Og, Save Me From The Asshats

The BBQ Pit
1

You know, I’m really tempted to sell everything I own, and use the money to commit unspeakable acts involving WMDs and general humanity. No, really. To give you an idea of how bad things at work are, even Pete Puma is talking about going postal because of all the stupidity. Which can only mean one of two things: 1.) I’ve suffered some kind of brain damage and am now as dumb as Pete Puma or 2.) The stupidity at work has risen to such levels that even a halfwit like Pete Puma can see it. Given the fact that I’m still able to operate a computer, I’d say that it was number 2 (though I am concerned that the idiocy will soon reach critical mass and begin sucking in all intelligent thought, thus causing me irreversable brain damage). It’s certainly starting affect others around me.

I should have known what was coming yesterday, though. As I was walking out, the wax room supervisor flagged me down and said that there was a problem with the striker die. This is one of the most expensive dies we have, and it’s for the contract which is a make or break us for the company. It’s also the die we’ve had the most problems with. The part’s a damn complicated shape, so there’s not really a good way to make the die, and hunks of wax tend to get caught up in the die. Someone usually tries to solve this by digging into the die with an iron hook. The die, of course, is made out of aluminum, so this means that the die gets scarred up and the wax has an even greater tendency to stick. The last time someone tore the die up, it took two days to get it back in working order. Mind you, we’re over three weeks behind in shipping completed parts to the customer.

I do my best to get the wax out of the die with a wooden stick, but don’t have very much luck in getting it out. So, I start dismantling part of the die. I really don’t want to do this because of the complicated nature of the die, plus I’ll have to pull the die off the machine and the die weighs nearly 50 pounds, which isn’t all that much, but it’s damned awkward to deal with because of the shape. Finally, I say the hell with it, go back to the shop, grab a blow torch, go back to the wax room, and spend the next five minutes burning the wax out of the die. I then explain to the wax room supervisor that they need to clean the hell out of the die, and if it screws up on them, to yank the die and put it in the machine shop so the die maker can work on it in the morning.

This morning, when I get to work, I explain to the die maker what I did. He then tells me that I shouldn’t do that, not because the heat from the blow torch could distort the die, but because the wax could run down into parts of the die, resolidify and gum up the works. [Scooby] Bwuh? [/Scooby] The wax is normally injected under high pressure into the die. I was melting the wax with a blow torch and allowing it to flow out of the die cavity under normal atmospheric pressure. If it couldn’t get into the crannies under pressure, then how the hell is it going to get into those crannies when I’m heating it up? (And I touched the die seconds after melting out the wax and it wasn’t even warm.)

The die maker then begins to tell me what he thinks needs to be done to keep the die from gumming up, but state’s that he can’t do it. Why? Not because we lack the gear, but because the die maker doesn’t know the software well enough to program the CNC machine to do it. Bullshit. I’ve barely taken a stab at learning the software, but I know that in order to be able to do anything with the fucking software, you have to know how to do what the die maker says he doesn’t know how to do. Which means that he just doesn’t want to fuck with it, since I’ve seen him use the software to make some of our other dies. I’m not going to argue the point, since it’ll get me nowhere. I don’t even want to get into some of his other comments about reworking the die.

Mind you, one of the reasons why we’re so screwed on this order is becaue of one of Braaaad’s bright ideas to add extra stock to the casting. You see, we were having problems the castings not filling completely and warping. Now, warpage is normal for lost wax castings to some degree, and missfills can generally be corrected by changing the gate location. But Braaaad has the “perfect” solution: Rework the die to add stock to the part in the areas where the warping and lack of filling is occuring, then we’ll be able to machine it all off, and not have to worry about pounding the parts back into shape, since we’ll be machining the warp out of it. Oh, yeah, that works. :rolleyes:

What we’ve ended up with are parts that need additional machining, as well as having to be straightened, and roughly the same number of scrap parts due to underfilling. So given that they were so stupid as to make expensive changes to the die without doing some sample parts to see if those would work, once they’ve discovered that their idea doesn’t work, what do you think they did? If you said, sent the die out to have all those changes reversed, you’d be wrong. No, they’ve subcontracted some of the machining to a shop in another fucking state! The guy who owns that machine shop is the guy who taught Pete Puma everything he knows. 'Nuff said.

Of course, those idiots can’t machine the parts right, so we’ve got to rework the parts they’ve done that aren’t scrap, while we machine our own portion of the parts. Mind you, it’s taking myself, Pete Puma, and the die maker working 50 hours a week just to get all the parts for this one customer machined. We can’t even touch the parts needed by our other customers, since all our time and machines are tied up working on this one customer’s order. (Gotta wonder when our other customers are going to tell us to get bent.)

2

Naturally, enough, the owner is constantly coming into the shop to see what’s taking us so long. Nevermind the fact that it’s not our fault that the goddamned parts need so much work done to them, or that we’re running them as fast as we can, or that because of various equipment problems in the foundry (many of them due to one of Braaaad’s bright ideas) we’re having trouble getting the parts into the shop to be machined. Nope, we’ve still got the owner shoving his nose up our asses demanding to know what the hold up is.

