Life at the keyboard

You know, I wasn't going to tell this story, I really wasn't.  But when a man's existence on earth can be summed up in a half-hour at work (a 30-minute period in which I still managed to not berate, insult, or kill anyone), I have to tell the story.

First let me set the stage.  (Our biggest customer) is having problems yet again- they are so far behind, they can see their butt in the distance.  Which is the only thing saving us, as in the last 6 days I estimate we have pissed away around 200-250 sewing hours.  The things that hold us back involve issues we are having with new customers- one in particular.  And because of those issues, we have several models on production hold.  Some of those- 40 covers, I believe is what I heard- are due this week.  Kinda hard to do them if they ain't right yet, capeesh?

So this morning, the Plant Manager asked me how many of them I had to do.  I told him- I didn't have any orders yet.  He went to check on it.  Moments later, I was given a sheet of orders for them, told that PM wants me to get right on them.  So I cue up #1.  As I start, PM comes over looks at the list.  "Are these all the __ you have?"

"Yep, ain't they enough?"

Not the right ones.  He looks at my list, looks at his list, says, "Finish cutting the one you're doing, then stop." Walks away.

Later, the person that gave me the order comes by.  Ask what's going on.  "Don't think we're able to cut them yet," she says, takes my paper and leaves.  Comes back a bit later, says, don't do any of them, they aren't right, throw the one you did away."  And that brings us to the magical half-hour between 11:30 and noon, Monday.

First, the production Manager comes over with a mini ( a drawing) of a certain cover, asks me to cut panel 6.  Now sometimes he asks for recuts due to damage or a flaw, sometimes the engineers have to modify the part.  Usually if the latter is the case, I have to check the time it was completed to see if it is the right thing on my computer.  No "time stamp" on his mini, I assume it's a no-change replacement.  I get it cut, cueing up the next item.  When I try to print the labels, the sew-in tag printer runs out its ink roll.  Over the next 20 minutes as I try to do other things, I encounter two main problems here:  1- the used ink ribbon wraps so tight that I literally have to cut some of it off the roll before I can get it out.  Imagine thousands of little ink-infused, static-sticky, floating on the merest puff of air pieces doing their best to refuse entering the trash can as I try to force the damn used roll off.  2- I then install the new roll the wrong way on the starting roller.  AND on the return roller.  And it takes me fifteen minutes of ignoring the little drawing on the side of the printer to figure out what I was doing wrong, other than cutting the new ribbon into more little static-sticky etc. pieces.

AND in the middle of this, PM comes over and asks me if I'm still cutting the new customer.  I said, "YOU TOOK THOSE ORDERS AWAY FROM ME!"

"She didn't bring them back?"
"Yes, and she told me they weren't right, don't cut them!"

He walks away.  Moments later I see him come up to the "she " in the equation.  He shakes his head, they both laugh.

At this point with seconds left in the half-hour, I get an instant message from an engineer- telling me the Production Mgr wants the piece I ALREADY CUT FOR HIM, and this time gives me a time stamp of some 20 minutes after I originally cut the piece.

I sent back that I had already been requested to cut this, no one had said boo about changing anything, and did he really want me to cut it a second time?  But the engineer had left for lunch, and never did answer me back.

Postscript:  Production Mgr comes back, apologizes because he thought the engineer had actually fixed the part before he came to me, asked me to cut the fixed part.  This was at 10 after 2 PM.  When I left at 3:30, the new part was still sitting on my table.



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How about a good headline for a week that starts like this?  Here's one:


Naked Spanish clowns anger Palestinians

Apparently Spanish protesters stood in front of the separation wall between the Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank, naked except for clown noses, " meant to show opposition to the wall".  However, the Palestinians whose cause they bared all for didn't see them the same way.

"They're standing like animals," said one viewer. "They're pigs, nothing more. Our nation is too pure for pigs to visit."

Another commentator said sarcastically, "Now we probably won't get any rain this winter as punishment for this act."  Wonderful.  Now naked clowns cause climate change.



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Lastly, another lesson to spammers: If you want your fake message to be taken seriously, you need to spice up your generics.  First of all, you sent this message addressed to "undisclosed recipients", always a big no-no:

 YourظMailbox has Exceeded the storage limit ..
Which is 22GB as set by your]administrator, You are]currently running on 22.9GB , You may not be
able to Send or receive new Mail until you re-validate your Mailbox.
To Re-validate please Click Here


Thanks
Mail Server

Second, that strange little thingy between "Your" and "Mailbox" just HAS to go.  No one believes that their mail server is from the Planet Remulac.

Third, you might want to consider calling yourself something other than "Mail Server".

And finally, though you seem to be absolutely fascinated by the ] symbol, neither place that you used it is appropriate.

Glad I could help.  Happy scamming!