Wherein I Plagiarize Allie Brosh:

I know I said I wasn't going to be whiny and bitchy on this blog, but right now I can't help it. I just experienced a sneaky hate spiral that has been building up for a couple days. A little back story is in order-Namely that a friend of mine is having some issues, another friend of mine is recovering from her fifty millionth surgery, and my sister is getting a divorce. I had a suspicion that it was only a matter of time before this happened. Personally I kind of wanted to celebrate, but I knew this was a tough decision for my sister so I kept my cheers in.

The real hate spiral started with me sweeping the floor before leaving work yesterday. I started to feel this awful pain in my left hand. When I looked down, I saw that I had either gotten a blister and popped it, or I had contracted ebola and my skin was sloughing off. It's in that perfect place that has to bend when I pick up anything at all.

Do you see that? That is not a happy wound.

Anyway, that sets the stage for today. I arrive at work to rumors that two of my coworkers were thinking of walking out on the job. This, of course, would mean plenty of extra work for those of us left until we could hire replacements. So with thoughts of sixty hour work weeks and my sister's divorce running through my head, and the occasional sharp jolt of pain from my thumb, I proceeded to go about my work day. Now, my father is the shop foreman. He knows most everything that goes on in that place, and has many gripes that I don't care to list, though I listen to them enough.

Today, he tells me that he is going to wait until his birthday, November 30th, to decide if he's going to keep working there or not. He has a much better job waiting for him, so I kinda want to smack him and tell him to quit tomorrow. But if he goes, I go. And despite how much I hate my job and the fact that you start out at a higher wage at the local gas station than I make, my job does have some perks. I am settled into a routine, and even if I don't like the routine, I have trouble with adjusting to changes. Further mental stress.

Then I come home after a ten hour work day to learn that my sister is thinking about not divorcing her husband. I would be relieved if he had changed and they had sorted out their problems,  but he hasn't. Mind you, just prior to the decision to split up, my brother in law had taken a job in Greenwood, Indiana. We live in central Pennsylvania. Mind you, it's really good money that he's making. It's just too fucking bad the dickhead never sent any of it to his family. They didn't have running water OR heat in their house for three fucking weeks. And he never sent them a dime, even though he had just taken this new job and a fat pay raise. He came home last weekend wearing a brand new outfit. This is the man she plans to get back with? Really? He spent money that could have saved your house from foreclosure going on a golf trip to North Carolina. When was that? Oh, that's right. On your wedding anniversary. For God's sake, sis, his initials are J.R.K. Do you see that? Cuz it spells jerk. I hate to say it, but I will lose a lot of faith in you if you stay with him.

And then, blinding rage and hatred for everything that ever existed. All the awful circumstances of the day crashed down on me in a wash of negative emotions. I may have broken some things. I don't really know. The spiral is winding down and I don't hate the world quite so much right now, but for a little while there, I was out of control.

Sorry for the lack of funny. Just needed to rant for a bit and none of my real life friends(Psh, as if I have any of those) were available.

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....