Of course, at least they’ve ended the torture of us having to endure the “time management” course they made us take last month. (This course consisted of us watching a Powerpoint presentation while the plant manager admitted that our problems with us getting product out were primarily management’s fault.) They’ll make up for it next week when they start the “Quality Training Classes.” I considered performing seppuku during the classes as a form of protest, but I figured that they’d miss the point.

Then, while I’m running one of the machines, the staff metallurgist and quality manager (AKA Halfwit the Magnificent) comes in and begins looking over some parts that have been rejected by one of our customers. Like everything else we make, the die for these parts is wrong, so in order for the parts to be right for machining, they have to be welded up. This involves putting a quarter inch thick weld bead across the bottom of the part, which is about four inches square. All that heat distorts the parts, which threw them out of spec. Naturally nobody bothered to check for this before the parts were sent out.

Halfwit spent a good half hour, trying to figure out where and why the parts were out of spec. Given that the customer gave him the necessary info on what the problem was, it shouldn’t have taken more than a couple of seconds to verify that was correct or not. Then again, I guess I’m expecting too much from a metallurgist who thinks that you can stick a copper pipe into a vat of molten aluminum with no problems. :rolleyes:

Shortly after this, Braaaaad comes in and says that there’s yet another problem with the striker die, and they’ll be bringing it in in a few minutes for the die maker to work on. This sends the die maker into a tissy, since he doesn’t want to fix the die, and he has to leave early to go to a funeral. Maybe. I’ve learned to trust very little of what the die maker tells me anymore. I wouldn’t put it past him to randomly cut an obit out of the paper and say that it was someone he knew, just so he could have the afternoon off.

I haven’t mentioned yet that one of the operations we have to do the parts is rapidly beating one of the milling machines into scrap. The owner can’t seem to grasp that it’s a problem, but everyone else in the shop knows that it’s only a matter of time before the machine’s useless.

Personally, I’m getting sick of all the bitching that’s going on. The employees (all of them outside of management) are bitching that the company’s going down the tubes, while management is bitching that we’re not getting enough product out the door. Management, of course, refuses to fire the employees that are known deadbeats or are flat out incompetent, while the employees are tired of management’s impossible demands.

Me? I’m trying to cling to the few shreds of sanity I have left by using my free moments to sketch out ideas for what I’m going to do to the Chrysler whenever I can scrape up enough money (approximately three millenia after Hell freezes over at my current income level). Mind you, this isn’t impacting on my productivity at all, since I’m doing this while the CNC machine runs it’s cycle. Not that the owner cares when catches me at it. He bitches me out, then goes over and bitches Pete out. To my surprise, Pete gives the owner an “eat shit and die” look, and goes back to work. After the owner leaves, Pete mutters something about needing to “take out the jerks in the front office.”

Shortly, after this, Braaaaad comes in and suggests to Pete that it might be a good idea for us to take staggered breaks, so that we’ve constantly got a machine running. We’ve been doing this for over a week now, which Pete duly informs Braaaaad of, in one of the snarkiest tones I’ve ever heard Pete use. A few minutes later, when Pete is loudly mocking Braaaaad, not realizing that Braaaaad is still in the shop, busily pouring over a blueprint he no doubt can’t read, I gesticulate to warn Pete that Braaaaad (who’s kid looks like [http://www.toonopedia.com/beaky.htm”]Beaky](”[url) Buzzard, BTW) is still in the shop. Until today, I would have egged Pete on, in hopes that Braaaaad would hear him and fire him. Given Pete’s rants earlier about how stupid everyone in management was being (I did mention that, didn’t I? I can’t recall. Too much booze. Anyway, it was Pit worthy in it’s brilliance.), I figured that I’d give him the head’s up.

There’s more, of course, but this damn thing’s long enough already, and I’ve got to work on my resume.

3

I’m about to start hour eleven of my twelve hour shift doing absolutely fucking nothing useful. Having read the OP, I feel much better about that.

Best of luck to you, Tuckerfan. Sounds like you need it.

4

I have not read this entire thread yet, but I did just finish your last thread and I’m too impatient to read the rest before I say this. We work in the same industry! :slight_smile: I work in Atlanta. If I hear about anything in TN I’ll let you know. We have a lot of customers in TN.

5

Fellow machinist here with a question about management. Have they ever run a machine? Keep that in mind when you go interview for the next job. On one hand you can’t bullshit a boss like that, but they do understand some of the real problems. Like overtaxing a mill and why the rework is sometimes harder than doing it from scratch.

Cheers.

6

Nope, but it really doesn’t matter, since the owner does have experience running the furnace, yet he still orders the operator to push the furnace to it’s limits and then wonders why it breaks down all the time (here’s a hint: no preventative maintence).
Jaade, thanks. My email’s in my profile.