going through and playing through all the songs.  It brought a freshness to my practice that had been lacking, and I played for almost an hour past my bed time.  I also discovered that the songs that gave me fits before are still giving me fits.

Even so, they're a lot easier this time around. 

Y'all Thought

Y'all thought I was kidding about the soap dispensers at work.  This is what they look like.

There isn't a cover, and the bag of soap has to be held in place by a garbage bag tied across the front.  To get soap out, you have to milk the cow -- as we jokingly say.  And it isn't just this one.  It's all of them.

We won't even talk about the crud on the walls. 

As for the toilet paper, the stalls that have them, they look like this.

Pathetic, ain't it? 

Where Does He Think He Works?

When we get our new boss, the first thing we're going to do is beg him to put us back onto 8 hour shifts.  The second thing is to buy us some soap dispensers and toilet paper holders for the bath room.

But the main thing is the 8 hour shifts.  I don't know how people with small children do it.  I only have myself and the dogs, and I'm slap worn out.

However, I am not so worn out I didn't notice this.  It's a white board back by what used to be the shipping office.  They took it off the wall and have leaned it up against the...um...wall.  I don't know who wrote this, but sometimes I wonder just where exactly does he think he works?

Yeah, I'm going to drive a huge fork truck through a tight space crowded with lots of people, any one of whom I could squish and kill without warning and you want me to have fun?  You keep using that word.  I do not think it means what you think it means.

As if that weren't enough, he added a "fun fact!"

Dude, if you're trying to raise morale, you're going about it the wrong way.

Here's a hint:  see the first paragraph above.  You know, the one about not driving your employees to exhaustion.

Oh, and having soap and toilet paper helps too.

Ooo Da Lolly

I'm telling ya, today was one of those golly what a day days.

It all started almost as soon as I walked in the door.  First thing that happened is I found out we're getting a new supervisor.  He's not new to the plant.  He's been a group leader for a long time, and and employee for even longer, but he's just got promoted to supervisor.  He takes over the department Monday.  We had finally gotten a good supervisor once again, too.

I told my friend, "Dang it!  Every time things start looking up, they have to go and mess stuff up."

The good thing about getting this new supervisor is that he and Stalker don't get along.  I think I'll bring a popcorn machine to work and make a little money on the side.

After getting that news, I printed out a daily schedule and set up on my first order for the day.  Aaand one of the adapter tubes was bent wrong -- all 216 of them.  I put them in a box, and took them over to Group Leader Shark.  I put the box on her desk and said, "I'm just going to leave this right here, and I'm going to walk away without saying a word."

She got those parts re-cut and I continued setting up on the order.  That's when I noticed a different adapter tube had been pinched by the clamp in the bending machine.  I took a couple over to Group Leader Shark to ask if they would be OK or not -- sometimes they approve the parts, depending on how badly the copper is pinched.

I handed her the parts, she looked at them for a moment and said, "Jesus, take the wheel."  And that' my friend, sums up the whole day in an nutshell.

She got those parts re-cut, and as soon as I got back to my stand, here comes one of the assembly line group leaders with a header.  "Does that header look wrong to you?" he asked.  "It's not fitting onto the coil."

I looked at it and said, "All the adapter tubes are in the right place."  It looked to me like someone had yanked on all the adapter tubes and bent them out of shape.  I got the jig and straightened out the legs, and gave it back to him.  On the way back to his line, he said something to the person who had brazed that order.  I don't know what he said, but Stalker went back there and got into it with him.

He said, "You don't come up here and talk that way to my brazers."

MY brazers?  MY brazers??? 

Things are going to get very interesting out there come Monday...and that's all I have to say about that. 

All this, and it wasn't even 7:00 AM. 

25 Years

So, there I was at work, just a working away when Group Leader Shark came and told everyone to go to the training room.

"Oh, great,"  I said to myself.  "I wonder what we're going to get hollered at about now."

Much to my surprise, we didn't get hollered at at all.  The Boss Who Must Not Be Named said he's meeting with all the departments, saying he wants to change the culture of the plant.  He wants it to get back to the family we were before.

But that's not what I wanted to tell you.  During the meeting, it rained so hard it almost drowned TBWMNBN out.  And me, I'm such a dork, I spent the rest of the day fretting because I couldn't remember...

if I'd emptied my rain gauge after the last storm went through.

I think I did, but I'm not entirely sure.  It read 3.75 inches when I got home...but was it all from today's rain?  Who knows?

