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Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Work Day
Moriveth
BREAKDOWN BREAKDOWNBREAKDOWN BREAKDOWNRegistered User regular
BREAKDOWN BREAKDOWNBREAKDOWN BREAKDOWNRegistered User regular
So, I had a pretty terrible day at work today!
Wait, I'll explain. Don't close the thread yet.
Today started out like any other Saturday. Woke up late, at about noon, just thought that I had to be in Compton soon. Wait, no, that's Eazy E's day.
Anyway, I did wake up around noon, and had an enjoyable afternoon chatting with Janson and Volyu while I played through some GTAIV. I finally beat The Snow Storm so I was feeling pretty good. Plus, hey, CruzPAX tomorrow, woo!
I work 5:30 PM to 1:30 AM Saturdays. I'm a platemaker, which means I make the plates that newspapers are printed off of. If you didn't know, yes, they still use printing presses. I'm surprised at the number of people who thought they were direct to print.
Anyway, I get in to work and am feeling pretty confident. Why? Because we've got our new CTP machines. CTP means Computer to Plate, and what that means is that we've eliminated an entire step of the platemaking process. Previously they'd have to send the image to a film processor, which would spit out an image of the page on a piece of film which we would then expose on a photosensitive plate.
However, what CTP does is just directly laser the image onto a photosensitive plate, effectively cutting out five or so minutes from the platemaking process. While that doesn't seem like much, consider that we typically go through hundreds of pieces of film a night, and you realize that there's a lot of time saved - especially considering that color pages are actually four pieces of film (although they certainly come out a good deal faster once the machines start going).
The past few weeks we just had one CTP machine - we can't get all of them at once, because that would completely fuck up the process since the newspaper's a 24/7 operation. However, this week we got another one, which took significantly less time to set up and worked like a charm Thursday and Friday.
But this wouldn't be a very interesting bad workday story if everything was dandelions and butterflies, now would it? Enough talking shop, on with the horribleness!
I usually arrive pretty early so I can set things up. One of our CTP machines is black and white only, since the bender, which bends the plates into a position that the pressmen can easily put them on the press, is really shitty and only has pin set - meaning it puts three metal pins through pre-punched holes and bends it from there. This means it's difficult for pressmen to adjust for color, and since black and white isn't color last time I checked, we only use it for black and white. Regular color plates have little lines or targets on them that the bender will see with a camera and bend based on that. Shit, there I go talking shop again.
Anyway, I arrive about ten minutes early and set up, turn lights on, turn on machines, etc. I don't dare start processing plates because I don't want to overwhelm myself, you know?
Another guy arrives and begins processing plates through the new CTP unit, CTP-1, which we have been told to use for nearly every color page, which is a big fucking deal. It spits out two color plates... And that's it. It just sits there, error lights flashing and since there's no error message we have no idea what's wrong. But hey, the night's still young and since these things are significantly faster, we can easily make up for lost time.
About an hour and a half later we get it working again. Yay! We don't know how we did - just tried everything until something works - but who the fuck cares? Color plates, yay! The night is back on track and we recover swiftly. I go on my lunch around 9:30, take a nap in my car, and come back... And it's broken again.
What the fuck? Did it miss me so much it died or something? I hardly even use that thing, and I certainly can't make love to a cold, unfeeling piece of metal. At least not unless it's shaped like a hot lady. Shit, I've said too much.
Unfortunately, we can't get it working for long again. Every time we try we get the same flashing error light with no explanation. It spits out a couple more pages, but it's obvious we're screwed for the night.
That would be fucked enough. Believe me, I was angry enough that it was broken. But here's where the situation gets even more fucked. I would call it superfucked, in fact.
We still have film. That's good right?
Well, mostly. We have film, yes, but since we had to get rid of most of our film processors to make room for the CTP unit, we have two film processors left. And one is exceedingly fucking slow. The other one doesn't make color as well, but is faster. Guess which one we decide to use for color?
In addition to the now-film pages coming out slower than a turtle on downers taking a shit, we've got another problem. This stems from the fact that we only have one check-off sheet - prior to this week, we had two - one for the film coming through and one for when the plate was made. However, since we've converted to the Church of CTP, we only have one. Since we don't have a second, we begin writing the film times in on the check off sheet.
