3534 of Plant 1

So, it seems it's been a while since I've updated this... and I feel I probably should. Just got home from the factory (got paid fifteen minutes overtime... holy smokes!), and I'm not really tired, but not really awake either. I slept for a good part of yesterday before scurrying off to school, and then I got a little more sleep over at Nixie's before she had to run off to work at Timmy Horton's, so I'm fairly rested at this point.
I got to run two machines consecutively last night; number four and number five. Number four is a machine that makes lenses for some sort of doo-dad that they make on number six (I was talking to the woman who operates that machine, and she has no idea what the thing is, either), and number five works hard spittin' out a shit-ton of puddle lamps for me to sort into lefts and rights. I'm always uneasy when it comes to running two machines at once, as I don't do it very often (though it pretty much guarantees my machine won't break down and send me off to the grinders for the fourth night in a row), so I was understandably frustrated when it seemed like number five kept getting backed up while I was attempting to keep number four going steady.
Neither of the machines can really be run on their own by separate operators, however. Number four moves wayyy too slow and you can get way ahead of it in a matter of minutes, and while number five is considerably faster, the amount of work involved with inspecting the parts is considerably less, and so you'll just end up waiting for parts to build up. To a person who hasn't run them before, however, they don't seem to compliment each other very well; too slow to run separate, but too fast to be together unless the person knows how to time things.
So, by this morning I had them both pretty well caught up and was waiting for parts on both of them. I've also determined that none of the "specialty" cutting tools designed to cleanly cut clear plastic are worth the material they're made of. The press on number two cuts about once every ninety tries, and the heated clippers on four take forever to melt through the plastic (though they are damned hot... I'd know), so I dunno why they haven't replaced them with something better (probably the same reason the grinder drawers are repaired with packing tape and not welded).
I've also been informed by just about every material handler there is that a person does not want to be a material handler. I've also learned that it's possible to add "fsckin'" to the beginning of pretty much every word in a sentence, as evidenced by a co-worker doing so during lunch break.
Lastly, Khira's looking into getting a job as an operator on the same shift as me... lookie what you get to look forward to.

xD