There are two production lines which I hate cleaning. Both of these make ice-cream treats which are topped with nuts. The nuts are the reason I hate cleaning these lines. Because, by the end of the shift, there are nuts everywhere. And I mean everywhere.
I am not assigned to regularly clean either of these machines, but I was unlucky enough to be recruited to do so the other day, and it took forever just to clean up all the nuts from off the floor, let alone the rest of machine.
In order to clean up the nuts, we kept spraying them towards a drain where they would get caught in the drain strainer. There were so many nuts that it filled the drain strainer numerous times, so many times that I completely filled up one of the five gallon buckets we lug around to put trash into and then some. It was ridiculous. By the time it was all said and done, there were enough nuts to fill up about seven gallons worth of bucket.
While I was wasting away my life cleaning up these nuts, I had an innovative idea which would save the company manpower and--most importantly--money. Rather than having employees be paid to clean up the nuts, we should have a pack of squirrels do it! It would be so simple!
Of course, we would have to keep them in a cage when they aren't working--it would be ridiculous to have squirrels running around the factory at all times--but all we would have to do is let them out when there are nuts which need to be cleaned up. I am pretty sure the squirrels would go crazy with delight and the nut-covered floor would be a swarm of furry tails for about fifty seconds before it was nutless. It would be awesome.
Issues of cleanliness aside, there are only two problems which I could forsee from implementing my squirrel plan. 1) Where would they hide the nuts? It would be likely that they would store them in all sorts of odd places. Someone, for example, might open a closet and then be buried in an avalanche of nuts. 2) The squirrels might be so crazed by the excess of nuts that they start fighting over the nuts even though they are plentiful. They might even form groups similar to gangs and begin waging wars that spiral out of control, resulting in territory wars, incessant fighting, and countless squirrel deaths.
Until I can work out these kinks, I will hold out on suggesting my nut cleaning solution to the managment.
Daily Ice-Cream Intake :
3/8 Gallon Chocolate Brownie Ice-Cream, 2 Strawberry Crunch Bars, 1 Orange Sherbet Push-Up
07 July 2011
05 July 2011
The Mystery of the Wet Pants
For the past couple of weeks at work, I have been having a problem. My pants have been getting wet.
No, I haven't been habitually wetting myself. I only get wet from the knees down (including my pant legs and socks), and the wetness is nowhere near my crotch, thank goodness. I work with water all day long. I'm spraying it and walking around in it constantly, so getting somewhat wet should be expected. But what is confusing is that my pants and socks are guarded by tall rubber boots underneath plastic overalls, which should guarantee that no water makes it way inside. But, for whatever reason, it has been.
Being required to wear jeans, I tuck my pant legs inside of my boots. By mid-shift, I can feel the fabric around my knees growing wet. As the day continued, I can feel the wetness working its way downward as it saturates more and more of my pants. And then once my entire pant leg from the knee down is wet, my sock slowly shifts from dry to moist to completely wet. Sometimes, my socks become so wet that by the end of the day I will take off my boot and my feet and toes will be white and pruny and disgusting.
Afflicted with this discomfort on a daily basis, I have tried to figure out why this could be happening. Here are some of the theories I have come up with:
Theory 1 : My boot is leaking
- It seemed plausible, but when I thought about it, the wetness moves from the knee down. If the boot was leaking, my foot would be the first thing to become wet.
Theory 2 : The knees in my overalls had holes and were letting water in
- A quick inspection of the bright yellow overalls proved this wrong.
Theory 3 : When I kneel on the ground to clean something, water gets into the base of my overalls and then creeps up until it reaches my knee and soaks the fabric there
- This was a bit more complex than the first two theories, but it seemed even more plausible since I kneel on the ground to clean things on a regular basis. To see if this was correct, I stopped kneeling on the ground so much. I couldn't avoid it entirely, but I did a pretty good job at staying busy with things that did not require kneeling. Regardless, by the end of the day, my pant legs and socks were sopping wet.
Theory 4 : MEDICAL MARVELS
- OPTION A - My knees are peeing on me during the work day. As this doesn't seem too likely, I laid this theory to rest.
