Nastiness

 If you've been reading my blog for any length of time, you'll already know we have some nasty-@$$ bathrooms at work.  I mean, seriously disgusting -- and this is coming from someone who has no problem peeing in the woods.  Which is probably more information than you wanted to know, but what can I say?  I am who I am.  

So, there I was at work, just a working away, when I felt nature calling.  I went into the bathroom closest to my work area only to discover that the stalls were all full.  Instead of waiting, I chose to go up to the front bathroom -- the one by the main breakroom, for those of you who know the place.  I dread going up there because it's downright revolting.  It always stinks, and there is only one -- yes one -- working sink.  There is a second sink, but water barely trickles out of it.  Two more sinks don't work at all, and one is completely missing.  As in, not there at all. As in, has been taken out and never replaced.  

I did my business, washed my hands in the only available sink, and was walking back to my work area when I saw one of my friends coming up the aisle.  She gestured to me to come over, and said, "Since you're always talking about the restrooms in here, I have something to show you."  

She pulled out her phone and showed me a video she'd taken yesterday of the ladies' room up in the front office.  As the camera panned the room, I kept seeing little black specks on the floor.  "What the heck is that?"  I wondered.  "Did someone poop on the floor?"  Then she zoomed in and I saw what it was:  roaches.  Everywhere.  

Roaches!

There had to have been at least 20 of them, all over that bathroom.  That's got to be some sort of health code violation.  We chatted a minute about all the health and safety violations out there, and she said, "How do they keep getting away with it?"

Well, there are two reasons.  One is that no one reports them.  Oh, we have in the past, but nothing is ever done about it, which brings me to the second and probably most important reason --  they budget for fines.  To them, it's just cheaper just to pay OSHA's fines than to spend what it would take to make the place OSHA compliant.  

Take the sub-brazing department, for example.  The brazing stands are way too close together, and it  isn't safe.  Don't believe me?  Look at this.

Do you know what this is?  If you don't, I'll tell you.  This big metal box looking thing is my brazing neighbor's striker -- where she lights her tip...you know, the tip that burns at 1500+ degrees.

And right there, two inches away, is my table.  

My table, where I do all my paperwork, look at prints, enter my orders in my log book.  Yeah, that table. There is no way this is even remotely safe.  

I pointed it out the the Big Man Up Front once and his response was, "But you're not wearing a mask."  That was back at the beginning of the pandemic, before he had made masks mandatory in the plant.  I said, "As soon as you explain to me how a mask will keep my head from catching on fire, I'll put one on."  He didn't like that, but didn't do anything to resolve the issue.  The safety people came out, looked, then shrugged and walked away without doing anything.  

Because it's cheaper to pay OSHA fines than to make the plant OSHA compliant...

Anybody want to volunteer to pay my bills so I can quit? 

On a brighter note, I got one more thing marked off my list of things I was going to do over my long weekend.  The last couple of months, I've been going over my data on my phone every single month.  I don't know what was different, because I'd seldom gone over before -- except when we went to Texas  but I expect to go over then.  I switched a bunch of my apps to wi-fi only, and started putting my phone into airplane mode when I wasn't actually using it, but I was still going over. Finally, I decided I'd had enough.  There is no point in having that fancy new phone if I can't even use it because of my limited data plan.  Besides, I'd had the same plan for 20 years.  It was time to update it anyway.

And that, Gentle Reader, is what I did when I got home this evening.  I got a premium plan with unlimited talk, text, and data, plus a 50g mobile hotspot.  It may be more than I actually need, but hey, no more having to ration my data.  

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go turn back on everything I had turned off on my phone...to try to save data, you know.

Laters. 

P.S.  Still haven't called the plumber.