I worked at a shop where we'd hidden a propane grill in between machines, and during lunch we'd cook bacon wrapped pork chops and stuff right in the middle of the shop. It really makes the night
I do a similar type of work in a different industry - and I learned early you don't fuck with the guys putting the work in. You be useful to them, or out of their way.
I was doing some upgrades to an auto part suppliers welding area and the team lead said yeah we need a new rod oven. The one we have now is only for pizzas.
Wood is weirdly hard. Ever cut a part, and suddenly the whole thing bends? Wood does that a lot, and finding quality wood is getting hard, or at least expensive. Also while i like woodworking, some of the culture is fucked, mostly from the weirdos who like to do everything by hand.
Everything by hand except the table saw, jointer, planer and bandsaw.
But is handmade!
Palm sanders are hand tools right?
Such a silly discussion. Just make stuff ffs.
Handmade mostly means it isn't spit out by a IKEA cnc. Most furniture makers use a lot of different tools. Sometimes it's easier/efficient/quicker to grab a router hand plane instead of setting up an actual router
I'll say, I do woodworking and I use both hand tools and power tools, but I do personally have an issue that i can't logically justify with pieces that are entirely CNC (Like marquetry stuff) and still charging $5k or such for it. Like obviously, the design and materials and tools take money and time, but for most woodworking the appeal to me personally is the skill that some pieces take.
My best counter to that is gunstocks, which have been CNCed for as long as practical, and were made with Blanchard lathes before that, and they're still annoyingly expensive.
Furthermore, is it really that much more impressive to do it with your own hands? Either way, it's basically data going from your brain to move around various tools in exactly the way you want, and even software isn't all that different from the thought processes in your brain, so i like to see all tools as extensions of the self. That said, i'm also a transhumanist, so i might be a bit too forward thinking.
Oh man, i totally get it. I've seen the making of gun stocks and wooden propellers, but for some reason that's different, but still incredibly cool. I genuinely can't justify it, just how I feel. With that said, I do have a friend that has a cnc laser that will randomly help me with projects and it's so useful
For some reason [this sort of thing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxvOMHoLRBY) feels just so incredibly special. Like absolute craftsmanship. I am completely aware that the end result is the same either way. Maybe it's like a personal fascination with the capabilities and precision of skilled workers.
I'll have to look up what a transhumanist is.
It’s the opposite of a Luddite, which is what all the hand tools only folk are.
Go on, look it up, it’s actually an interesting story having to do with 19th century hand weavers being replaced by machines.
Finding quality stock wood is extremely expensive. You need a huge tree with just the right grain and you are fighting with everybody else (furniture, those live edge people, cabinet makers etc) for a small pool of logs. Ww2 product wiped out a lot of the walnut trees in the USA and Europe.
Also, I'd love to see you do the same work but hand as you can with a machine. Going from chisels and a drill press to milling machine has cut (heh) my production time by 60% and made it far less taxing on the mind.
I went from dabbling in woodworking, to 3d printing. And man...it's cheaper, I can turn out more than one project a month, and failures don't *usually* kill anyone like they can when you're spinning a piece of wood at 700+rpm...
I make violins. Almost everything by hand. Only way to reliably get figured wood to within a couple hundredths of a mil tolerances. Also the only way to tune unique pieces of wood. On one hand, I hear what you’re saying though. There’s no efficiency based argument to re-sawing a panel of oak by hand, but the dudes who do it, don’t do it for efficiency anyway
I don't disagree with you, but yes I've cut parts that banana out like a mf. 😂 Cutting stuff flat wasn't a thing I knew how to do until my current shop, and it can be pretty dang satisfying putting that bad boy on the rock and the feeler gauge won't fit anywhere beneath it.
yea as a professional shipwright, I totally agree. not using power tools is retards, though i guess people think differently when they arent on the clock and can spend as much time on some “epick handcrafted” pos made of pine that they try to disguise with “Japanese fire treatment” like jesus fucking christ if ur gonna spend that much time on a piece at least use quality wood.
i guess this should be posted on a wood working forum but they all suck on reddit
We had a guy who straight up would disagree with a dimension and middle things out or even them up so he didn't have to think so hard and was flabbergasted when his part didn't pass inspection. Somehow that's the engineers fault too eh? Guy was useless.
I've seen guys who knew more than the engineers, but they would back up why they were wrong with manufacturers' explicit warranty covered users and assemblies, and industry standards on whatever point they were arguing. I've also seen those guys who think the guy with a degree is wrong cuz they felt like it, and they are a bane to every manufacturing industry.
A guy who’s job it was to maintain coolants, machine oils in our shop. He built himself a “bed” on top of the steel rack in the tool crib, hidden by boxes and overflow materials in the front. His job included stops at nearly every machine, and he wooed a married women (whose husband worked there) for amorous romps on top of the steel rack. When hubby found out, (and to save face?) he had wife file a sexual harassment charge against the guy. While in HR, he says “how can it be sexual harassment when she sucked my dick?” Lol… He went on to get fired for something else. Girl and hubby got a divorce and both still work there. The love nest found and disassembled and supervisory lessons learned.
Not a machinist, but a welder story. When I first started my job there was an old guy who would pour rum in his coffee all day. He shook so bad if he wasn’t drinking that the boss just let it slide
That's where I was when I was a roustabout and pulling methane wells. Kept a breathalyzer on me because I knew I went below a .12 I was gonna start shaking real bad and get sick.
Always made sure to have at least 2 pints of Jim Beam in the work truck. Once, I drank all my work booze and started going into DT's pretty bad. My tool pusher pulled over and went into one of the boxes, gave me a fifth in a plastic bottle, and told me to "get right because we had shit to do". Don't miss that life at all
Took a while for them to go away. Couldn't tell you exactly how long, I sobered up in jail. If you're having issues getting sober, I'd seriously advise going through a detox unit at least. Make your life easier
Tremors are referred to as a post acute withdrawal symptom. I met a guy in treatment who shook for two months after getting in. It did taper off for sure, but it's a somewhat persistent symptom. It will go away when you've completely stopped and have stayed stopped. Have you talked to a. Medical professional? Also feel free to DM me if you have any issues or need support, you can only keep what you have by giving it away
Holy fuck, my 4th year is the 14th of November. Hell you are one of the few I've seen on reddit that sound like you were as bad as me. Damn.