Not so bad, but the problem lies in that there are three people walking around making plates, and when they come to put them on the plate table they see "Oh, it's already been checked in. Guess I don't need these!"
So, there was a bit of confusion there. It took us forever to get our first runs out, even longer to get the second part, and the third part we had to make a fucking second set when we didn't even know what pages we had or didn't have because some were just in CTP and we didn't have film pages of motherfucking bullshit.
I usually get off around 1:30. Tonight I got out around 3:30. I've stayed longer, but at least then it was slower and we were just waiting for the pages for an additional run. Tonight was all work all the time. It was like the devil's penis was lodged six inches down my throat and he kept trying to shove it even deeper.
To illustrate this, god, the devil, or whatever almighty being hates me enough to keep shoveling shit into my apparently ever-hungry mouth, I decide to take a piss before finally leaving. And while checking my email on my phone, I drop it in the fucking urine-filled toilet and ruin the screen. That was a nice phone, too, and expensive.
Thanks, almighty dickwads! Now I have to buy a new phone, and I can't even tell Fallout, who's coming to my house tomorrow to drive to SC with me, because I didn't write down his fucking number! I realize that last part is my fault but I'm fucking blaming you anyway!
Oh well. The day's over and by the end of it, at least I got two hours of overtime.
So, SE++, the question I ask you is: What bad work days have you had?
TL;DR version:
Go to work
everything is fucked
things get fuckder
things get even more fucked
I drop my phone in a piss-filled toilet, ruining it
god hates me
Wait, I'll explain. Don't close the thread yet.
Today started out like any other Saturday. Woke up late, at about noon, just thought that I had to be in Compton soon. Wait, no, that's Eazy E's day.
Anyway, I did wake up around noon, and had an enjoyable afternoon chatting with Janson and Volyu while I played through some GTAIV. I finally beat The Snow Storm so I was feeling pretty good. Plus, hey, CruzPAX tomorrow, woo!
I work 5:30 PM to 1:30 AM Saturdays. I'm a platemaker, which means I make the plates that newspapers are printed off of. If you didn't know, yes, they still use printing presses. I'm surprised at the number of people who thought they were direct to print.
Anyway, I get in to work and am feeling pretty confident. Why? Because we've got our new CTP machines. CTP means Computer to Plate, and what that means is that we've eliminated an entire step of the platemaking process. Previously they'd have to send the image to a film processor, which would spit out an image of the page on a piece of film which we would then expose on a photosensitive plate.
However, what CTP does is just directly laser the image onto a photosensitive plate, effectively cutting out five or so minutes from the platemaking process. While that doesn't seem like much, consider that we typically go through hundreds of pieces of film a night, and you realize that there's a lot of time saved - especially considering that color pages are actually four pieces of film (although they certainly come out a good deal faster once the machines start going).
The past few weeks we just had one CTP machine - we can't get all of them at once, because that would completely fuck up the process since the newspaper's a 24/7 operation. However, this week we got another one, which took significantly less time to set up and worked like a charm Thursday and Friday.
But this wouldn't be a very interesting bad workday story if everything was dandelions and butterflies, now would it? Enough talking shop, on with the horribleness!
I usually arrive pretty early so I can set things up. One of our CTP machines is black and white only, since the bender, which bends the plates into a position that the pressmen can easily put them on the press, is really shitty and only has pin set - meaning it puts three metal pins through pre-punched holes and bends it from there. This means it's difficult for pressmen to adjust for color, and since black and white isn't color last time I checked, we only use it for black and white. Regular color plates have little lines or targets on them that the bender will see with a camera and bend based on that. Shit, there I go talking shop again.
Anyway, I arrive about ten minutes early and set up, turn lights on, turn on machines, etc. I don't dare start processing plates because I don't want to overwhelm myself, you know?
Another guy arrives and begins processing plates through the new CTP unit, CTP-1, which we have been told to use for nearly every color page, which is a big fucking deal. It spits out two color plates... And that's it. It just sits there, error lights flashing and since there's no error message we have no idea what's wrong. But hey, the night's still young and since these things are significantly faster, we can easily make up for lost time.
About an hour and a half later we get it working again. Yay! We don't know how we did - just tried everything until something works - but who the fuck cares? Color plates, yay! The night is back on track and we recover swiftly. I go on my lunch around 9:30, take a nap in my car, and come back... And it's broken again.
