Tweedledee and Tweedledum

Boy, I don't know where to start with these guys.  You know--the guys formerly known as B.M.O.C. and Derek?  I think their new name should be Tweedledee and Tweedledum.  I don't know which one is which, but that really doesn't matter.

My observation:  At the rate they're going, the new HAAS machines will not power on for another six months.

The pile of installation supplies I mentioned in the previous blog that showed up Wednesday was finally opened up yesterday.  Dale was pretty surprised.  He was beginning to wonder when they would ever get into it and start working.
"They were both saying they needed it on Wednesday so they could get started!" Dale said excitedly.  "They just had to have it right then," he continued, "I didn't even get a chance to shop around!"
That kinda stuff eats at him as we all well know.

A new punch tool showed up.  Dale said, "He just had to have it."  It was $85.  Here's a little rundown.  Here's the punch, followed by the biggest of the Tweedle Brothers wrenching on a conduit box:

After all that, here is the final product.  It sort of looked like the threads were already getting ruined after only two holes:

All day long we kept seeing them doing the same sort of thing:  Work on something for a minute, then disappear.  Work, disappear.  Imagine my surprise when I saw them putting a piece of conduit on the computer saw.  They were probably thinking, "Hey, here's something we haven't played with yet... I bet we can kill a LOT of time with this!"

After they got it all set up on the saw, they spent quite a while messing with it.  I could just hear them (not really)

"How do you work this thing?"

"I dunno... I thought you knew."

"It can't be that hard."

Finally, after a good 10 or 15 minutes (enough time they could have cut 20 of them with a hacksaw), they finally went over and got Joe the shear guy so they could lower his productivity to their level.  After almost a half hour they had one cut.  Can't you just see the head lice in these next pictures?

After all that work, nothing looks any different.

A short while later, I got this:

 "What else can we buy?"

The Weekly Recap: Three Day Version

Our annual 'forced vacation day' week is upon us.

This is the week The Brothers do the thinking for us and make the assumption that we need to take Friday off.  Of course it's without pay, but hey--at least we don't have to fight, argue, request, or beg for it that way, right?  This year, as with most years, there were a bunch of CNC workers scheduled to work on Friday (they're always behind).  Wednesday morning someone apparently made the impression on them that the CNC department needed a break at least as badly as anyone else did, so halfway through Wednesday they changed their mind and declared the doors to be locked for all employees Friday.  I decided to make Friday a vacation day so I get a full paycheck.

As with what seems to be every week, Phil and the regular "Monday morning new guy" came walking by me at 7:40 this week. Me and TJ both thought the same thing at the same time but he vocalized it first.
"It must be a Monday thing." he said, knowing I was thinking it.
It's true--There seems to be a regular adoption process that Phil does every week.  This particular guy has a toolbox and is going to CNC I guess.

Yesterday I was surprised to see B.M.O.C. and Derek working back in the area of the new CNC machines.  They actually unpacked all the stuff and got things underway!  I even saw the lift cage in action up near the ceiling several times.  I was surprised.  Today a bunch of new conduit and stuff showed up right before quitting time--stuff for the installation.  I wonder how long it will take to get all that  stuff hung up.  I get funny vibes from those two.  Three times today they both ducked out the door and talked for a few minutes outside.  It's a conspiracy in the making.

Also yesterday Rich was working back by Elaine's area all day building a few of those giant pallets we have to make when we send those big, flat sheet metal panels to Boeing.  That is what Bzzz has been lobbying for the new Skilsaw for.  Once Dale came out of the office and was talking to me when he noticed the sound of the saw.
"Is that the new saw?  It doesn't sound too good." Dale said, with the famous Dale pinched, concerned look on his face.
It was true--it didn't sound too great.  It was laboring and it sounded like it either didn't have enough power or it was binding during the cutting.  Well, imagine my surprise when I wandered back there this morning and saw a small 8" used saw sitting there among the other tools Richie was using yesterday.  The new 10" saw was nowhere to be found.  I asked Elaine about it and she said that's was Rich was using yesterday.  I asked her about the new saw and she shrugged her shoulders and said he didn't like the design of it or something.  I asked Bzzz later and it was true--Rich didn't want to use the new saw because the motor hung out and blocked his vision.  To add to it, the little 8" saw he was using was a left-handed saw.
Bzzz was plainly concerned.
"I don't dare let Bernie see that," he said, "I think I should go back there and cut a few pieces of wood with it so it would at least have some sawdust on it."
Funny stuff.  Poor Bzzz--it's like he used all that body language that accompanies his new item requisitions for nothing.