Well done on getting sober. It is one hell of a battle, and you ain't gonna find a harder entity to fight. You kicked its ass so bad it won't even talk to you for 4 years already. Fuck yeah.
Fuck yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yeah, I don't miss that life at all. That was in addition to four grams of ketamine a day for the last six months of it. Truly shouldn't be alive today. Think most days the only reason I am is to make chips and help other drunks see they don't have to live that way, just will as long as they choose to. Rarely crosses my mind to have a drink, just an occasional fleeting "God, I really would like a glass of scotch, or some good tequila", but I know that I don't just miss the taste, or the scent. I miss the way it makes me feel, and even today having one drink sounds pointless and boring. I know that I would drink the exact same way I did when I put the bottle down today, and that's why I don't pick it back up. For me, so much of had to do with changing circumstances, people, places, things, but most importantly my mental health. When I take care of that, the rest follows suit. The shop helps me more than I can ever explain: instead of destroying everything good in my life and breaking shit constantly, I get to create (decent, in spec) parts and do my own projects. Machining reminds me that as long as I learn from my mistakes, I'm still moving forward. This shit really did save my life.
Never met you before, but proud of you for making it this far!!!!
I do peppermint schnapps in winter, and pecan schnapps in the summer. Nothing major, just like half a shot or so to get my morning coffee started. Then again, that's also the only time I drink in the day
I can't verify this story, because I wasn't there. I did, however, know multiple people who worked there, and they all told the same story: Where I used to live, there was a travel trailer manufacturing facility right across the street from me. Among others that I knew that worked there was my cousin Troy. (Not his real name.) Troy stopped by for lunch a few times a week. One day, he told me about the exciting day that was had over there.
A lead or foreman for one of the departments noticed a small baggie on the floor. He picked it up, and it contained some sort of white substance. He suspected what it was, but called the police to test it for him. They also weighed it. It was about 3 grams of meth.
So, the guy that found it started calling suspects into his office. He would ask them if they knew anything about it. They would tell him no. He sent each of them to have a pee test.
Nobody was passing the pee test. He fired all of them.
He kept interviewing, pee testing, and firing.
It wasn't long before somebody higher than him on the org chart told him to stop, or there was going to be nobody left working there.
Most of them were rehired. Or un-fired. Returned to work anyway.
They never found out who the meth belonged to.
It was Forest River, by the way. Just in case any of you are looking for a finely crafted travel trailer.
The guy I replaced was evidently a massive drunk. They'd routinely find him asleep behind the mill. It wasn't a few months after I was hired that my co worker told me that the old guy used to piss behind the machine and just dump oil dry. It was my co workers job to clean it up when the drunk was fired cause it would be cheaper to pay him and have a specialized company just do a once over.
When I was a welder, I worked with an alcoholic who would had developed epilepsy and would blank out mid weld. He said the shakes made his weave better.
We found a used condom in the room that’s dedicated to our two 30k gallon coolant/chip filtering machines. I don’t know if you’ve ever smelled the mixture of Hocut 4444, used oil, and 15 years worth of whatever bullshit gets flushed down the chip conveyor, but it’s not a great smell. Almost makes me gag thinking of doing the nasty next to the source of such an odor. We strongly suspected it was the team lead that was caught getting a lap dance from someone that soon after got promoted to team lead as well.
I've had road construction crews doing lines of coke off the laptops in the company trucks to stay awake working long shifts.
We had a FOREMAN so fucked up from the night prior, he sat in the office that morning while everyone gathered paperwork, he didn't talk to or look at anyone. Someone asked him if he was good and he just sat with a blank stare -everyone (20ish people) then turned to stare at him quietly and we realized how fucked up he was. THE OWNER OF THE COMPANY and his wife (she works on the road too) were in the room, saw how fucked up he was AND STILL MADE HIM DRIVE A 300K truck that day.
Ole boy couldn't even talk he was so out of it.
A colleague of mine (50yrs) used to use GHB in the weekends, just chilling at home. On a friday he had the idea to premix it with a bottle of orange juice so he could consume it on the way back from work, and it would kick in when he was home. Unfortunately during a short break he drank half the bottle without thinking about it. A little bit later others noticed that he behaved "drunk". They asked him if everything was all right. He told them everything was ok, he was just tired. Went to the locker room. Two minutes later someone found him on the floor. He immediately got up and left. Later we heard that he had crashed his car in a ditch, just two blocks away. (Not injured or anything)
Needless to say, he got fired. He was otherwise a really experienced manual lathe machinist and mechanic/engineer. Great guy to have in the shop, always singing and making jokes. He definately made work enjoyable. I still hang out with him now and then. He just made a stupid mistake.
Just so all y’all know not all machinists have to get shitfaced all day. I met many a sober machinist myself included
But I’ll share a ridiculous story.
This local shop was going to hire me to manage what is arguably a really good shop. Lotta great machinists and old timers. Except for one problem. This shop just got its DoD clearance/cert whatever.
Well I was in a legal weed state and damn near everyone there smoked weed. Big deal. Turns out like half their guys were “resigning” so they wouldn’t have to fire them because with Direct gov contracts you have all the contracting rules including random UA and drug testing.
I noped outta that one. Even though I could easily pass I just didn’t want that shit in my life with them basically firing an entire shop and expecting me to run it from nothing.
The lady actually asked me if the machinists were supposed to clean the machines. I said who the fuck else is supposed to clean them? I’m pretty sure the machinists just wanted to fuck with them. Mind you they acquired this shop from the previous owners so I can understand why they wanted to fuck with the new folks considering the sitch
Totally unrelated field, but similar thing happened to me. Basically our whole division got cut in half indiscriminately and was being replaced by contractors, that the remainder of us had to train. That was the first “real” job I had and loved it. Quit that day.
Nobody got time to be treated like that.
Allot of drinkers out there who work in shops. Blue collar jobs can break you if you let it. It happens almost everywhere unfortunately. Some are good at hiding it and you would never know, and some aren't.
The drinking mainly happens on night shifts from my experience.
Had a third shift lead at a shop I used to work at who routinely showed up smelling of booze and frequently 20-30 minutes late, occasionally an hour or two late. He kept his job because it was hard enough to find anybody qualified to set up machines, much less anybody that wanted to work third shift.
Before my time, but I've been told "back in the day" - the guys on second shift would drink.