- OPTION B - After telling my co-workers about my wet pant legs, they said it was probably because my legs were sweating. Sweating is a daily occurrence with sanitation employees because we are wearing plastic protective gear while working around scalding hot water. But, I thought to myself, I don't think if I've ever seen my legs sweat. Are legs capable of sweating? As it turns out, they are. This I learned thanks to Google and about five minutes. I found an entire message forum with multiple people complaining of sweating legs, but all of these seemed to happen while they were asleep. Most of them even said that their leg sweating was so dramatic that their sheets were soaked in the morning or that the wet feeling woke them up in the middle of the night. Disgusting. If you want to check out this caravan of freak show comments, and I recommend you do, click here Sweaty Leg Discussion Forum. The progression of the discussion is kind of funny. At one point, someone says that he knows that two causes of excessive sweating are cancer and HIV. Wow! Let's not jump to any dire conclusions.
As of the moment, The Mystery of the Wet Pants remains unsolved. It may be sweat. It may be leaky protective gear. It may be that water is sneaking up my pant legs. It may be a combination of all three or even an unpredictable fourth option. Who know? I suspect this would even stump the Hardy Boys. Probably not that Nancy Drew, though. She's really sharp. But I'd never tell her about my wet pant legs. I'd be too embarrassed to admit to potentially having a sweaty leg problem to such a hottie. All I'm going to say, though, is that if I get trench foot, the company I'm working for is replacing my useless and decaying feet with new bionic versions that are super magnetic so I can walk on steel walls.
Daily Ice-Cream Intake
3 Orange Sherbet Push-Ups, 1/4 Gallon Cookies and Cream Ice-Cream, 1 Vanilla Bar in Chocolate, 1 Ice-Cream Candy Bar
No, I haven't been habitually wetting myself. I only get wet from the knees down (including my pant legs and socks), and the wetness is nowhere near my crotch, thank goodness. I work with water all day long. I'm spraying it and walking around in it constantly, so getting somewhat wet should be expected. But what is confusing is that my pants and socks are guarded by tall rubber boots underneath plastic overalls, which should guarantee that no water makes it way inside. But, for whatever reason, it has been.
Being required to wear jeans, I tuck my pant legs inside of my boots. By mid-shift, I can feel the fabric around my knees growing wet. As the day continued, I can feel the wetness working its way downward as it saturates more and more of my pants. And then once my entire pant leg from the knee down is wet, my sock slowly shifts from dry to moist to completely wet. Sometimes, my socks become so wet that by the end of the day I will take off my boot and my feet and toes will be white and pruny and disgusting.
Afflicted with this discomfort on a daily basis, I have tried to figure out why this could be happening. Here are some of the theories I have come up with:
Theory 1 : My boot is leaking
- It seemed plausible, but when I thought about it, the wetness moves from the knee down. If the boot was leaking, my foot would be the first thing to become wet.
Theory 2 : The knees in my overalls had holes and were letting water in
- A quick inspection of the bright yellow overalls proved this wrong.
Theory 3 : When I kneel on the ground to clean something, water gets into the base of my overalls and then creeps up until it reaches my knee and soaks the fabric there
- This was a bit more complex than the first two theories, but it seemed even more plausible since I kneel on the ground to clean things on a regular basis. To see if this was correct, I stopped kneeling on the ground so much. I couldn't avoid it entirely, but I did a pretty good job at staying busy with things that did not require kneeling. Regardless, by the end of the day, my pant legs and socks were sopping wet.
Theory 4 : MEDICAL MARVELS
- OPTION A - My knees are peeing on me during the work day. As this doesn't seem too likely, I laid this theory to rest.
- OPTION B - After telling my co-workers about my wet pant legs, they said it was probably because my legs were sweating. Sweating is a daily occurrence with sanitation employees because we are wearing plastic protective gear while working around scalding hot water. But, I thought to myself, I don't think if I've ever seen my legs sweat. Are legs capable of sweating? As it turns out, they are. This I learned thanks to Google and about five minutes. I found an entire message forum with multiple people complaining of sweating legs, but all of these seemed to happen while they were asleep. Most of them even said that their leg sweating was so dramatic that their sheets were soaked in the morning or that the wet feeling woke them up in the middle of the night. Disgusting. If you want to check out this caravan of freak show comments, and I recommend you do, click here Sweaty Leg Discussion Forum. The progression of the discussion is kind of funny. At one point, someone says that he knows that two causes of excessive sweating are cancer and HIV. Wow! Let's not jump to any dire conclusions.
