Neanderpundit

A relaxing weekend of… climbing all over machines.

Well, at least these are people I like and I’m helping them get their automation system online.

Another service report.

5.14.1996
Visited **** *. ****** today with C.O. (Salesperson for that account). manufacturer of machine, contrary to spec, made fixtures with non standard components requiring custom fabrication of each replacement item. Customer less than pleased. All the hydraulic seals in the system are incompatible with the hydraulic fluid in use and are failing at an alarming rate. Three entire new machines have had to be dismantled and custom sized lathe turned O rings have had to be made to accommodate the immiscible fluids. The process is tedious and difficult, the VITON is immersed in liquid nitrogen and clamped in a lathe and the O rings are turned from solids while the material is rigid. Only two orings can be made at a time before the material warms up enough to be impossible to cut.

K. S. still works here (An old girlfriend) and is the operator on one of the actual machines. When she knows nobody else can see she lifts her shirt and exposes her breasts. She is a malformed creature, having nipples which, when erect, are an inch and three eighths long. Currently she has them pulled through one of the unused, wrong material O rings which have been discarded. I expect she intends to use this action to embarrass me or arouse me, but I remember why we broke up, and though looking at breasts is nice, I prefer to do so when I can do more than look. C.O. is oblivious to this other than the evidence of a growing bulge in my jeans. She believes it is because of her presence and does her best to make me feel as if it is OK, and I haven’t the heart to tell her that I am no more interested in her than the leather seats in her car.

German representative of the machine tool builder arrives mid afternoon and catches K.S. baring her breasts at me, and asks if this is a uniquely American custom. I assure him that it is not.

have forever. But nobody reads them which is a shame. I send an AAR in an email which everyone relies on, and since I know nobody will ever open a service report (Haven’t in twenty years)

So it’s sometimes a shame that not one human being ever claps eyes on this, which was my service report for one day this week.

Arrived at *** 8:30 AM. Surly lesbian security guard, Jabba the What, put me through standard rigamarole as if she had clapped eyes on me for the very first time, though I have been coming to this facility to do work off and on since 1993. C.B. (customer) greeted me as though I had never been to the facility before, giving me the standard lecture about the working rules as if I hadn’t heard it a hundred and fifty times before. He then led me to the machines as if I hadn’t actually installed them myself and pointed out which ones I would be working on as if they hadn’t been the source of my nightmares for nearly these last five years.

I am morose. I have disassembled and reassembled these same two machines four times now and there is no end in sight. They need to be completely overhauled, and have made millions of parts with nearly no maintenance. To expect them to react well with new high pressure systems is a clear case of new wine in old skins. I have detailed the precise actions required to resolve this issue and have been ignored. And here I am again with the same people doing the same thing to the same machines expecting a different result.

I have prayed for a meteorite strike. A poacher’s stray bullet, a gas leak in a hotel room. So far, nothing. Today an employee of ***, having seen my struggle, leads me to a secret stash where he has secreted the parts I need to do the work the way I know it needs to be done. We install the parts in one machine and it begins to function properly immediately.

C.B. says “See? We figured you’d get it right eventually. We’re only paying for the service call where you actually fixed the machine” oblivious to the fact that I did what he told me would never work.

Never become good at something loathesome, you will be called upon to do it the rest of your life.