What a mess


by Jonah

I was excited Friday morning, thinking it was my last morning of having to get up before the sun. As I was leaving work that afternoon, I thought I’d better check with my new team leader to see what time I should come in on Monday. “Oh,” she said, “We’re not starting the new shift next week. But Barry says we’ll definitely start on the 28th.”

Maybe I just shouldn’t have asked and shown up at 10:30 on Monday. Since no one bothered to tell me.

My family is coming to visit next weekend, so I don’t know if the shift change time is good or bad. On the one hand, it would mean I would have more time to spend with them (if only three and a half hours). But what’s bothering me is that my boss is probably going to change his mind and say he absolutely needs me there on that Monday, the first day of the new shift, where those of us who signed up for this will finally find out what we’re actually going to be doing. And my family is planning to stay through that Monday, because that’s the day my boss said I could have off. ARGH!

Berck and I have been giving the apartment a thorough cleaning in preparation for the fam’s arrival. This means that I scrub and cleanse and Berck straightens. You would think that this division of labor would work perfectly, each of us operating in the areas of housekeeping we value most. But what happens is I get ticked off that the chocolate stain is still in the couch, and Berck goes on a rampage against my table, the only place in the world I’m allowed to just put stuff. I can never find anything for weeks after one of these episodes. Maybe one day we’ll learn to clean as a team.

Actual Fact: Archaeological records show that the Babylonians were making soap around 2800 B.C.

Posted in Nonclassified Nonsense, Warehouse Blues | 5 Comments

$1.97/gallon


by Berck

Yesterday, I got gas after coming back from the post office to mail something I’d sold on eBay. I was annoyed that it was a $1.97/gallon. I filled up Arthur, something I’ve gotten reasonably good at doing finally. If I just stop after the automatic shutoff, it’s anywhere between 1.5-2.5 gallons shy of full. Unfortunately, it’s really difficult to fill all the way up without getting gasoline everywhere. Which is why you have to actually pull the nozzle out and watch the level in the tank… much like filling up an airplane.

This morning was cloudy and rainy, but it’s been clearing up this afternoon. I was trying to decide whether to go for a drive in Arthur or ride my bike. I decided to ride the bike since gas is so expensive. When I came back about 45 minutes later, I smelled gasoline outside my apartment. It took me awhile to figure out…

See, gasoline has a very noticeable tendancy to vary its volume in response to temperature changes. Water, for instance, doesn’t do this. Gasoline does– something most people aren’t very aware of. Most pilots know this. If you fill an airplane on a hot day, it won’t take as much fuel as on a cold day. This is why when it matters, fuel is measured by weight. The CRJ-600s I rode around on as a flight attendant can hold aproximately 14,500lbs of fuel. But on a 110 degree day on the ramp at DFW, they’re never going to get 14,000lbs in it. That’s a significant amount of fuel. It’s not as significant when you’re talking about a Cessna 172 that can only hold 21.5 gallons of fuel in each tank. (Only 20 gallons per tank are usable)

Gasoline was slowly coming out from under Arthur’s fuel cap. Still, something didn’t make sense. It felt just as cold outside as it was when I filled up Arthur yesterday. Then it hit me. As Nathan is fond of pointing out, the gas tank is inside the cab. With the sun shining and the windows all sealed tight, it was plenty warm inside the cab and getting warmer.

So I went for a drive with the windows down after all… cooled it off and used some of that gasoline.

Posted in Automotive Frustrations | No Comments

Waiting around for Stage Check


by Berck

The weather’s been icky the past couple of days, which I’m sure isn’t helping. I need to study, but I haven’t done that today either.

I got a new flight instructor last week. After my current one had annoyed me to no end, and it didn’t seem like I was getting anywhere, I got another one. He thought my maneuvers were fine and signed me off for a stage check. I’m not sure which one of them was right, but I like the noises the second one makes a lot better:)

I did another grass strip landing at Chickasha on Wednesday. That was fun. There’s not a lot to it, although I did it with a tailwind, something I’ve never tried before. Only about 4 knots, but still, it’s amazing how much difference 4 knots can make on your tail. I forget exactly, but a tail wind increases your landing distance something like 4 times as much as a headwind decreases your distance. I’m also not exactly sure why that’s the case. But the end result is that landing with a tail wind is not recommended. But I’m glad I’ve done it, so now I know what it feels like. You just fly down the runway and float forever. And then to do that on grass as well…. There’s nothing like a real soft field landing to help work out your soft field technique.

The interesting thing about Chickasha these days is note on the AWOS. (Automated Weather Observation System). In Norman, there’s a computer voice reading out the weather and it updates every minute. At Chickasha, it’s not as automated… There’s a human reading the weather, it’s not updated as often, but they also include airport notes. Like this one. “Runway One Seven Three Five is Closed. Landing is on the Taxiway. It’s 35 feet wide.” Yay. I landed on it with a 16 gusting to 22 knot DIRECT crosswind. By direct, I mean that it was perpendicular to the “runway”. I’ve never landed in a crosswind like that, but it was fun. That’s a lot of crosswind. To put it in perspective for you: The maximum demonstrated safe crosswind component of a C-172 is, I think, 12 knots. All that means is that someone demonstrated that the plane can be landed with a 12 knot crosswind. Doesn’t make it can’t be done it more, just that all that’s every been demonstrated to the FAA is 12 knots. It’s generally a pretty conservative number. To make it better, I did on a 35 foot taxi way. Which means that there’s really no room to get blown off centerline, unless you want to land in the piles of dirt. And that would be bad.

