Rumors

You know it's going to be a scorcher in the plant when you get to work at 4:00 AM and it's already 85° at your work station.   

And yep, that's exactly what it turned out to be after lunch.  

I'm telling you, I got so hot, I was literally feeling sick.  I think I'm going to have to start carrying some Pedialyte or something with me for the duration.   Don't laugh.  To me, it works better than Gatorade. 

I didn't get a chance to tell you yesterday -- it being D-Day and all.  I know my history posts aren't very popular, but I feel it's important to keep posting them, and so I will.  But what I didn't get a chance to tell you is that we had some excitement in the plant yesterday when we had some visitors come from the home office in Dallas -- specifically, someone from HR.  Immediately, the rumors started flying that she was here to do another layoff, but that didn't seem right to me.  I mean, they don't need people coming from Dallas to do layoffs.  Those are usually handled locally. 

Now, there is a possibility that they may still do a layoff, but I feel like they're trying very hard to avoid that.  They've sent people home early every day this week, but things are just rough in the housing market right now.   Rumors are going around the plant that we're going to be off the whole first week of July, which is totally believable.  They're also speculating that we'll be off the whole week of Thanksgiving and the entire month of December.  Remember, these are just rumors, and we all know how those go. 

Still, even the possibility of these shutdowns has made me a bit afraid to spend the money on a new fence, so I think I ought to just hold off until I see what's going on with work.  

I'm so close to getting the last of that stuff cut out of my fence line, but this afternoon, I just couldn't do it. I was too hot, and needed a break, so all I did was get my weed killer and spray along the fence really well, then came back inside and sat in the air conditioning.   

Yesterday, I'd gotten the last of the privet cut down, but I think I might have to break out the big chainsaw to get these stumps out. 

And this thing, whatever it is. 

I'm kind of afraid to cut that one, because of the way it's leaning over the fence.  I'm worried it'll somehow flip or swing back towards me and hit me.  That happened with a couple of the privets, but they were smaller and didn't hurt.  Much.  This one is substantially bigger.  I'll have to figure something out, because if it gets any bigger, it'll probably take my whole fence down with it. 

By the way, I knew there was a reason I didn't want to cut all my clover down. 

And look, my plantains are starting to seed.

I thought about trying to somehow catch those seeds and plant them all together, but you know me and seeds.  I can't even get wildflower seeds to germinate.  I think I'll just leave them where they are.  On the other hand, if you can catch enough of them, you can pound them into a flour substitute.  

If you've made it this far, you're probably saying to yourself, "But you never told us why HR from Dallas was at the plant!" and you would be right.  I didn't.  So I'll tell you now.  They were here because they fired our HR director.  I don't know why, but they walked him out the door.  He hadn't even been here a year, but I do know one thing, they are saying that at the plant he worked at before he came to ours, the people there hated him.  

I know something else, I've never seen a place with such a high turnover rate in the HR department.  We go through them like water out there.  This guy had only been there less than a year.  The one before him, I don't think she even made 6 months.  The one before her we called Karen -- and for good reason.  She was the most unpleasant person I think I've ever known -- and would actually yell at employees.  

I don't know what's going on up there, but you couldn't pay me enough to do that job!