A Work Conversation

While at work today, outside my windows (which were behind me), the skies were opening up and unleashing a torrential rainstorm which some of you may have read about or seen on TV. At about 11:30AM, one of my coworkers poked his head in my office.

D: Hey Steve...have you looked outside?
Me: Yeah, it's raining like crazy. Sideways, last time I looked.
D: Did you see your car?
Me: No, why?
D: Take a look. You might want to do something about that.

I turned around and looked out the window. Unable to see anything, I stood and walked to the window, and spread open the blinds so that I could see better, as the rain was obscuring everything. Letting my eyes focus, I could make out my car. Unfortunately, I couldn't make out the asphalt on which it was parked, as it was completely surrounded by a rapidly growing lake.



I realize to some it may seem like another crappy Blackberry photo (taken with a coworker's phone), but it was raining so unbelievably hard, getting it in focus was impossible with a camera phone. What you can't see is the water going up to the bottom of my door. I quickly ran across the parking lot to get in and move it. The water was above my ankles, and while running, it completely soaked my pants above the knees. I didn't bother with an umbrella, as it would only slow me down.

I jumped in, started it, and put it into gear. And it wouldn't move. I gunned it, and I could feel the wheels turning very slowly. I began to panic, until I realized I had, for reasons unknown, put on the parking brake that morning (something I never do unless parking on a hill). I disengaged it and moved across the lot, where it was higher. It was then that I saw the nearby storm drain had obviously clogged up, creating a dam. The warehouse manager parked next to the drain, and the water was above the lower rim of the door, and water got inside his car.

My initial plan was to go home at lunch and change into dry clothes (less than 8 miles away). Unfortunately, every road to get home was closed due to flooding. It was certainly nothing like the Mississippi Valley in 1993, or the Brisbane floods of 1974, but for the Atlanta area, this was pretty damn bad. After 2 miles, I turned around and went back to the office, hoping matters would improve later. On the way back, another two coworkers called me. They had gone out for lunch, drove down the road past a Wal-Mart, and drove through what they thought was a puddle, only to find the water was halfway up their door, and they got flooded out. By the time I got there to pick them up, they got the car pulled out, and the local tire place stuck cones in front of the puddle to block it. Another car came zooming down the road, promptly drove around the cones, and then buried their car in over three feet of water. Clearly, a flooded road with cones in front of it was not enough to stop that dumbass.

My car, thankfully, is dry. It took me 90 minutes to get home, as there was only one road open that could get me there. All of the schools in the county are closed tomorrow, so that kids don't get stranded at schools (unlike today). I'm considering risking the drive in to work, down flooded roads, in order to avoid working from home with a 10 year old and 4 year old with chronic cabin fever.

An Actual (Business) Conversation

I sell industrial piping equipment, particularly for the power generation industry. It's actually more exciting than it sounds, because I talk to people all over the world, and every day there's a new challenge.

Yesterday's challenge was a discussion with a project manager (PM), of Asian background, who wanted to know if one of my products would work in service conditions of 450 degrees Celsius. This equates to 842 degrees Fahrenheit. Unfortunately, the product he was buying (sorry, I should say bought....we shipped it last week, and he chose now to see if it will work with that temperature) was made out of cast carbon steel, which has a limit of 800 degrees Fahrenheit.

On top of that, this guy's math was really bad, he was basically asking if it was that big a deal if there was only a 22 degree difference (he thought it was 822 degrees...it took me time to convince him that the website worldwidemetric.com is never wrong). Unfortunately, carbon steel, when exposed to temperatures over 800 degrees, undergoes a chemical process called "graphitization." Basically, it breaks down. We had the following exchange of words on the phone:

PM: Is it that big a deal that it’s only 40 degrees higher then the limit?
Me: Yes. You have temperature limits for a reason.
PM: What will happen?
Me: Catastrophic failure.
PM: (pause) OK…...
Me: That’s not a good thing.
PM: But it will only see that temperature occasionally.
Me: If you use this item at that temp, the warranty is voided.
PM: Oh. OK. What can you sell me that will work with this temperature?
Me: (fights urge to rub hands together and say, in a C. Montgomery Burns voice, "excellent"): I'll have to get back to you.

It scares me that me and my 4 years of a Political Science degree have more knowledge than a guy with a 5 year engineering degree.

