things i've recently learned at work...

jonathan showed me that i shouldn't complain about how busy i am...two weeks ago, i heard him say he's working 80 hrs a week (not terribly uncommon at the dana longview plant) and taking 22 hrs at the local community college. he's 40 and has a wife and some kids too...

frank is teaching me that i should be more cheerful...he's always having a good time and always has time to answer a question or help in any way he can. one of his new years' resolutions was to work less than 100 hrs a week. (i wish i was joking, but i'm not.) he's been partially successful. but he is always cheerful.

janet is teaching me that no matter how bored i am or how much the day has sucked, i should still find a way to enjoy myself...i would say she works on the most frustrating section of the assembly line - poa (maybe that stands for parts on assembly? i don't know...). it's at the end, so if any other part of the line goes down, poa stays late to compensate. over the 2-week shutdown, poa was completely changed around, which will make it much more efficent. that is, once they get the cinks worked out. since then, poa has averaged 12-hr days 6-7 days a week. yet i've never seen janet in a bad mood.

last week i was walking out to poa to check on the bar-code label printers and i noticed an operator clapping loudly and singing "halleluia" at the top of her lungs (which didn't actually seem so loud with the line and all of the machinery, etc. working.

at 6:30, my boss and i walked into the office stressing out about the huge amounts of documentation we needed to get completed today. somewhere in between the stress, we managed to have lots of laughs. my boss's new excuse for having blonde moments is that he is folically-impaired. it was so hillarious at the time, but it doesn't seem so now...

i promise that a longer (and better) post will be coming along shortly.

i checked out fox news over lunch today and noticed a headline with "letourneau" in it. then i read the rest of the headline...hopefully there's no relation to the school i currently attend.

in other news…dana corp had our 2nd fire in 1.5 weeks. that's right folks, i said fire. i heard we were even on the news... apparently a smoke collector caught on fire, which is the same problem we had last time. because of all the oil particles in the air, the filters on the collectors get really greasy. so it doesn't take much for a spark from a welder to ignite it.

up until a few months ago, we had so many false alarms (and things like mops catching fire) that the fire department always called us before coming. last time, they came but weren't even dressed. this time, we had an ambulance, 4 fire trucks, and 2 cops on motorcycles. a few reporters showed up as well (obviously…cause we were on the news) and tried to get quotes out of people. but they misquoted everyone so badly last time, that everyone was reluctant. they somehow suckered the plant manager into giving them some information.