As of the moment, The Mystery of the Wet Pants remains unsolved. It may be sweat. It may be leaky protective gear. It may be that water is sneaking up my pant legs. It may be a combination of all three or even an unpredictable fourth option. Who know? I suspect this would even stump the Hardy Boys. Probably not that Nancy Drew, though. She's really sharp. But I'd never tell her about my wet pant legs. I'd be too embarrassed to admit to potentially having a sweaty leg problem to such a hottie. All I'm going to say, though, is that if I get trench foot, the company I'm working for is replacing my useless and decaying feet with new bionic versions that are super magnetic so I can walk on steel walls.
Daily Ice-Cream Intake
3 Orange Sherbet Push-Ups, 1/4 Gallon Cookies and Cream Ice-Cream, 1 Vanilla Bar in Chocolate, 1 Ice-Cream Candy Bar
02 July 2011
Shreds of Pride
One of the steps of cleaning a production line at the ice-cream factory is running "The Power Scrubber". It's like a floor burnisher, except it's meant for scrubbing soapy floors instead of polishing dry ones. I've used floor burnishers before, so I thought I was familiar with the machine, but when I started it up, it nearly jerked free of my hands because it was so powerful. And not only was it powerful, but it also functions in an odd way. By either lifting slightly up or pushing slightly down on the handle, The Power Scrubber will either move to the right or the left while also trying to dart forward, forcing the operator to have a firm hold and a ready stance to keep from losing control of the machine or being physically harmed.
The first time I used the machine, I could hardly keep the thing under control. I tried to make it go a little to the left and--BANG!--right into a freezer. Then I tried to make it go left-BANG!--it smashed into the legs of a stand. This happened repeatedly, all the while I was trying to not slip or be pulled off my feet. And what made it even worse was that my co-workers noticed the difficulty I was having. They must have also been discussing it, too, because, later on that day, a manager who hadn't been present during my first Power Scrubber fiasco approached me and said "I hear The Power Scrubber kicked your butt" to which I replied "I think I gave it a run for its money." The manager laughed at the response, nodded as if he didn't believe me, patted me on the back in sympathy, and walked away. Jerk.
Since then, I have learned how to control--or at least have better control of--The Power Scrubber, but I still have occasional issues. The most frequent problem involves running over the power cord. When I reach the end of the cord length and try to double back, I sometimes run it over. The powerful spinning scrubber sucks the cord underneath and twists it around the big green scrubbing pad, jolting it out of my hands and making it hop about as if it is having a violent seizure. But, hey, it's not practically dragging me across the floor anymore. I'll take what shreds of my pride I have left and work with that.
Daily Ice-Cream Intake
1 Ice-Cream Candy Bar, 1 Orange Sherbet Push-Up (I'm not losing my love of ice-cream. I only worked three hours today. Don't worry. I am still obsessive.)
The first time I used the machine, I could hardly keep the thing under control. I tried to make it go a little to the left and--BANG!--right into a freezer. Then I tried to make it go left-BANG!--it smashed into the legs of a stand. This happened repeatedly, all the while I was trying to not slip or be pulled off my feet. And what made it even worse was that my co-workers noticed the difficulty I was having. They must have also been discussing it, too, because, later on that day, a manager who hadn't been present during my first Power Scrubber fiasco approached me and said "I hear The Power Scrubber kicked your butt" to which I replied "I think I gave it a run for its money." The manager laughed at the response, nodded as if he didn't believe me, patted me on the back in sympathy, and walked away. Jerk.
Since then, I have learned how to control--or at least have better control of--The Power Scrubber, but I still have occasional issues. The most frequent problem involves running over the power cord. When I reach the end of the cord length and try to double back, I sometimes run it over. The powerful spinning scrubber sucks the cord underneath and twists it around the big green scrubbing pad, jolting it out of my hands and making it hop about as if it is having a violent seizure. But, hey, it's not practically dragging me across the floor anymore. I'll take what shreds of my pride I have left and work with that.
Daily Ice-Cream Intake
1 Ice-Cream Candy Bar, 1 Orange Sherbet Push-Up (I'm not losing my love of ice-cream. I only worked three hours today. Don't worry. I am still obsessive.)
(see also The Summer of Free Ice-Cream (A Running Tally))
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