I Owe Someone An Apology

 We have these machines we call the Winton Benders, which cut and bend our adapter tubes.  We'd always gotten so frustrated with the people who operated those machines, because they never checked to see if the parts were correct before sending them to the brazers.  They'd just punch the part number into the machine, and whatever came out -- right or wrong -- is what they sent to us.  

If one of the parts was wrong, we'd have to set up the assembly in a brazing jig and take the whole thing to them so they could see what adjustments they needed to make.  I'd even accused them of not knowing how to read a print.  

Well, turns out I was wrong.  It all came clear just this week.  Two of the three operators had gotten laid off last month, so this week, Supervisor sent one of the brazers over to train on how to run them.  I had a part that had been bent wrong, so I took the paper back and asked the brazer to re-cut it for me.  When she asked me to bring a jig...

I thought, "Now, I know you know how to read a print," so I looked for her computer...and didn't see one.  I looked all over that area and...nope, no computer.  So, that's why they never checked their parts.  They don't have a way to even pull up a print!  They would have to walk over to another work area every single time, just to check the parts.  

No wonder!  And I owe someone an apology.    

Now for a bit of good news.  

Remember a few weeks ago when I was complaining about my supervisor never approving our vacation days?  Apparently, I wasn't the only one fed up, because someone turned him in to HR.  I know this because I was named as a witness, and had to go up and give a statement.  I'm not sure how much of what was said that I'm allowed to talk about, but it was basically the same things I'd said in the post linked above.  

Yesterday, I saw the production manager and supervisor going to the upstairs office.  They were up there for quite a while, and when supervisor came down, he went straight up to his computer.  I thought, "Hmmm, I wonder..."

This morning when I got to work, I went up to the computer terminal thingy and checked my pending vacation requests.  Sure enough, they'd been approved.  I went back to my stand and asked another brazer to go up and check hers.  She came back a few moments later and said all of hers had been approved, too.  So, yay for that. 

Now to see if  he keeps it up.  

And finally, here's a photo because I know a lot of you won't click on the link if there isn't a picture attached. 

I took this photo years ago at the Memphis zoo.  I thought it had been lost, but found it again in my Google archives.  

I'm going to get my act together here sometime.  I just have to get accustomed to being exhausted all the time again.