The trouble with my job:

I work in the powdered metal industry. For those of you unfamiliar with the business, we take various metal powders(duh) and put them into big compacting machines which then compress the powder with several tons of force into the shape of a part. Disc shaped washers, small gears, threaded hex nuts, and countless other little metal doohickeys that you use all the time without even knowing it are all commonly made in factories just like the one I work in.

The next part of the process in making powdered metal parts is called sintering. This is simply sending the parts through a large furnace at temperatures varying from 1500 to 2100 degrees Fahrenheit, allowing the metal particles to bond together, and make a finished part. This is where I come in. My job is to load the parts into the furnace and unload them when they are coming out of the back, as well as checking key dimensions on the parts after sintering is complete. More or less, here is the entirety of a standard workday running parts made of iron powder via bad drawings:

Step 1: Blow loose powder off of parts.

Step 2: Slide parts from tray to furnace belt.

Step 3: Wait.

Step 4: Repeat steps 1-3 for fifty minutes

Step 5: Walk sixty feet to the other end of the furnace.

Step 6: Fill out part inspection sheet.


And then you get to repeat steps one thru six FOR TEN HOURS! WHOO PARTY CENTRAL!

Then there are two very special types of orders that I absolutely loathe to run: Stainless steel parts, and infiltrated parts. Both of these are pretty similar to running standard iron parts, but with a couple of exceptions that make them absolutely infuriating.

When sintering parts made of stainless steel, you have to use these stupid metal foil trays, otherwise the parts become contaminated and turn a lovely shade of green. Personally, I prefer them that way, but the customers buying the parts have a slightly differing opinion. Yet even when you use the trays that are supposed to prevent the discoloration of the parts, half the time the ones near the edge of the tray still end up with contaminants and even if that doesn't happen, this weird crusty gunk(I believe it is all the contaminants that get burned out of iron based parts) can fall onto the parts and ruin them anyway. Like I said, infuriating. And to top it all off, the trays smell awful when they come out of the furnace. As soon as you dump the parts out of the tray and into a barrel, your nose becomes the victim of a terrible tragedy. It's like someone took a shit in a pot of brackish coffee and then shot it up your nostrils with a turkey baster.

As if this wasn't enough to make me despise stainless steel, if any oxygen touches the parts while they are being sintered they are ruined. The brilliant solution to this problem is to pump a bunch of excess hydrogen into the furnace, which then catches fire. Fire, as you should know, needs oxygen to burn. So, no oxygen even stands a chance of touching the parts while they are being sintered. However, side effects may include loss of eyebrows, third degree burns, and drowning in your own sweat as the furnace belches fire at you all day long.

Infiltrated parts are not nearly as exciting as they sound. There is no espionage involved(I know, I was really disappointed too). What actually happens is you melt a set amount of copper into the part. This copper fills the gaps between particles, making them stronger. But of course, there's a catch. You have to put the parts on carbon plates, because if you don't, the copper will go right through them and melt into the furnace belt. I am not sure of the ramifications of this and even though I hate my job, it's not worth losing to such a stupid experiment. Additionally, the parts are not allowed to touch each other, unless of course you want a cluster of forty gears that will never, ever, EVER come apart.

And of course, the same unholy stench from the stainless steel trays radiates off of the carbon plates after they are run through the furnace, albeit to a lesser extent. But my absolute favorite part about running infiltration is the way the copper residue has to be scrubbed off of the part. Not only is this time consuming and very irritating, but the residue turns my sweat a color that somehow evokes Baja Blast Mountain Dew, snot, and piss all at the same time. I tried to draw something in MS Paint to illustrate this point, but there just is no way to find the proper color. I will have to obtain photographic evidence in order to make anyone understand.

Of course, there are lots of other, small things that bother me just like I'm sure everyone has little pet peeves in the workplace that drive them up the wall. And had I not been subjected to both of these atrocious tasks multiple times this past work week, I probably would not have written this at all. But as it is, I am in the market for a new job. Anything has to be better than this.

Well, almost anything....