Ben was out all day Monday so I was driving.  He was there all day yesterday, but they wouldn't let him drive.  Why?  It seems that the reason he was out all day Monday was because he had a concussion.  I don't know details though.  He was back driving today though, which was good because I had a "full plate" packing up a 3 elaborate, expensive, and large assemblies--each in their own customized corrugated cardboard transport vessel.

Well, I'll stop here and we'll call it good for our short work week.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

The Weekly Recap

This has been one of those weeks that only happen rarely at LaCroy.  I think it has something to do with some particular place freezing over or something.  They spent money.  Big money.  Yes, two brand-new Haas CNC machines came into our building this past Wednesday.  I did a little stealthy camera work to catch them coming in so all you viewers out there in bloggy land will be able to relive the event with fond memories.

The guys from Nelson showed up at about 8am with their big forklift just like they planned and one of them came in and announced that they were here.  I headed into the office to alert the interested person, which I thought was Derek.  I was wrong.  I walked up to Derek, who was glued to his computer screen.
"The guys from Nelson are here with the new CNC machines.  Are you handling the event?" I asked.
He didn't even look up.
"Nobody has said anything to me about it." he said, still not even making a vague attempt to look up, move, or even reach for the phone to call Phil.  I shrugged my shoulders and went back out into the shop and told Bzzz.  Eventually the word got around to the right people.  No, person.  Phil.  Apparently, Derek was about as excited about them as he would be to polish the rim of a toilet bowl.  Phil did, of course, grab Derek and start things rolling.

So, as the truck is being unloaded outside, Phil and Derek put some tape down.  In the old days that would have already been done.  Of course, in the old days there were people that really cared about things handling the installation.  'Nuff said.

They had lots of room to maneuver, so bringing the machines in was probably the easiest I've seen of any install since I've been working there.  The brothers were undoubted conferring on the merits of having such stellar employees.  I obviously had to work quickly to steal that picture undetected.

This pretty much wrapped it up.  I took the first picture from the yellow "lift cage" or whatever you call the thing we forklift up to the ceiling for various things.

So, since that time, a few of the tables have been moved back into place, but that's pretty much it.  There has been no activity anywhere around the installation.  No voltage, no leveling, no nothing.  Pretty weird.  A few of us mentioned how different things used to be.  They would have had material in them, slinging chips and coolant by now.

Tuesday morning Bzzz wanders out of the office, stops near my desk (obviously trolling for a conversation) and mutters, "what's a person got to do to get a Skil saw..." He stood there a few seconds longer, but I didn't bite.  He wandered off without doing his usual thing.  Amazingly enough, his persistence finally paid off and Dale went to Home Depot on Wednesday or Thursday and bought a new Skil saw for Bzzz.  It's been sitting on top of Dale's file cabinet ever since... Untouched.

I'm going to have to back off a notch on the intensely-structured Weekly Recap post.  At least the three parts that cover the new hires, the guys that left, and the equipment that broke.  I just don't get enough information to be able to report things very well.  I talk to people, but without faces it's hard to figure out who we're talking about when I hear that some came, went, or is returning.  I'll just run it all into a paragraph or two.

So, Monday morning a new guy came in and went to deburr--A young guy, clean and neat.  I don't think he smokes.  That itself is weird.  He probably won't last just because of that.  I guess we lost a guy or two from CNC, but I don't know who they are.  It shouldn't be too big of a deal because we're getting at least one guy coming in.  Actually, he worked there before but left.  He's doing the "Don Brewer thing" I guess.  I'm sure there will be a constant change in those guys.

I told TJ I should set up a line on the floor between my work area and the shop office and have all the new guys stop there for a picture.  "Place your toes on the line, look over my shoulder.  Thank you.  Next please..."  Just like the roly-poly Polynesian lady taking pictures at the license agency.

The small press near Fort Short blew a seal on Monday. Phil told them to tear it down and put a seal kit in it instead of buying a new ram for it.  No surprise there.  What did surprise me is that the parts showed up Friday at 10 and it was fixed by the end of the day.  Amazing.