Ooohh, Visitors!

There is an ISO quality audit going on in my office today (thankfully, not one that involves me.....those here who've been through such an audit know how lucky I am). Because there are out of town visitors, the operations manager decided that breakroom food was necessary.

Of course, it goes without saying the food was for those involved in the audit that were here at 7AM.

Of course, it goes without saying that while the auditor and those he was auditing were in the conference room with the door closed, I stuffed an entire section of cheese coffeecake into my mouth while making coffee.

It also goes without saying that of the two dozen Dunkin Donuts munchkins (donut holes, for those not familiar with the term) purchased for the occasion, NOT A DAMN ONE was jelly-filled. They were just the dry, hard-to-swallow cinnamon and white powdered sugar varieties.

Amazingly, the auditor (who strikes a close resemblance to the guy in Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life" to the guy whose downfall was the "wafer thin mint", or Fat Bastard with glasses) did not appear to be covered in powered sugar. I would've thought otherwise.

An Actual Work Email

My company's Quality Control manager sent me the following email:

QC Mgr: On Thursday Feb. 5th, I am leaving for China for 10 days. At this time, I will have access to my emails but due to the time difference, I will not be able to respond in a timely manner. Can you keep an eye on any service notices that come in, and respond accordingly?

My response (always the team player): Will do. Have fun. Stay out of the brothels.

QC Mgr: Thanks

I never claimed to be "professional." But I am "helpful."

Breakroom Noises

The dishwasher in the breakroom is running right now, and it's making a noise of a volume and rhythm that I haven't heard since college. Two dishes are in it (because our ops manager constantly uses the breakroom oven to make her sloshy lasagna, and someone's birthday was yesterday, so there are forks and plates in there), and these dishes are clanking together, in a RRR-CLANK-RRR-CLANK-RRR-CLANK-RRR-CLANK rhythmic sound.

It can best be described as what it would likely sound like if two people were having sex for half an hour on top of an airplane drink cart.

The reason it took me back to college was because all of the bedrooms in the fraternity house in which I lived had metal bunk beds (which we called "racks,") and it was very obvious when two people were engaging in marathon-style sex (usually because both were too drunk to be able to finish the drill), because you'd hear the creaking of metal on metal as the top bunk swayed from the motion.

The rooms were also a cinder-block design, and if the bed was close enough to the wall, not only would the bed sway and creak, but it would also clang into the wall, thus making a RRR-CLANK-RRR-CLANK sound. This was even more likely to happen if the couple doing the nasty was on the top bunk, causing it to sway even more. This was the soundtrack to my sophomore year, as the guy living in the next room over would bring his girlfriend to the house, close the door, and the sounds of .38 Special would waft through the walls, followed by RRR-CLANK-RRR-CLANK. Why he always picked .38 Special as his sex music, I'll never know. He never listened to it any other time, so when we heard it, we knew that Scott was gettin' some.

So that was my morning, an odd sound taking me back to my college days of hearing people having sex.

A Visit From the Corporate Masters

Today, the CEO, VP of Operations, VP of Sales, and 2 other people with "titles" after their names on their business cards are coming into our branch office, undoubtedly to make the operations manager of this branch stutter and shake even more than she normally does.

On Friday, we were sent an email telling us that lunch will be served in today, so no need to bring a lunch or go out for lunch (assuming we wanted a free lunch...we are welcome to go out and pay for it if we so choose).

I see that today, the break room fridge is full of a pan of lasagna, a large bowl of salad, and there is homemade bread on a sideboard table in the breakroom. I'm not sure if this is extreme "kissing up" to the bosses, by making lunch, or extreme "cost savings" by not having a large deli platter being brought in. Either way, I'm thinking back to November when she brought in a lasagna for a visitor from the Houston office, and she (the ops manager) described it as "sloshy" when inviting us to have some. Nothing says "bon apetite" like sloshy lasagna.

Of course, I had to call my boss in New Jersey (due to the division I'm in, I work for him, not the local ops manager) and told him what we're having for lunch. His wife is Italian, so he had a good laugh over this. He also told me he's taking these same corporate folks (who are visiting him tomorrow) to a very nice restaurant tomorrow night, and bringing in a large tray from a local deli tomorrow for lunch.

And we get free sloshy lasagna.

Awesome.