Adverse working conditions

As some of you might know from reading some of my previous posts (mostly in archives by now), I work for a manufacturing company that makes medical implant devices. I work with heavy machinery and plastic polymers, which get heated up and molded into many variouos devices, depending on which customer we're making product for.

Our main and major customer hasn't been placing as many orders so far this year as they did in 2005, so work has been slow for some of us and for myself occasionally. We have many r&d projects that we're working on, which have great long term potential and possible large financial impact on the company's bottom line. In the short term, however it seems like were on a holding pattern. Nothing to do for days at a time and then at the snap of a finger, 50 projects that need to be done and shipped yesterday.

One of my main responsibilities, along with my partner J, is to disassemble, clean and reassemble the parts of the machine that actually handle the molten plastic. Cleaning these parts takes time and involves a lot of fine detail work. Cleaning, polishing and polishing some more, until the original shine is restored (or as close as we can get to it). Cleaning the parts until they not only shine, but are particle free. Particles left over are bad because it is these particles that usually find their way into the parts that are being made.

Well, on Thursday this week, J was out and I was on my own. The workshop where the cleaning takes place is in the same area where the loading dock is. The temperature of this room is directly related to the air temperature outside and in the room where all of the raw material we use is stored, since they are on the same air line (or someting like that). Which means that this room is much cooler than the rest of the building is. This is real nice in the summer when the weather outside is hot, but in the winter this is not a good thing. The good part of working in the workshop is that I can play the radio loud, so I can hear it over the hum of the other machines in the room.

You also should know from reading here that I am not a fan of being cold, at all. Thursday was a real challenge for me in that the workshop area started the day being a crisp 49 degrees Farenheit. During the course of the day, the temperature only rose 3 degrees. And I needed to be in there cleaning stuff all day. What made it worse was that I needed to sit at a table right below the vent, which constantly was spewing cold air at me. So I took a few unscheduled breaks throughout the day to wander around in the warmer sections of the building.

I did have a sweater on underneath my work sweater but due to the detailed work I was doing, I was only able to wear thin plastic disposable gloves. Those gloves are really only useful to keep my hands from getting dirty. It would be hard to keep these parts clean if I was constantly handling them with dirty hands.

Today was moderately better, as the temperature in the workshop started out at 54 degrees Farenheit and during the day rose to 62. I did have on an additional layer to help keep myself warm, assuming that it would be just as cold in the workshop today as it was yesterday.

As with everything else at my company, these things run in cycles. Either everything is clean and ready for use or every piece of equipment in the building is on the queue waiting to be cleaned.

Despite the chilly temperatures inside the workshop, I'd rather be busy than trying to find stuff to do. Being busy means the day goes by faster.