Greetings to Bruce

L, not Z...

Yeah, Cheryl from PM Testing dropped in today.  We don't get to see her much these days because she's on a north-end route, but today she stopped.

I mentioned this idea to her and she said, "Sure, you gotta piece of paper?  Gotta marker?"

Supervisor?

Jim came in one day all fired up about the game, Angry Birds.  He had put the game on his phone and was getting a kick out of showing it to other folks around the place that had never played it.  I have played it, and I have to say:  It is pretty fun. Of particular interest are the sounds the birds make when they go flying across the screen.

At any rate, Jim came in like this the following morning, looking all the world like a modern day pirate.  Apparently, Phil didn't care for it.  He didn't say anything, but Jim could tell he didn't approve.  He took it off after an hour or so.

Can you spot the supervisor in this picture?

The Weekly Recap

There was an awful lot of activity at LaCroy this week.  Monday found Marty and a new guy loading up cardboard from the "hide it behind the blue wall" area, then he spent all day Tuesday moving sandbags and junk back there--stacking and consolidating.  He found quite a bit of evidence of rodent activity around the sandbags.  I expect the mousies were quite surprised when they chewed holes upward into the sandbags and found sand raining down on them instead of flour or seeds they might have hoped for.  I think he said he found 3 dead ones scattered here and there as he cleaned.  When I found out he was clearing the area for new machines that are going in, I went back there and snapped a few "before" pictures:

Then a team got together and consolidated the "flood gates" that the company so lovingly assembled:

This is what the area finally looked like afterwards:

Phil has been in an excited mood--wandering around constantly and overseeing the progress.  Late in the day Wednesday two Haas transformer setups came.  Phil is expecting the first machines to show up on Monday.  I hope he has someone lined up to do the install!

You know what I hate about times like this when Phil is expecting new stuff to show up?  He thinks that everything--I mean everything--that comes in is a part of his anticipated shipment of items.  What that means to me is him inspecting the packaging like it contains a cigar humidor (that's another story for another time) or something.  Yesterday he was all upset because I let a truck get away without noting carton damage on the outside of 4 pallets that showed up.  When he found out they were just coils of metal it was like, "Oh, okay, well be sure to always note damage... " yada, yada, yada.

Imagine my surprise when the old guy from Finishing Unlimited came by on Monday!  We don't do much business with Finishing Unlimited, so the visits from the driver are few and far between.  Several years ago I remember noting how much the guy looked like an AIDS poster child.  He was skinny, white as a ghost, wrinkled, withered, and frail.  Add to that his strange eyes.  You know how when a kittycat is ready to attack you all you can see is black in their eyes?  That's the way he looks.  I used to call out, "Hey, look--The Geriatric Express is here!" whenever he'd show up.  Bruce coined the name 'Skeletor' quite a while back and it stuck.  Well, surprisingly Skeletor hasn't changed a bit.  Not only am I surprised he is still standing (and driving), but oddly enough he doesn't look any worse.  He still looks just as dead as he did several years ago when I first met him.  I think he's proof that zombies really do exist.

Thursday, Phil had me doing a repair on a Makino circuit board.  He and big Jim got together and determined that we should try the board repair first instead of shelling out a few thousand dollars for a new one.  He bought a fancy new "solder-sucker" gun that worked really slick.  The size of a drill, it has constant heat and burp of the trigger instantly vacuums the melted solder up into a little chamber.  Pretty slick.  I was doing an commercial bit, calling it the "Hot-Suck 5000" and was having fun using my announcer voice.

B.M.O.C. asked me a Bruderer feeder question Thursday.  I followed him back there, knowing that I would not have a clue as to how to do what he wanted to do.  Imagine my surprise when I was able to recollect how to set the material drag tension on the feeder.  I even remembered that the adjustment bolt turns reverse of the direction you'd think it should.  Apparently there are still some memory cells left up there.  I hope Phil doesn't find out I can still recall a few things from Bruderer days.

Also on Thursday, the guy from Nelson Rigging came in and Phil went back and showed him what was going on.  I guess it's still on schedule for Monday CNC machine delivery.

Gone:  What?  Nobody left this week?  How 'bout that.