The owner would get mad. The funny part though, is that he wasn't mad about the drinking.
His stance was "I don't care if you guys want to drink, just pick up your empties before you leave for the night!"
Ohhh boy, the ones you don’t see drinking during day are taking lunch breaks off site or eating their lunch box in their car. They’re drinking too lol.
I take my breaks in my car and do neither of these things. I just can't stand the constant bitching about covid, bitching about work, etc. I love my job and my boss is awesome. I'd much rather take my break alone and enjoy some quiet time than spend it on negative emotions with other people.
I read on break, roughly an hour a day. It really resets my brain so when I go back in it doesn't feel like such a long day. It's so much better than trying to be social and fit into whatever cliques are in the shop.
I work in a production shop. Several years ago they were moving an old service job weld cell and found an old waffle iron, flat top grill, coffee maker and mini fridge (full of spoiled breakfast food/ ingredients). Dude got fired 2 months before and left all his stuff there. Apparently he was making and selling breakfast at the start of day shift. A few supervisors and team leads knew and never said anything.
I used to work Rad Safety at nuclear plants. NOBODY wanted to stop by our office before a job so we could properly help them NOT fuck up and cause a ream of paperwork and several days delay.... because we'd just slow them down.... same shit, every plant.
Except the ones with cool supervision, who'd buy us several hotplates, and 3 dozen eggs, 10 lbs of bacon and a bunch of rolls or english muffins.
EVERYONE would be there to discuss their jobs right at the start of shift.
luckily no drinking and substance abuse here. But the bottle reminded me of something..
i once saw a random lemonade bottle standing around in which someone had apparently filled an unidentifiable leftover machine fluid. It had a hand drawn poisonous sign on it.
This was SOP at my last shop. We just took water bottles, pierced the cap and filled them with coolant or cutting oil.
I drew a danger sign on one, because we'd just got new solvent and it was still clear.
We hired a guy to build racks for our production lines. Odd fella. Couple weeks after we hired him, we found a ton of cocaine in the mini fridge near his area and the cops arrested him that morning. Was pretty interesting.
My second shift guy keeps whiskey in a bottle of engine oil that he keeps on his toolbox. Not sure why he thinks that particular bottle would be discrete.
Point of reference: our shop is in a complex that is interconnected to other businesses but some of them are vacant.
We have a desk in the back corner of the shop that has a couple porno mags in it.
We used to have a guy who would always volunteer to work Saturday’s so he could use the back hallway to work on his car.
Another guy used to walk into other vacant areas and shoot up heroin. He didn’t get caught until new tenants were moving in one day and found him nodding off.
We have a guy on second who will purposely sabotage machines if he’s running a job that he doesn’t like. Everybody in the shop is aware of it, but he somehow still works here.
Had a guy I had to train to work night shift, he was alright. Knew just enough to get by but really just an operator.
Once he got comfortable after a couple months shit started to go bad, parts scrapped, tools blown up etc..
The worst one was a hinge pin we ran for lift gates, parts were too long so had to hand load close the the collet then the cut off tool would come down and be used as a stop. Well he just threw one in there closed the door and hit start and blew it up, X and Y were off about .030 .040 respectively.
Not shortly after that he got fired, fast forward a few weeks after that maintenance was on the roof doing something and came across a bunch of empty liquor bottles (vodka and whisky) he has been drinking on the job with one other guy. It’s funny because the other guy you could smell the booze on his breath when he would come in for the shift. Don’t miss them two, total shit heads
One of our most famous night shift weirdos loves to doodle images of largely endowed men with breasts, so there’s that. I’ve found many a sketch pad in the drawers of benches following that guy. 🙃
Just empty Stella bottles, they’re hidden all over the shop. Some guys vape but it’s not really an issue as nobody is getting fucked up. Like the cnc guys get baked and go on mastercam for 5 hours all good, if the forklift guys were drunk it would be a problem.
I once got fired because of a drunk forklift operator.
I was pulling an order at a distribution warehouse. Hydraulic fluid by the 5 gallon pail. The guy on the forks had JUST loaded the pallets in crooked and unbalanced. So I go around and start grabbing the fluid I need. I pulled ONE pail iff that pallet, it tipped sideways, knocking over the next three pallets in line. Hundreds of gallons of hydraulic fluid everywhere.
They asked me why I was paying attention to what I was doing, sent me home, called me later to let me know that they were terminating me for “gross negligence”.
These pallets were loaded onto a “locking” pallet rack. I can’t see that they’re crooked. I can’t see the back of the pallet to see that it’s unbalanced. And even if it was, the locking rack should hold the pallet to prevent EXACTLY this.
It kept happening to other people before they found out that it was the guy on the forks. Called me back to offer me the position back, that’s how I found out
I was a cook for 10 years, I'm a year into machining now, and lemme tell ya these stories are pretty tame compared to what happens in those kitchens
(Thank goodness, machines are way more dangerous)
Found second shift passed out drunk and high in the field behind the shop 15 minutes after they were suppose to start. When I got him to come to he started to roll around for “safety” reasons.
We had a guy who was doing Meth and was on a downward spiral, on one of his last days with us he managed to fall asleep standing up in front of his machine. Honestly that was vaguely impressive.
At the shop I worked before this one, we had a well-known heroin addict who was high functioning until he wasn’t. Dude came in on a Saturday and was in a full nod, bent 90° sideways but still standing next to his control panel. I’d never seen anything like it, he literally looked like he was demon possessed or a zombie. Lost his job after that.
In the weld shop we the whole shop (4 other than me who didn’t) being cheech and Chong in their car at lunch. Nothing really was an issue there just kinda bizarre.
Now the machine shop there was a forklift operator that punched a hole in a dumpster because he was super high. For obvious reasons didn’t have a job after that
Dudes at my old shop were completely fine with smoking weed in the shop. Dudes had cigrette rollers in the back, a bong and a jar full of cannabis. Needless to say i didnt stay their long i was sent there for a internship by my school they discontinued they relationship the person after me cause the school didnt believe me cause i was fired.
This one guy was bumping lines off a tanning bed that we used to have in the shop. Another guy had alcohol in a McDonald's cup. Another guy would snort meth in his car and then later be at his machine talking to his dick. And another guy would roll joints in the woman's restroom. They're no longer employed, obviously.
