Whee!

 We are off this weekend! Whee!  I can't believe it!

That's two weekends in a row, and right in the middle of peak season at that.  It kinda makes me wonder what is wrong...

 I was going to come home and start cleaning snake tanks this afternoon, but since we have the weekend off, I may wait until Saturday to get started.  It doesn't really take that long to do them.  It's just overcoming the mental block that it needs to get done.  

As for today, there I was at work just a working away, when I was approached by someone from the engineering office -- who, for the purposes of this blog shall be known as Dude.  He told me he reads my blog, and usually enjoys it.  However, when he read yesterday's post about how disgusting our bathrooms are out there, he was appalled. First thing he did was to send a female employee into the front bathroom to check on the sinks there.  Then he came to me and asked me if I could turn in an MTO, which is a formal maintenance request.  

I scoffed and replied, "I'm a peon.  I can't do anything!"  

Dude laughed and told me that putting an MTO in is the best way to get maintenance to do anything, because it's not as easy for them to blow off a formal, written maintenance request.  He said when I see something that needs to be fixed, I should get Group Leader Shark or Supervisor to put one in.  If an MTO stays open too long, it starts to get attention.  At some point in the conversation, I just happened to mention that there are two sinks in the bathroom under the production office that are clogged up, so Dude told me to get Group Leader Shark to put in an MTO on them. 

We chatted a bit more about different things, and I brought up that they really need a bathroom back in the production area.  If someone from the RAH line -- which is at the very far end of the plant -- needs to go, he's got to walk half a mile to get to a bathroom.  

OK, that may be a slight exaggeration, but not much of one.  Once when I was down waiting on work, I tracked my steps from my brazing stand to the employee entrance, then to the far back wall, and back to my brazing stand.  According to my pedometer, that walk was right at half a mile.  He said they're still talking about building one back there.  They need to do more than just talk, though, because those people need a bathroom closer to where they work.  I'm not going to hold my breath on that, though.  I'm not even going to hold my breath on getting working sinks.  I've been there too long to trust that they will actually fix anything.  

After Dude had walked on, I went around and found Group Leader Shark, and said, "Dude told me to aske you to put in a MTO on the two clogged up sinks in this bathroom."

She said, "Why me?  Why can't he put one in?  Why do I have to do it?"  

I replied, "Because you're my group leader and I'm the one complaining about them."  

She said, "But he's a supervisor!  He's an engineering supervisor!  But I'll do it.  I got you.  I'll put them in."

I went back to my stand and told my friend, "Now I'm kind of afraid to ask her to put an MTO in to get latches on the stall doors..."  She kind of scares me a little...

But the whole point is, maybe we'll finally get some of these issues with the bathrooms fixed, now that I know how to get someone's attention. 

It's because I said I had no problem peeing in the woods, isn't it?  I'll bet that's it.

I think from now on, I'm going to lead with that.