New Arrivals:  A new guy came in at 7:30 on Monday morning.  He's an older guy with white hair, but not frail.  He actually reminds me of Doctor Johnny Fever from WKRP.  Went to deburr and has been working there all week.  He seems intelligent so maybe he'll work out.  He smokes, so already he fits in.

Broken Equipment:  Well, I guess the Makino is finally fixed due to my board repair the other day.  Frankly, I didn't even know it was down.  I guess I need to do some walk-arounds and talk to the troops every now and then!

Assembly Notes

In the world of aircraft part assembly we have to make sure we use the "first in--first out" method.  If we didn't we'd have hundreds of little bags with only a few items left in them laying around everywhere.  It takes somebody anal like myself to handle it right.

The trouble is, the guys have to be reminded or urged in the right direction when you give them all the stuff they need to start their assembly.  They don't care which bag something came from--They just want to put the stuff together.  What that means is, sometimes I have to make little notes for people.

Notes like, 'Use 1st', 'Use 2nd' and things like that.  Sometimes I actually have to kit them up with specific quantities so they don't go overboard when they are building them because the items need to be equally split over two assemblies.  We also need to make sure the right part certifications are on the right assembly.

Sometimes I throw a little comic relief in for the guys.  It breaks the robotic doldrums.  Who knows--they might be having a bad day and need a grin for a second.  This one went out on a bag of helicoils last week and I had to be sure they did it right:

Sometimes I actually withhold the second bag they need so they'll have to come back for more.  The guy might come back with a confused look on his face saying they didn't have enough, at which point I whip out their "second bag" and hand it over.

Babysitting the assemblers.

The Weekly Recap

Ah, the week in review once again.  This week actually went pretty smooth considering Mike was gone and Scott, Dale, and myself were all kinda trying to do a little of this and a little of that to fill in the gaps.  I don't recall any actual crises that took place.  Apparently they had "fill-in" help at Boeing all week because there were a few days when that stuff didn't get picked up until well after lunch.

Funny thing Friday morning:  For the second time I can recall, Mafu was asleep in his car in the parking lot instead of reporting for work at 6 o'clock, so at about 6:15 or so TJ sent B.M.O.C. went out the door to fetch him.

Derek is doing his still best to spend money on stuff without knowing what he's really spending money on.  Today I opened up a little box that showed up from UPS.  It felt empty, but wasn't quite.  When I opened it and unwrapped it, this is what I found:

 

Apparently he had ordered these two things thinking he was buying replacement brake pads for one of the decoilers.  All they consisted of was a couple of plain old 1/4-inch thick leather, and they weren't even cut straight.  But here's the kicker:  They cost $69.  Yes, you read that right.  70 bucks for two pieces of somebody's belt.  If Bernie was there he would have had a heart attack--either instantly or during the chewing out.  I'm pretty sure they are going back.

Gone:  Thursday was the last day for Matt (aka young Wink Martindale).  I don't know any details, but from what Harry told me, he's going to work for a company that's way close to his house and will be making an additional 9 bucks an hour.  Harry said he'll be able to start his car, get to the top of the nearby hill and coast almost the whole way to work.  I'm sure stories get embellished as they get passed around though.  Still, it's a good rumor.

Also gone is Brian.  He is the new(ish) guy that took over brazing paddles.  Apparently he was a bumbler in practically all he did.  He seemed like a nice guy, but what do I know--I never worked with him.  I did look at some of his paddles one day.  I was not impressed.

New Arrivals:  Nobody new this week.  Earlier in the week I asked TJ, "So, isn't it about time Don Brewer came back?"  He said no, maybe another month or two... It's still too soon.  I'm sure we will never actually hear the last of him.

Broken Equipment:  Nothing new this week.  It did occur to me this morning though:  When it gets really cold this year and we come in to a subzero cooler for a work building on a Monday, who will light the sacred pilot lights?  I don't think anyone will have the fortitude to do it on their own, and I doubt anyone even knows how.  I'm just glad I have my arctic coveralls, my fingerless gloves, and my space heater.

Colorful Characters of the Past

Anyone that is reading this knows enough about LaCroy to know that there have been a lot of characters that have passed through our doors. Many of them were broken in some way--be it lack of intelligence, lack of social skills, or even lack of simple motor function. I prefer to think of them as "colorful."

This is a short list of some of the colorful coworkers from my time. I'm sure there were many others before my time, and there are also some there currently, but this isn't about them.

