not had one for a whiles, so...

::work rant::

Work's a little...worrying...right now. I mean, yay! one year! and everything, and I've come a long way in that time. There's still stuff I want to learn, and a lot I need to get faster at, but mainly, I just need experience now. And a pay rise. The worrying part is that we're going through a slow patch right now - and I mean *really* slow. We're almost standing idle at our benches, and if this goes on for much longer, I think they'll have to make someone redundant. Never a nice thought.

So today, having run out of mild steel work (which is what I do, normally) I was put on stainless jobs. Phil is the numero uno Stainless guy, and set me up polishing today (not shinyshiny polishing, just putting a grain across a load of handrail discs.) Now Gary, irrational fuckwit, *hates* me speaking to anyone else, especially Phil (because I get on with Phil so well), so he wasn't amused that I'd been put on the job...I mean, this job is huge, and there were about four of us on it, so really, it was inevitable I'd be on it - we'd known for days.

So I polish up all the handrail doowhaps, then go back to Phil, who decides I'm rather good at polishing, so we set up a sort of production line, he's capping tube, I'm softpadding the welds back, Andy's putting the grain back on, next to me, Dan's welding lugs on. Phil realises, once I've softpadded about thirty tubes in the time it takes Andy to grain one tube, that I should be back on putting the grain on, because it'll be faster. So Phil sets me up doing that (we've been laughing and joking all afternoon, cos we're working alongside each other, and Gary's been a proper cunt and looking daggers at us all afternoon).

Gary then announces he 'needs Elf back', and argues with Phil, who's rightly pointing out that I am an essential link in the chain...and all Gary needs me to do is fullweld a bit of balustrade he's spotted together because he's too idle and jealous to do it himself. In the end, it becomes obvious that the only way to shut the stupid fucker up is for me to go and do the welding. It's taken longer for them to argue over me than the welding takes. Gary should have used my bench and my welder to do it himself if only he could actually use a mig welder with any level of skill. Or used his arc plant. His stupid petty squabbling and jealousy just puts everyone out - me, Dan, Phil - the whole company for wasting time. I make it plain that I think he's a cunt. Silence ensues.

I don't understand how he can't just think for a second that he's making every hate him - and for what?


Polsihing and doing stainless work is making me nostalgic for my silversmithing days. I'd like to learn how to tig weld, so I can make some stainless and ali jewellery/bodywear. I must drop more hints :)

Anyway, tomorrow, I shall be back on the stainless, whatever fuckface thinks about it.

The only disadvantage is the dust - I'm totally covered in fine stainless dust...eew!