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Friday was a full day at work. This is the yearbook crunch and I operate the big machine for second shift.

For the purpose of yearbook season, my machine has five sections:

• The book block feeder at the beginning – run by a helper – which feeds the sewn insides of the books into the. system.
• The endsheet section – which feeds in the endsheets and glues them to either side of hardcover book blocks. This functions as nothing more than a delivery channel for soft cover jobs.
• The binder, itself. This is big. Infeed, milling (for commercial work mostly), glue pots, crash feed (for hardcover), cover feeder (for soft cover), and the back side is mostly just a delivery channel that drops the books out of the binder.
• The conveyor system. This is the long and winding road. It holds about 165 books when full. A book leaving the binder takes about three to five minutes to reach its destination. It ramps up from the binder and loops around over head and twists and turns and comes back down over by the last section…
• The trimmer. A three knife trimmer. Vicious. I arrived last season a bit after someone lost a fingertip to the face blade. Gruesome. Serious business. And I change the blades more often than anyone else.

This is my machine.

Tonight, as soon as I fired it up, I heard an odd noise from the endsheet section. Odd noises are rarely a good thing coming from my machine. A nice, rhythmic thumpa-thumpa thumpa-thump. Half hour later, no ideas. I discussed it with my lead and told him I couldn’t give him anything unless something broke more. He agreed and told me to run.

I did for about an hour.

Then the thumpa-thump became a constant grind… eeeeeeaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr….

Ugh.

*emergency stop*

Anyone know about timing belts?

I know a lot more now. I had never even seen below the book channel in that part of my machine. My lead and plant manager were nervous about cutting the old belt from the gears, but I assured them I read schematics well. I laid out the new belt, reaching throw access openings that did not fit my forearms…

Lots of muscle was needed around the backside to relieve the tension on the piston while I slipped the belt into place.

(Yes, I did that on purpose…)

I felt quite accomplished. I felt butch and manly and unstoppable.

At least, until I covered my mouth and *squeeeee*d like a Japanese schoolgirl!

Half the day shot, in the big seasonal numbers-crunch.

Ugh.

My helper and I managed to run twenty jobs.
Unbelievable.

I am glad I can offer congratulations to myself, because likely, tomorrow all I will hear is “what happened to the other ten we wanted…?”

*sigh*

Asshats are everywhere and Gryphon *squeeee*s like a girl, but yet it was a good day!

I am in late from work and start an earlier shift by an hour tomorrow.

I am frustrated and underwhelmed by my job. I want to be seasonal again. I want to be laid off. I want to be treated like I have value and merit.
I want the first shift management to burn in f*cking hell.

All that withstanding, I came home and checked my bank account… Big paycheck, tax refund… and now the economic stimulus check has shown up.Ugh.

I do not want to be a mindless consumer…
Ugh.

The camera has been on the list. Got it.
The new mattress must come next… my shoulder is hurting again, my fingers keep going numb…

Perhaps, I can buy the materials and finish the private shower in the studio. That would be a beautiful convenience for my life…

Ugh.
Mindless consumer…