I was so impressed with myself, that I decided to do it again. I landed to the north the first time, and then landed to the south another two times.

Anyway, now I’m signed off, so I’m waiting around for a stage check. If I pass, it’s on to learning to fly a “complex” airplane, which is only like 10-15 hours of flight.

I should be taking these bad weather days to study for my oral. Maybe I’ll do that today.

I’ve been feeling restless lately. This has been giving me strange ideas, which I may or may not execute. Mostly depends on whether or not Joanna is similarly inclined. I’ll just let you guys guess, since I don’t want everyone to try to talk me out of it if we do manage to do it.

Now I have to go complain to the apartment people that our garbage dispose-all is garbage.

Posted in Flying, Nonclassified Nonsense | 9 Comments

New Job…Description


by Jonah

At work we’re moving to another part of the warehouse. There are several companies sharing the warehouse with Mardel. Hobby Lobby is the largest company; it also is in a couple of other warehouses on the site. Our building also houses Greco, which makes picture frames, and Crafts Etc., which makes crafts. Actually, as near as I can tell, all the crafts are made in China, but they’re stored in our warehouse.

Greco is the oldest of the companies. One of the owners started Hobby Lobby to sell Greco’s frames. Greco is also the smallest of the companies, I think, but they’re still growing, and they needed more space. So they’re moving from one side of Mardel’s part of the warehouse, where they were boxed in, to our other side. Now we get to expand into their old area.

Our move is expected to take six months. We’re only moving a few aisles down, so it’ll be a job for forklifts and pallet jacks. But our boss is creating a whole new shift to do the moving. I volunteered for the new shift because it’s from 10:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. I’m currently leaving for work at 6:20 a.m., and I’m NOT a morning person.

Another advantage to the new shift is that it’ll be more interesting and involve more responsibility. I didn’t realize just how much responsibility until this week when I was informed that I would be taking over as the inventory empress’ chief slave. There are currently two people who do her bidding fulltime. Now I will apparently do ALL of it.

Ever since I started working at Mardel’s warehouse, I envied the inventory slaves; they looked so official walking around with their clipboards, efficiently pulling out bin boxes to count what was inside. When you’re dragging a heavy cart around, pulling books as fast as you can, doing ANYTHING else looks preferable. I wonder if I’ll ever get to do that, I thought, watching Jerry or Brenda make notations and slapping blank, white stickers over location tags, effectively deleting that item from inventory. Oh, the power.

So all this week, Jerry and Brenda have been initiating me in the brotherhood of inventorying. I have learned how to perform the following tasks:

DOD’s (I still don’t know what that stands for…Dead On Delivery, I’ve imagined.)
Zeroes
Sell Downs
New Labels
Moved Items
Duplicate Items
Duplicate Locations

And Monday I’ll learn how to do Final Counts.

All of these tasks are simple enough, yet they are not entrusted to mere mortal in-checkers. One must answer to Laura, the Inventory Dictatress herself.

“Sell Downs” are when we discontinue an item. We had 37 pages to do today. “Zeroes” are checking every SKU (stock-keeping unit) that has gone to zero that week; it’s a quick and easy way of keeping up with inventory.

DOD’s are the most complicated. Whenever a puller needs an item that’s in a location that’s empty, they

1. Curse
2. Check their store order sheet to see how many of that item we’re supposed to have in stock
3. Curse again
4. Helplessly, scan for boxed top-stock in the six surrounding sections
5. Give up and scribble “TO” for “temporarily out” on the order sheet

That “TO” now goes to me. I have to figure out where the missing product went. Sometimes this is easier than others. If I’m lucky, the stupid puller was looking at the wrong location, and the product was there all along. If it’s more complicated, I have to go to the warehouse office, find the file for the particular purchase order from the vendor the last time we got that product in, make sure we actually got it, make sure the product was actually stocked, and then search all the locations of that vendor for my missing product. If I still can’t find it, I have to count all the product in the surrounding locations and turn it into Laura (in case the product was misstocked and already pulled and shipped). Whenever Laura deems I’ve sufficiently proven my loyalty and service to her, my search ends.

DOD’s will be my most common task. After every store has finished being pulled, the order sheets all go to the warehouse office, where they are adjusted and reprinted according to what was actually on the shelves. Next someone in the warehouse office calls over the intercom, “Jerry, DOD’s are ready; Jerry, DOD’s are ready.” And Jerry goes and fetches them. Since I’m working much later than Jerry or Brenda, I’LL be the one to get them, and they’ll say my name over the intercom. Ha ha!

Anyway, Laura is a demanding suzerain, but kind. As long as I serve her carefully and make occasional jokes, I will remain in her good favor. She seems to like me, for some reason.

Which is a good thing, because she’s in charge of the new moving shift.

Posted in Warehouse Blues | 4 Comments