By the way, there were 9 confirmed tornadoes from the storms last week.  I haven't heard about today's storms, though.  There was significant flooding throughout the state, but no tornadoes as far as I know.

Back to the meeting...Friday was my 25th anniversary out at the plant.  TBWMNBN made me get my picture took.  I didn't want my picture took, but he said, "You'll be all right."  So he said, "Supervisor, take a picture.  No, wait.  Supervisor, you get in the picture.  Stalker, you take it."  Then he called Group Leader Shark to be up in it, too.

She didn't want to be in the picture, either, so she was hiding behind me.  I had turned around and was laughing at her.  I turned back towards the camera, and smiled, but by that time, Stalker was handing it back to Supervisor.  Thanks a lot.  I look like such a dork!

Here you have it:

Supervisor, Dork, Group Leader Shark, and The Boss Who Must Not Be Named.

Inside the box was my certificate and a little book, and look!  It had Mad Libs in it!

Of course I filled it out!  Here are my answers:

When I reflect on my time here, I am most proud of having worked here for 25 years, and I haven't killed anyone yet!

Doing great work like that made me feel relieved I'm not in prison.

On my team, I have become the go-to person for all the crappy jobs no one else wants to do.

In fact, my team nickname at this anniversary would be an unwholesome word I can't repeat here, because my blog would lose it's PG rating. 

Looking ahead, I want to accomplish saving up enough money to quit and move back home, because I know that I am good at being Texan, tracking hurricanes, and umm, I can't think of anything else.  

Along the way, I have the dream of hog hunting from a helicopter to inspire me.

Onward!

Random Thoughts Of A Sunday Evening.

1.  This has been a pretty mild winter so far.  We've had some cold spells, but nothing down into the teens or anything like that.  Mild or not, it's almost over.  You know how I can tell?  I've got daffodils coming up!

I first noticed the wild daffs blooming on Riverdale road along about Monday, driving home from work.  Mine are cultivars, and usually bloom a bit later than the wild ones. 

2.  Then there are these:

My friend Cyndye sent me some bluebonnet seeds last spring, and these are coming up where I planted them.  I'm not sure what it is.  It might be a bluebonnet.  It might be just a weed.  Either way, I'm not messing with it until I know.

3.  Sure enough, we worked Saturday.  The bad news is, nothing was ready for us to do when we got there.  I wish I could make them understand that we can't be 30 hours ahead of the lines if tubing isn't 30 hours ahead of us.  The good news is, they let us off at 1:00.  I was able to run by the store and do my weekly re-supply of milk and dog food. 

4.  I'm watching the XFL.  I'm not liking it.  Really, I don't like the kickoff rules.  No one is allowed to move until the receiver catches the ball.  What good is that?  I'm also not liking the requirement that there be a token female on all refereeing crews.  Can we just play the game without being "woke".  Anyway, I don't see it being a serious contender, and certainly not any competition to the NFL or NCAA. 

5.  My roses aren't doing well.  I think I may have cut them back too hard last spring.  This year, I'm just going to cut the dead parts out, then only trim back the bits that stick straight out into my yard.

6.  I got out and mowed for the first time this year.  My front yard was too muddy, but I got the back and side yards done.  It's all just weeds at this point, but if I can cut them back before they go to seed, maybe I can get them under control a bit better.

7.  We're all hoping and praying that when the new plant manager gets hired, he'll put us back onto 8 hour shifts.  These 10-12 hour days are wearing everyone out.  Or as my coworker says, "Eight - hours?  Do you mean 7:00 - 3:00?"  Yes, that is an 8 hour shift.

8.  I haven't even been practicing my guitar.  I just don't have the time or energy.  Some days, it's all I can do to put in 10 minutes practicing the piano.  And you can forget about blogging.  Even when my brain isn't too tired to think of anything to say, I seldom have the energy to type it out. 

9. Maybe it'll get better.  Or maybe you'll just have to wait until I retire.  Although, Cody is talking about buying out my mortgage and moving me up to Memphis with him.  And I'm like, "Memphis?  Really?"  But last time we talked about it, he mentioned buying us a bit of land down in the swamps of Southeast Texas or Southwest Louisiana. 

10.  If he does that, he'd better drop that fake Cajun accent he's been talking with.  It might pass up in Memphis, but down in real Cajun country, that mess ain't going to fly.

Seriously?

They announced it today.  The whole plant is working Friday.  Certain component areas are also working Saturday.  This is not unusual for this time of year.