What the fuck? Did it miss me so much it died or something? I hardly even use that thing, and I certainly can't make love to a cold, unfeeling piece of metal. At least not unless it's shaped like a hot lady. Shit, I've said too much.
Unfortunately, we can't get it working for long again. Every time we try we get the same flashing error light with no explanation. It spits out a couple more pages, but it's obvious we're screwed for the night.
That would be fucked enough. Believe me, I was angry enough that it was broken. But here's where the situation gets even more fucked. I would call it superfucked, in fact.
We still have film. That's good right?
Well, mostly. We have film, yes, but since we had to get rid of most of our film processors to make room for the CTP unit, we have two film processors left. And one is exceedingly fucking slow. The other one doesn't make color as well, but is faster. Guess which one we decide to use for color?
In addition to the now-film pages coming out slower than a turtle on downers taking a shit, we've got another problem. This stems from the fact that we only have one check-off sheet - prior to this week, we had two - one for the film coming through and one for when the plate was made. However, since we've converted to the Church of CTP, we only have one. Since we don't have a second, we begin writing the film times in on the check off sheet.
Not so bad, but the problem lies in that there are three people walking around making plates, and when they come to put them on the plate table they see "Oh, it's already been checked in. Guess I don't need these!"
So, there was a bit of confusion there. It took us forever to get our first runs out, even longer to get the second part, and the third part we had to make a fucking second set when we didn't even know what pages we had or didn't have because some were just in CTP and we didn't have film pages of motherfucking bullshit.
I usually get off around 1:30. Tonight I got out around 3:30. I've stayed longer, but at least then it was slower and we were just waiting for the pages for an additional run. Tonight was all work all the time. It was like the devil's penis was lodged six inches down my throat and he kept trying to shove it even deeper.
To illustrate this, god, the devil, or whatever almighty being hates me enough to keep shoveling shit into my apparently ever-hungry mouth, I decide to take a piss before finally leaving. And while checking my email on my phone, I drop it in the fucking urine-filled toilet and ruin the screen. That was a nice phone, too, and expensive.
Thanks, almighty dickwads! Now I have to buy a new phone, and I can't even tell Fallout, who's coming to my house tomorrow to drive to SC with me, because I didn't write down his fucking number! I realize that last part is my fault but I'm fucking blaming you anyway!
Oh well. The day's over and by the end of it, at least I got two hours of overtime.
So, SE++, the question I ask you is: What bad work days have you had?
TL;DR version:
Go to work
everything is fucked
things get fuckder
things get even more fucked
I drop my phone in a piss-filled toilet, ruining it
god hates me
Moriveth on
0
Posts
Today was the day I felt like that, yes.
1. I have never really had a bad work day
2. I am terribly ignorant about the manner in which newspapers are produced
I mean
I could've dropped it in a toilet filled with poop
are you offfering
i don't know man
I got some marijuana
but I don't do fellatio
get that pretty mouth ready
the phone made it all the worse
Seriously
that was like the cherry of sperm and blood atop a shit sundae
or something
Yeah, this kinda sums it up.
Yes but they convey the situations so well.
for the moment ill assume you slipped on some mustard and fell through a window
ouch man hope you arent hurt too bad
Well my name is Alexander
so that's why I picked it
also I loved that book when I was a kid
why i oughta!
damn dude that sucks
fortunately i just woke up, at like 4 AM for some god damn reason
pm incoming
I needed to delete some PMzzz
also shit I am going to have to get up in like five hours to go to Fry's to get a new phone
Guess I'll get the Fin, though
that one seems nice
I made a TD for iphone and windows phone!
Also bathing old people that don't want to be bathed is not an infrequent enough occurence
I made a TD for iphone and windows phone!
Worst day of the year
Just a day my mum can feel even more entitled and selfish
I learned all about that printing shit in my graphics arts class in jr. high and that was a loooooong time ago.
I made a TD for iphone and windows phone!
But damn if they ain't finicky.
She's nice, but a real pain in the ass at times
It was an $800.00 part.
so he comes in like he does every week and reaches up to put down his stuff and his phone falls into the deepfryer
fishes it out all twisted up and mangled
Satans..... hints.....
Yeah, I realized that when I was fishing it out of the toilet.