The New and Improved Cynical Idealist

Whiskey, and Lime-Flavored Milk.

It was kind of crappy end of the day at work today. For some perspective, I'm a steelworker in a unionized shop. We don't do any finished products, only melting and pouring. My department is the remelt department. For those that don't understand the process and to be quite honest, the impressive amount of engineering and science that goes into making a particular steel alloy, it's a lot more than simply melting raw product and pouring it into a mold.

One 50,000 lbs. ingot likely had the efforts of nearly 50 or 60 people to make it happen. From the furnace operators, the ladle crew, the vessel operators, the bricklayers that line the ladles, furnace, and vessels, the finishing department, heat treat, then to us, the remelt department which is another team of 22 guys.

We are the last stop before it goes to shipping. Almost all of our products get melted twice. This is to remove impurities in the alloys, after us they usually go off to a forge somewhere and get hammered or rolled into billets or plates. When I say hammer, that's not some guy with a blacksmith hammer and an anvil. These hammers are several thousand tons of force per impact but that is beside the point. The remelt department is pretty involved, its basically another melt shop inside the melt shop, but with a lot less guys. Granted, we don't need bricklayers or a ladle crew. But we need some ace welders, and solid crane operators. All of us fill all the roles in the department, some better than others but we all do our part - for the most part.

All that said, when things go wrong, they're usually pretty catastrophic. That was today. 44,000Lbs of ingot got stuck in a crucible. Stuck as in, no. No matter what we do it's not coming out. Our usual crew leader was in the control room tonight which I'm usually the guy that takes charge of floor operations when he's upstairs. I'm not sure how that happened, but I guess it's just my ethic or the way I carry myself and retain information, but it seems like I'm always the problem solver on the floor and everyone else just kind of follows along. That's fine with me, I don't particularly want to be a leader, did that for 12 years, and I'm done doing that. But if you think I know enough about what we do and you wanna listen to me, be it on your head because as I've said before, I'm an oaf. I just look like I'm not an oaf.

O.K. that tangent now out of my system, when an ingot gets stuck in a crucible, which is for some reason, a lot more common now than it used to be, there's a bit of a process that occurs to try to get it unstuck. All of it sucks - all of it. There's nothing easy or enjoyable about it. Usually, it involves trying to knock it out with sledgehammers, to be honest I'm not even sure why we do this because I've never seen it work. The next step is to put it back into the cooling vessel and wait it out. Sometimes that works, didn't today so hey we're on to step 3. Try to use Bertha. Bertha is the name we've given our largest fork lift. Its a monstrous fork lift that can lift 80,000 Lbs. Seriously at least for me, that's a gargantuan fork lift. This thing can lift more than our biggest crane in the entire melt shop. The best part about this thing is its a pain in the butt to get it started, its worse to keep it running, and I'm one of 2 people on my crew that is certified to operate it. The other guy of course, was in the control room so yep, I'm the lucky driver today. Of course, no it didnt get the ingot out, but that's because it never made it to the ingot. Nope, got stuck on the railroad tracks in the ice pit in the parking lot. Yeah, great way to end the day. Took 2 of us, in 2 seperate front end bucket loaders to pull it out. That was probably an OSHA approved method, they wouldn't have had any problems with that I'm guessing, but that was still preferrable than CSX or whichever train company comes through slamming into our biggest fork lift, and probably derailing a few million dollars worth of locomotive, while also shutting down the main avenue into town.

Ok, so that rant aside, I'm home now, sipping away my woes with a glass of my own homemade whiskey, and oddly enough, the only thing I can think of is my trips to Australia when I traveled for work. The one thing that is sticking in my mind is they have some of the best chocolate milk I've ever drank, seriously it's astonishing how much better it is than here in the USA. Then I realize that same country with that same great chocolate milk has this completely outlandish and just morally wrong lime flavored milk... yeah, limes. Like the green, not as good tasting cousin of the lemon. Limes. In milk. Who in the hell? And why in the hell? Of all the things I could ever think to flavor milk with, limes wouldn't ever make it to the list. Not if that was my only option... just no. You sicko Australians... why? WHY LIMES?

And there you have it, this was an exceptionally long winded rant today but boy I feel better now. You all have a good Monday, at the very least have as good a Monday as mine was. Cheers.

J. M. Kraynak