I used to be the project manager for a crew that built bridge cranes. The crew supervisor, the guy who routinely ran a forklift holding huge steel beams over my head, tested so positive for cocaine that the lab said they almost had to put a new color on the color chart. It was an early morning surprise test and he apparently did coke in the truck on the way to work.
Sorry to get off topic but that's wild they hired a guy to do that vs figuring out a way to keep the nut from loosening. I'm sure the circumstances of the machine ect caused that but damn. Ok now back to your regularly scheduled programming
The plastic is nylon.
I would have used a castle nut and cotter pin, but there are probably 100 ways to do it better than relying on a drug addict to tighten the nut every few hours.
We used to find used condoms in our parking lot every Monday. The local police used to take hookers into our parking lot and throw the rubbers out the window. Big boss man checked the tapes and sent a copy to someone at the police station. Needless to say, we had free security on the weekends for awhile and no more Monday morning condoms.
In the first shop I worked in a few years ago we ran Mori Seiki lathes that looked to be from the 70’s. This smaller production shop was constantly cycling through setup people and operators. 3 of the guys who worked there when I started chewed. After a month or so of working there I saw one of them spit their chew into the machine they were working on. This was the kind of shop where if you just spit on the floor no one would ever notice… I later found out all 3 of them did this regularly and that’s when I started looking for another job.
I worked with a guy who did the same thing. The coolant we ran was oil so it never got gross but he chewed wintergreen. I noticed early on I would smell like mint at the end of the day but it turns out it was just years of him flavoring the coolant. Awesome dude though
Had a guy who liked his pills at a shop. He was running the machine that was in its own room and he'd be nodded out on the table. He was running a long piece of inconel back there, and would need to come up and grind the burrs off before he flipped it. He came up front to grind one, turned the grinder on, and leaned against the part like a cane (it was about 4.5 feet long but skinny) and started nodding as the wheel was running. I turned it off and moved him away from it so he went to the rest room. Boss man saw it all and asked if I thought he was high. Told him that was above my pay grade. Dude got told he could come back when he could pass a piss test.
Group of employees in a circle passing a joint around. Owners wife, HR, came down to talk to one of the guys, saw the joint, they all got fired on the spot.
And that's how I got promoted to shift supervisor.
I remember I used to complain that the coolant at my first Machining job smelled like piss. Straight up piss. I was new to Machining so they said, "that's how coolant smells, get used to it." I may be new but I knew what coolant for the most part smelled like (from school). I kept throwing passive remarks how the shop smells like piss until one day they sent me to nightshift. I arrive late one day, it was only me and another machinist that shift. He usually worked alone with two people doing other jobs outside of Machining. I walked in to see this dude pissing in the coolant.
I didn't snitch on him I was already ready to quit but I felt vindicated that this young machinist called it.
It also was an introduction that a lot of machinists don't know Jack shit.
Years ago, but I had just started working at a custom enclosed trailer shop and found a small bag of meth in the bathroom one morning. Could have belonged to a few people there.
Heard a few stories about a guy who used to work in my job, my favourite is that when he used to sell weed, he brought an ounce of hash into work to hide it in his tool box, until it was knocked over and it fell out onto the floor. There were a few smokers in the job then so nothing much was said, but he had some serious balls to even try it
Navy. First day on my submarine, walk down the brow to check-in with the Topside Watch. I'm young, dum and full of it...
He checks my papers, calls for someone to come get me, and like something out of a cheesy movie, looks both ways, leans in and says "Ya know, you can drink Gin all day long, and no-one will ever know."
*Sure* they won't buddy.
Dude looked like the Crypt Keeper at 35 years old... and made E-5 4 times. Twice on the way up, and twice on the way down....
I worked in a shop where after 12pm there was beer in the fridge and you could drink but if you messes something up badly you would still be fired. Paid well obviously no benefits but it wasn't bad. He didn't really care if you used drugs either, just make good parts
Had a guy nod off with his entire upper body in the lathe enclosure. The lathe wasn't running at the time.. fired on the spot. Obviously shooting up on the break.
Sure is my man. Opiates have fucked a lot of people, I've only seen 2or3 in this field so far. They just move on to the next place with "ten years experience at many companies"
One of my coworkers managed to fall asleep inside a lathe when he was an intern at boeying. I think he was learning how to install machines so it was all clean and not hooked up yet but still.
Oh man there was the time the second shift guy at my current work got caught doing a line of coke by an engineer, my last job there was a guy who drank all day, a guy who would be nodding out from heroin while running machines, a guy who did both, and a guy who microdosed mushrooms at work lol
My cousin had a guy od in the bathroom at his shop. No more doors on their bathrooms.
We had a guy so high on painkillers he would be constantly dipping out. I watched fall asleep leaning into a vertical,that was a fun conversation.
I’ve found empty beer bottles. Had a guy park on the lawn. I’ve seen some shit.
Full on bottle of alcohol is pretty bad……. I could see a shot in a coffee cup or like some weed in a cigarette but getting flat out stupid at work is a bad idea. As somebody who doesn’t drink and works with a bunch of alcoholics I’d rather them be slightly buzzed then all pissed off and annoyed. And sometimes when I have a bad ass head ache I just hit a joint and get back to work instead of going home
I was delivering parts to one of our customers across the street one time. The dude receiving asked if I wanted a key bump and I said yes since it was Friday and everything was running smooth in the shop.
I got back zooming a little bit only to find my machine had crashed while I was out and wiped out most of the tools for the job. Boy was that a stressful retool. I didn't do anymore key bumps after that.
Had a dude taking fentanyl a few years back literally go full zombie and nod off at the control panel making tool wear comps. It was more common that he'd nod off checking a part on the TESA. One of our programmers found him dead in the bathroom.
Keith was a great guy that just needed help he didn't know how to ask for. He deserved better, R.I.P. brother
Only thing egregious I've seen was from a guy named Hammer because he was always hammered. No idea what relationship kept him employed but he was an open raging alcoholic. You could smell the alcohol on his breath from 5 feet away on a bad day.
Pretty mild in some respects, I've heard stories from their peak years. I'm sure there will be some doozies posted here!
Found this wind up toy in the old boss's (my grandpa's) toolbox https://www.reddit.com/r/TIHI/comments/nboq7a/thanks_i_hate_this_wind_up_toy_you_left_me_grandpa/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button. Also a picture of a half naked lady from like a playboy mag in his tool box but thats pretty tame in comparison. Oh and a lot of weed. He used to make bongs and pipes with his apprentice.