But my lands, you should have heard the hooting and hollering and carrying on!  People asking why we were working Friday; people saying it is [unwholesome words I will not repeat here].  A couple even suggested bringing Recently Dismissed Boss back -- forgetting he's the one who put us on these long shifts in the first place, and that he had us working 6 days a week for most of last summer, too.

Along about this point, I looked at my friend and said, "These people are acting like they've never worked here before."

Seriously.  We've worked 6 days a week every spring and summer since I've worked there -- and that'll be 25 years on Friday.  For couple of years, it was a year round thing.

OK, moving right along.  There has been knitting.

Last weekend, I was going to knit another square into my sock yarn blanket, only I couldn't find my other knitting needle.  I went to my box of needles and found another.  Since I'm using DPNs, I needed a point protector to put onto one end, so the stitches wouldn't slip off the back while I was knitting.

I finally found one, and got the square knit.  However, in my search for a point protector, I found this.  Well, not this, but what this used to be.

I'd started it several years ago, and when I moved into this house, I'd stuck it into the closet, and basically forgot about it.  I was looking in that closet and said, "Hmmm, I wonder what's in this basket?"   It used to be a garter stitch scarf, knit at a very loose gauge.  Now, it's a garter stitch scarf knit in a tighter gauge.  I got to looking at it, and decided I didn't like the resulting fabric, so I ripped it out and started over.  I haven't gotten far enough to see if I like it yet, but I probably will just plod on and finish it.

The yarn is Knit Picks Aloft, and the colorway is Tranquil.

Speaking of plodding, I'm still plodding along on this scarf, too.

I still hate the yarn, but the colors are pretty.

Finally, if you come here from a site other than Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, and you want to keep reading my blog, you might want to bookmark my page.  I'm going to stop linking to most of those other sites.  I'm not getting enough traffic to make it worth continuing to do so.

I Only Thought

I only thought I was going to have a bad day.

It all started when I got there, and it looked like a tornado had hit my brazing stand. Seriously.  My parts trays were flung hither, my header bin was no where to be found, and my buggy was thither.  It took me something like 20 minutes just to put my work station back together so I could start my job.

I finally got that done, and started setting up an order to braze.  Aaaand one of the adapter tubes was wrong.  I took the paper to the dispatcher and re-ordered the part, then set the order aside and began setting up on another one.  Aaaand...

You guessed it.  One of the adapter tubes was wrong.  At this point, I told Group Leader Shark, "Yeah, Imma be heading on back to the house now.  I can already tell what kind of a day this is going to be." 

I'm glad I stayed, because after lunch, the day got a whole lot better. 

Just before 2:00, the rumors started.  I wanted to believe it, but didn't want to -- just in case it wasn't true.  I even said so to one of my coworkers.

"If that's not true, we're all going to be so crushed." 

But, then, they started calling everyone up to the training room for a meeting.  And that's when they told us.  There was someone here from the home office in Dallas.  He told us was that there has been a change in leadership at the plant.  Without going into all the gory details, basically there were some differences of opinion regarding leadership style.  The home office had counseled the person that his style needed to change, and when it didn't, they decided to change him.

We filed out of the meeting, and went back onto the same shop floor, to the same work, at the same brazing stand...but the mood of the entire plant had suddenly lightened. The Boss Who Must Not Be Named was positively glowing.  I can't say as I blame him, because he'd borne the brunt of the -- um, less than pleasant -- style of leadership. 

Do you have any idea how difficult it is to get up and go work every day for a boss who acts like he hates you?  No, I don't mean "doesn't appreciate" you.  I don't mean, "takes you for granted."  I mean actively hates you -- as in would just as soon see you dead.  That's what we've been dealing with for the last two years.  Well, NO MORE!!!! 

Hallelujah!!  Can we get rid of my Stalker next? 

OK, moving right along to the post I had previously planned for today.

Yeah, this is my New Year's Resolution blown already.

I had said I wasn't going to buy any more until I'd used up the ones I already had.  In my defense, they were on clearance.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Oh, and there has been knitting.  I finally got my new yarn knit into my blanket.

It turned out a lot prettier than I'd thought it would be.  It's the turquoise and gray one in the center.  I still need to knit a square into the other blanket, though.  Maybe this weekend.

I think I've created a monster.  Yes, I ordered more stationery.  But look, this set had matching envelopes!

And since Valentine's Day is coming up, I thought I needed a heart stamp.

Now, I just need someone to write a love letter to...