Howard - There isn't much I can say about Howard (at least I think that's what his name was) because he didn't stay long enough for anyone to know him. He hired on, and within two weeks was found sound asleep in a toilet stall. I mean sound asleep--as in snoring. Bye bye Howard.

Bathroom Bill - Most of the time the bathrooms are cleaned every Friday by the "low man on the totem pole" at LaCroy, but at one time we had a man that lived for it. Bill was a proud, proud man when it came to his bathroom. I say 'his' because he was very protective of it. Overly protective. Apparently he owned his own cleaning business at one time, and when he got the opportunity to do the same thing at LaCroy his eyes probably took on a faraway gleam of great experiences he had shared with porcelain and tile. Anyway, Bill loved cleaning the bathroom. He cleaned and polished things pretty much all week long. God forbid he should catch you doing something that put the cleanliness of his bathroom in jeopardy--like actually, uh, using a toilet for what it was intended for. He was an ornery old guy and you would definitely feel his wrath. I think he actually lived in his van.

John Ferrill - I never saw John really do anything. I saw him pretend to do things a lot though--pretty much all day every day. I guess he was also quite the ladies' man. You didn't have to ever see him with a woman to know that because he took delight in volunteering such information. Yes, he would tell you. He liked to volunteer just how well endowed he was too. I guess he thought of himself as a human tripod. I was very surprised to find that he owned a Harley-Davidson when I saw him ride it to work one day. You just can't tell a Harley rider by his geekiness I guess. After all, look at me. Anyway, I guess someone finally noticed John earning money for doing nothing. For all we know he's making Jewish porn films in Fargo now.

Vernon - Vernon was a real piece of work. Not only was he a habitual drinker whose fumes would almost trigger a hazmat team, he was able to do it twice at LaCroy! After working there one time for a few weeks, he was sent down the road. He would be missing days during his first week of employment. Imagine our surprise when, about a year later, they hired him again. Just like the previous time, he didn't last long. Poor Bruce though... Vernon cost him $20. Vernon was always trying to borrow money. I lent him $5 myself, and I had to collect it in small increments. If memory serves me, I got 2 dollars back once, 1 dollar once, a dollar a different time, and finally was able to close his debt when he paid me that last dollar in the form of 4 quarters. Bruce wasn't so lucky. I heard it said once that if you lend someone $20 and they disappear and never come back, it was probably worth it.

Jim the Hammer - Jim used to work in tooling. Jim was a hack. I'm pretty sure that Jim was the inspiration for the Playskool hammer bench kids toy. I'm also firmly convinced that he was also the inspiration for the famous Hammering Man artwork that stands in front of the Seattle Art Museum. Whenever I see the big, gray, lead hammer with worn, curled edges that still lives in the tooling department at LaCroy I think of Jim. Oh how he loved to swing that hammer. It didn't matter much how small the thing was that he was trying to install or remove, he swung that baby with lust in his eyes and fever in his swing. He left a lot of him behind when he departed to go work at another company--all in the form of dents and dings.

What About Bob? - Bob was a colorful character for sure. Multi-faceted would be a good way to describe him. Some days found him to be a functioning member of our company and other days found him with a serious short circuit. I think the title of the movie, What about Bob? was kind of fitting. He did so many things his own way that I even dedicated a blog post to him in my old blog a couple years ago. Bob was fun in a unique kind of way. I sorta miss him.

There are, of course, characters I have not mentioned here. Stay tuned...

Not Politically Correct

It was right after lunch.  A few guys were still milling around here and there, talking before returning to work.  Jim Minor was talking to somebody, Bruce was visiting and was talking to TJ, and Marc was lurking in front of me waiting for me to issue some bushings to a job he was working on.

Suddenly, a rhythmic beeping started--faintly-- like the back up alarm on somebody's delivery truck that was backing up to the door outside. I turned my head, trying to figure out what and where it was coming from. Marc did too.

"What's that?" asked as I turned my head around.  Marc did the same.

Just then Jim Minor answered his cell phone and the beeping stopped.

"Oh, it's Jim backing up." I said, trying to stay serious.

Marc lost it. Being the funny guy he is, it takes a pretty good crack at just the right time to impress him, but I nailed it that time.  He laughed and laughed.

You had to be there I guess.