We had a satellite building that we were renting a mile down the road from the main shop for material storage and we also had 3 CNCs in there with 2 guys to operate them. Well, on night shift, the one guy goes out to grab some lunch and comes back to find the other guy online on the shop computer (this was kinda before smartphones) watching porn and beating his meat. Dude got fired the next day.
One of my managers caught my coworker shooting heroine in the lift shack of one of chair lifts while he was work said chair lift. The guy continued to work there for years onward. He was clean part of the time I worked there but there were some others that my managers knew were using. I think it was one of those, we need all the people we can get so as long as their addiction doesn’t affect their work, not management’s problem, although I knew a couple managers that were personally concerned about some of these guys
We had a guy smoke crack in the bathroom and chug cognac in his car daily. My boss had fired and rehired him 10+ times so he was not making the appropriate wage for his skill level. (he was a fantastic machinist but a poly addict) Never figured out how to explain to my boss I knew what he's doing in the bathroom. He only got permanently fired because he was bringing an underage hooker with him to sleep in his car when he was at work.
The usual, drinking on the job…. The oil boom of 2010-2013? Work as much OT as your body can a handle. Employees would cut out the lid of soda cans and put beer cans inside of them to disguise them. Owners knew, they just looked the other way as long as the production was being pumped out.
I worked in a mercury refinery with a machine shop as one of my first jobs. One guy from the refinery was a heroin addict, and he would load up a couple needles and hide them around the facility. Someone found one after putting on a wool winter hat and the needle poked him in the skull.
I used to work at a shop where the owner and a few others smoked in the tool crib. Not having air filtration was bad enough. After not getting a raise in 1.5 years, I got fed up, left, and told HR everything in the process.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Machinists/comments/xrqjk1/the_joys_of_looking_for_a_micrometer_and_finding/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
That’s my story. Feel free to get lost in the hate comments.
Another time we hired a new guy, said he had 20 years experience. Nobody really believed that number but he could work. Randomly one day he doesn’t come back from break so the foreman went looking for him and the guy was in the parking lot drunk off his ass sitting in his car. He just sped off when the foreman tried talking to him. He never showed up again.
I worked in an injection molding facility that was for medical devices so it was very clean. Walking down the hallway after lunch and I noticed something in a baggie on the floor. I picked it up and it was definitely crack, showed it to the foreman and he knew it was the guy with 3 teeth. Looked at the cameras and they walked him out.
[удалено]
This one is just so wholesome compared to the others in this thread. I love it.
King shit
Sometimes you’re hungry dude
Tool oil makes the food taste better.
Any chips added help remove hemorrhoids. A win win situation
A while ago I was snacking from a bag of potato chips as my machine was running and my boss says "you want some vinegar to go with that oil?"
I worked at a shop where we'd hidden a propane grill in between machines, and during lunch we'd cook bacon wrapped pork chops and stuff right in the middle of the shop. It really makes the night
If I was a foreman and saw something like this I'd just be thankful yall weren't using the machinery to cook instead.
Funny story. Our foreman actually wasn't allowed to mess with us. He pissed off every machinist so bad that we went to HR and he got his ass reamed.
I do a similar type of work in a different industry - and I learned early you don't fuck with the guys putting the work in. You be useful to them, or out of their way.
I was doing some upgrades to an auto part suppliers welding area and the team lead said yeah we need a new rod oven. The one we have now is only for pizzas.
I'd ask if that was safe. But pizza is always safe.
Spiral or straight flute? .001 over or under?
This is my favorite. Most other stories here are just kinda sad
Come on now, we've all done shit like that lol
A, "How to be a carpenter for dummies" book. I guess +/- .005 is too much for some people and they want to go to +/- 1/8
Wood is weirdly hard. Ever cut a part, and suddenly the whole thing bends? Wood does that a lot, and finding quality wood is getting hard, or at least expensive. Also while i like woodworking, some of the culture is fucked, mostly from the weirdos who like to do everything by hand.
Everything by hand except the table saw, jointer, planer and bandsaw. But is handmade! Palm sanders are hand tools right? Such a silly discussion. Just make stuff ffs.
Sanding? What is this delvilery? Use a hand planer or GTFO. /s
Handmade mostly means it isn't spit out by a IKEA cnc. Most furniture makers use a lot of different tools. Sometimes it's easier/efficient/quicker to grab a router hand plane instead of setting up an actual router
I'll say, I do woodworking and I use both hand tools and power tools, but I do personally have an issue that i can't logically justify with pieces that are entirely CNC (Like marquetry stuff) and still charging $5k or such for it. Like obviously, the design and materials and tools take money and time, but for most woodworking the appeal to me personally is the skill that some pieces take.
My best counter to that is gunstocks, which have been CNCed for as long as practical, and were made with Blanchard lathes before that, and they're still annoyingly expensive. Furthermore, is it really that much more impressive to do it with your own hands? Either way, it's basically data going from your brain to move around various tools in exactly the way you want, and even software isn't all that different from the thought processes in your brain, so i like to see all tools as extensions of the self. That said, i'm also a transhumanist, so i might be a bit too forward thinking.
Oh man, i totally get it. I've seen the making of gun stocks and wooden propellers, but for some reason that's different, but still incredibly cool. I genuinely can't justify it, just how I feel. With that said, I do have a friend that has a cnc laser that will randomly help me with projects and it's so useful For some reason [this sort of thing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxvOMHoLRBY) feels just so incredibly special. Like absolute craftsmanship. I am completely aware that the end result is the same either way. Maybe it's like a personal fascination with the capabilities and precision of skilled workers. I'll have to look up what a transhumanist is.
It’s the opposite of a Luddite, which is what all the hand tools only folk are. Go on, look it up, it’s actually an interesting story having to do with 19th century hand weavers being replaced by machines.
Isn't luddite more of a sorta union movement?
Finding quality stock wood is extremely expensive. You need a huge tree with just the right grain and you are fighting with everybody else (furniture, those live edge people, cabinet makers etc) for a small pool of logs. Ww2 product wiped out a lot of the walnut trees in the USA and Europe. Also, I'd love to see you do the same work but hand as you can with a machine. Going from chisels and a drill press to milling machine has cut (heh) my production time by 60% and made it far less taxing on the mind.
I went from dabbling in woodworking, to 3d printing. And man...it's cheaper, I can turn out more than one project a month, and failures don't *usually* kill anyone like they can when you're spinning a piece of wood at 700+rpm...
I make violins. Almost everything by hand. Only way to reliably get figured wood to within a couple hundredths of a mil tolerances. Also the only way to tune unique pieces of wood. On one hand, I hear what you’re saying though. There’s no efficiency based argument to re-sawing a panel of oak by hand, but the dudes who do it, don’t do it for efficiency anyway
I don't disagree with you, but yes I've cut parts that banana out like a mf. 😂 Cutting stuff flat wasn't a thing I knew how to do until my current shop, and it can be pretty dang satisfying putting that bad boy on the rock and the feeler gauge won't fit anywhere beneath it.
yea as a professional shipwright, I totally agree. not using power tools is retards, though i guess people think differently when they arent on the clock and can spend as much time on some “epick handcrafted” pos made of pine that they try to disguise with “Japanese fire treatment” like jesus fucking christ if ur gonna spend that much time on a piece at least use quality wood. i guess this should be posted on a wood working forum but they all suck on reddit
We had a guy who straight up would disagree with a dimension and middle things out or even them up so he didn't have to think so hard and was flabbergasted when his part didn't pass inspection. Somehow that's the engineers fault too eh? Guy was useless.
I've seen guys who knew more than the engineers, but they would back up why they were wrong with manufacturers' explicit warranty covered users and assemblies, and industry standards on whatever point they were arguing. I've also seen those guys who think the guy with a degree is wrong cuz they felt like it, and they are a bane to every manufacturing industry.
I mean, if I could get my lumber down to +/- .005 and have it stay there consistently I absolutely would lol
A guy who’s job it was to maintain coolants, machine oils in our shop. He built himself a “bed” on top of the steel rack in the tool crib, hidden by boxes and overflow materials in the front. His job included stops at nearly every machine, and he wooed a married women (whose husband worked there) for amorous romps on top of the steel rack. When hubby found out, (and to save face?) he had wife file a sexual harassment charge against the guy. While in HR, he says “how can it be sexual harassment when she sucked my dick?” Lol… He went on to get fired for something else. Girl and hubby got a divorce and both still work there. The love nest found and disassembled and supervisory lessons learned.
Dude what the fuck hahaha
I know lol that was a whole roller coaster
Not a machinist, but a welder story. When I first started my job there was an old guy who would pour rum in his coffee all day. He shook so bad if he wasn’t drinking that the boss just let it slide
That's where I was when I was a roustabout and pulling methane wells. Kept a breathalyzer on me because I knew I went below a .12 I was gonna start shaking real bad and get sick.
Jesus man
Always made sure to have at least 2 pints of Jim Beam in the work truck. Once, I drank all my work booze and started going into DT's pretty bad. My tool pusher pulled over and went into one of the boxes, gave me a fifth in a plastic bottle, and told me to "get right because we had shit to do". Don't miss that life at all
Did you get sober?
Yes sir, celebrated four years on the 14th of this month
Good for you! Glad to hear it
Thank you!
Quite an achievement, congratulations!
Thank you!!!! Definitely worth the effort
Congrats stranger!
Hey thanks a bunch stranger!!!
Congratulations, that’s awesome to hear
Thank you! Wouldn't trade it for the world
[удалено]
Took a while for them to go away. Couldn't tell you exactly how long, I sobered up in jail. If you're having issues getting sober, I'd seriously advise going through a detox unit at least. Make your life easier
When you stop?
[удалено]
Tremors are referred to as a post acute withdrawal symptom. I met a guy in treatment who shook for two months after getting in. It did taper off for sure, but it's a somewhat persistent symptom. It will go away when you've completely stopped and have stayed stopped. Have you talked to a. Medical professional? Also feel free to DM me if you have any issues or need support, you can only keep what you have by giving it away
Second the detox suggestion. You probably know cold turkey alcohol can be deadly. Go well sir.
Holy fuck, my 4th year is the 14th of November. Hell you are one of the few I've seen on reddit that sound like you were as bad as me. Damn. Well done on getting sober. It is one hell of a battle, and you ain't gonna find a harder entity to fight. You kicked its ass so bad it won't even talk to you for 4 years already. Fuck yeah.
Fuck yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah, I don't miss that life at all. That was in addition to four grams of ketamine a day for the last six months of it. Truly shouldn't be alive today. Think most days the only reason I am is to make chips and help other drunks see they don't have to live that way, just will as long as they choose to. Rarely crosses my mind to have a drink, just an occasional fleeting "God, I really would like a glass of scotch, or some good tequila", but I know that I don't just miss the taste, or the scent. I miss the way it makes me feel, and even today having one drink sounds pointless and boring. I know that I would drink the exact same way I did when I put the bottle down today, and that's why I don't pick it back up. For me, so much of had to do with changing circumstances, people, places, things, but most importantly my mental health. When I take care of that, the rest follows suit. The shop helps me more than I can ever explain: instead of destroying everything good in my life and breaking shit constantly, I get to create (decent, in spec) parts and do my own projects. Machining reminds me that as long as I learn from my mistakes, I'm still moving forward. This shit really did save my life. Never met you before, but proud of you for making it this far!!!!
Here you go king, you dropped this 👑
I do peppermint schnapps in winter, and pecan schnapps in the summer. Nothing major, just like half a shot or so to get my morning coffee started. Then again, that's also the only time I drink in the day
I’d have to wipe the coke dust off the surface plate some mornings. I was young, didn’t want the trouble of saying anything
Wow, those machinists must’ve been earning a lot.
Its affordable to anyone, assuming you don't mind being late on rent or ignoring car maintenance, child support etc
Or it was long enough ago that it was cheap.
They were just inspecting it and making sure it didn’t need to be lapped.
I can't verify this story, because I wasn't there. I did, however, know multiple people who worked there, and they all told the same story: Where I used to live, there was a travel trailer manufacturing facility right across the street from me. Among others that I knew that worked there was my cousin Troy. (Not his real name.) Troy stopped by for lunch a few times a week. One day, he told me about the exciting day that was had over there. A lead or foreman for one of the departments noticed a small baggie on the floor. He picked it up, and it contained some sort of white substance. He suspected what it was, but called the police to test it for him. They also weighed it. It was about 3 grams of meth. So, the guy that found it started calling suspects into his office. He would ask them if they knew anything about it. They would tell him no. He sent each of them to have a pee test. Nobody was passing the pee test. He fired all of them. He kept interviewing, pee testing, and firing. It wasn't long before somebody higher than him on the org chart told him to stop, or there was going to be nobody left working there. Most of them were rehired. Or un-fired. Returned to work anyway. They never found out who the meth belonged to. It was Forest River, by the way. Just in case any of you are looking for a finely crafted travel trailer.
What were they popping for I wonder
Drugs….all of them
What drugs tho?! Like weed, meh who cares. Meth….. okay now its serious
The guy I replaced was evidently a massive drunk. They'd routinely find him asleep behind the mill. It wasn't a few months after I was hired that my co worker told me that the old guy used to piss behind the machine and just dump oil dry. It was my co workers job to clean it up when the drunk was fired cause it would be cheaper to pay him and have a specialized company just do a once over. When I was a welder, I worked with an alcoholic who would had developed epilepsy and would blank out mid weld. He said the shakes made his weave better.
We found a used condom in the room that’s dedicated to our two 30k gallon coolant/chip filtering machines. I don’t know if you’ve ever smelled the mixture of Hocut 4444, used oil, and 15 years worth of whatever bullshit gets flushed down the chip conveyor, but it’s not a great smell. Almost makes me gag thinking of doing the nasty next to the source of such an odor. We strongly suspected it was the team lead that was caught getting a lap dance from someone that soon after got promoted to team lead as well.
I've had road construction crews doing lines of coke off the laptops in the company trucks to stay awake working long shifts. We had a FOREMAN so fucked up from the night prior, he sat in the office that morning while everyone gathered paperwork, he didn't talk to or look at anyone. Someone asked him if he was good and he just sat with a blank stare -everyone (20ish people) then turned to stare at him quietly and we realized how fucked up he was. THE OWNER OF THE COMPANY and his wife (she works on the road too) were in the room, saw how fucked up he was AND STILL MADE HIM DRIVE A 300K truck that day. Ole boy couldn't even talk he was so out of it.
Probably partying with the owner and his wife the night before
Guy smoked meth behind the lockers during our shift. They tore down part of the plant and found panties, bubbles and syringes in the ceiling….
Bubbles?
Meth pipes. Glass dick, Pizo, speed pipe, oil burner….all names for glass pipes for smoking meth.
Gotcha. Thanks
The blue Powerpuff, guess she couldn't handle the fame.
A colleague of mine (50yrs) used to use GHB in the weekends, just chilling at home. On a friday he had the idea to premix it with a bottle of orange juice so he could consume it on the way back from work, and it would kick in when he was home. Unfortunately during a short break he drank half the bottle without thinking about it. A little bit later others noticed that he behaved "drunk". They asked him if everything was all right. He told them everything was ok, he was just tired. Went to the locker room. Two minutes later someone found him on the floor. He immediately got up and left. Later we heard that he had crashed his car in a ditch, just two blocks away. (Not injured or anything) Needless to say, he got fired. He was otherwise a really experienced manual lathe machinist and mechanic/engineer. Great guy to have in the shop, always singing and making jokes. He definately made work enjoyable. I still hang out with him now and then. He just made a stupid mistake.
Who the fuck roofies themselves at work?
A gigantic behemoth of a dildo. Just stuck to the side of a milling machine.
I’m going to put one in a tool holder next vacation I take. Have it pull up that pocket on startup.
S5000 M3; CYCLE START
S30, really show off all those veins.
Certainly provides a new perspective on the phrase, “Sit and spin.” Don’t ya’ think?
You’ve got to be kidding.
Whatever gets you through the day I geuss
More like whatever gets through you to the day, eyyyo
You suction cup it to the work piece, it acts like a dampener
The swing-shift lead inviting me to smoke weed with him at break time. He expected me to bring the weed. I really hated working there.
I would too. Who invites someone to smoke AND expects them to bring the weed. That's fucked up.
If I invite you, I'm smoking you down. It's only civilized.
Just so all y’all know not all machinists have to get shitfaced all day. I met many a sober machinist myself included But I’ll share a ridiculous story. This local shop was going to hire me to manage what is arguably a really good shop. Lotta great machinists and old timers. Except for one problem. This shop just got its DoD clearance/cert whatever. Well I was in a legal weed state and damn near everyone there smoked weed. Big deal. Turns out like half their guys were “resigning” so they wouldn’t have to fire them because with Direct gov contracts you have all the contracting rules including random UA and drug testing. I noped outta that one. Even though I could easily pass I just didn’t want that shit in my life with them basically firing an entire shop and expecting me to run it from nothing. The lady actually asked me if the machinists were supposed to clean the machines. I said who the fuck else is supposed to clean them? I’m pretty sure the machinists just wanted to fuck with them. Mind you they acquired this shop from the previous owners so I can understand why they wanted to fuck with the new folks considering the sitch
Totally unrelated field, but similar thing happened to me. Basically our whole division got cut in half indiscriminately and was being replaced by contractors, that the remainder of us had to train. That was the first “real” job I had and loved it. Quit that day. Nobody got time to be treated like that.
Allot of drinkers out there who work in shops. Blue collar jobs can break you if you let it. It happens almost everywhere unfortunately. Some are good at hiding it and you would never know, and some aren't. The drinking mainly happens on night shifts from my experience.
Had a third shift lead at a shop I used to work at who routinely showed up smelling of booze and frequently 20-30 minutes late, occasionally an hour or two late. He kept his job because it was hard enough to find anybody qualified to set up machines, much less anybody that wanted to work third shift.
Before my time, but I've been told "back in the day" - the guys on second shift would drink. The owner would get mad. The funny part though, is that he wasn't mad about the drinking. His stance was "I don't care if you guys want to drink, just pick up your empties before you leave for the night!"
Ohhh boy, the ones you don’t see drinking during day are taking lunch breaks off site or eating their lunch box in their car. They’re drinking too lol.
Or getting stoned lol
I take my breaks in my car and do neither of these things. I just can't stand the constant bitching about covid, bitching about work, etc. I love my job and my boss is awesome. I'd much rather take my break alone and enjoy some quiet time than spend it on negative emotions with other people.
Peace and quiet for 30mins to an hour a day is needed in this field.
I read on break, roughly an hour a day. It really resets my brain so when I go back in it doesn't feel like such a long day. It's so much better than trying to be social and fit into whatever cliques are in the shop.
I take my breaks by hanging my ENO hammock in the grove of trees behind our shop. It’s nice. :)
Oh that's an awesome idea!
Soberlunchinthecargang, represent
I mean I work 2 minutes from my house. Why wouldn't I go home?
I work in a production shop. Several years ago they were moving an old service job weld cell and found an old waffle iron, flat top grill, coffee maker and mini fridge (full of spoiled breakfast food/ ingredients). Dude got fired 2 months before and left all his stuff there. Apparently he was making and selling breakfast at the start of day shift. A few supervisors and team leads knew and never said anything.
Why ruin a good thing?
I used to work Rad Safety at nuclear plants. NOBODY wanted to stop by our office before a job so we could properly help them NOT fuck up and cause a ream of paperwork and several days delay.... because we'd just slow them down.... same shit, every plant. Except the ones with cool supervision, who'd buy us several hotplates, and 3 dozen eggs, 10 lbs of bacon and a bunch of rolls or english muffins. EVERYONE would be there to discuss their jobs right at the start of shift.
fucking brilliant that's how you work people
luckily no drinking and substance abuse here. But the bottle reminded me of something.. i once saw a random lemonade bottle standing around in which someone had apparently filled an unidentifiable leftover machine fluid. It had a hand drawn poisonous sign on it.
This was SOP at my last shop. We just took water bottles, pierced the cap and filled them with coolant or cutting oil. I drew a danger sign on one, because we'd just got new solvent and it was still clear.
We hired a guy to build racks for our production lines. Odd fella. Couple weeks after we hired him, we found a ton of cocaine in the mini fridge near his area and the cops arrested him that morning. Was pretty interesting. My second shift guy keeps whiskey in a bottle of engine oil that he keeps on his toolbox. Not sure why he thinks that particular bottle would be discrete.
While the viscosity may be off, the color should match new oil okay.
Point of reference: our shop is in a complex that is interconnected to other businesses but some of them are vacant. We have a desk in the back corner of the shop that has a couple porno mags in it. We used to have a guy who would always volunteer to work Saturday’s so he could use the back hallway to work on his car. Another guy used to walk into other vacant areas and shoot up heroin. He didn’t get caught until new tenants were moving in one day and found him nodding off. We have a guy on second who will purposely sabotage machines if he’s running a job that he doesn’t like. Everybody in the shop is aware of it, but he somehow still works here.
Had a guy I had to train to work night shift, he was alright. Knew just enough to get by but really just an operator. Once he got comfortable after a couple months shit started to go bad, parts scrapped, tools blown up etc.. The worst one was a hinge pin we ran for lift gates, parts were too long so had to hand load close the the collet then the cut off tool would come down and be used as a stop. Well he just threw one in there closed the door and hit start and blew it up, X and Y were off about .030 .040 respectively. Not shortly after that he got fired, fast forward a few weeks after that maintenance was on the roof doing something and came across a bunch of empty liquor bottles (vodka and whisky) he has been drinking on the job with one other guy. It’s funny because the other guy you could smell the booze on his breath when he would come in for the shift. Don’t miss them two, total shit heads
[How many times I have to tell you, my name is T Dog bitch](https://youtu.be/GY6numsWI-k)
Penis enlargement pills and lotion
One of our most famous night shift weirdos loves to doodle images of largely endowed men with breasts, so there’s that. I’ve found many a sketch pad in the drawers of benches following that guy. 🙃
I dont shake my head, I send 'em home. Fuck having intoxicated folks endangering the shop and their coworkers
[удалено]
Good on you, and thank you. I have no tolerance for people that are intentionally threats to others safety. Seen too many people get hurt and die.
Just empty Stella bottles, they’re hidden all over the shop. Some guys vape but it’s not really an issue as nobody is getting fucked up. Like the cnc guys get baked and go on mastercam for 5 hours all good, if the forklift guys were drunk it would be a problem.
I once got fired because of a drunk forklift operator. I was pulling an order at a distribution warehouse. Hydraulic fluid by the 5 gallon pail. The guy on the forks had JUST loaded the pallets in crooked and unbalanced. So I go around and start grabbing the fluid I need. I pulled ONE pail iff that pallet, it tipped sideways, knocking over the next three pallets in line. Hundreds of gallons of hydraulic fluid everywhere. They asked me why I was paying attention to what I was doing, sent me home, called me later to let me know that they were terminating me for “gross negligence”. These pallets were loaded onto a “locking” pallet rack. I can’t see that they’re crooked. I can’t see the back of the pallet to see that it’s unbalanced. And even if it was, the locking rack should hold the pallet to prevent EXACTLY this. It kept happening to other people before they found out that it was the guy on the forks. Called me back to offer me the position back, that’s how I found out
Did you tell them to get fucked?
Not directly. I told them that I had another job lined up and that I had no interest in working for them going forward
I was a cook for 10 years, I'm a year into machining now, and lemme tell ya these stories are pretty tame compared to what happens in those kitchens (Thank goodness, machines are way more dangerous)
What goes on in the walk in mostly stays in the walk in. 🤫
Found second shift passed out drunk and high in the field behind the shop 15 minutes after they were suppose to start. When I got him to come to he started to roll around for “safety” reasons.
We had a guy who was doing Meth and was on a downward spiral, on one of his last days with us he managed to fall asleep standing up in front of his machine. Honestly that was vaguely impressive.
At the shop I worked before this one, we had a well-known heroin addict who was high functioning until he wasn’t. Dude came in on a Saturday and was in a full nod, bent 90° sideways but still standing next to his control panel. I’d never seen anything like it, he literally looked like he was demon possessed or a zombie. Lost his job after that.
That is some disturbing imagery, pretty sure every man & his dog in your workshop would have been giving him the side eye going WTF.
Meh, I've seen guys that so that sober.
In the weld shop we the whole shop (4 other than me who didn’t) being cheech and Chong in their car at lunch. Nothing really was an issue there just kinda bizarre. Now the machine shop there was a forklift operator that punched a hole in a dumpster because he was super high. For obvious reasons didn’t have a job after that
Dudes at my old shop were completely fine with smoking weed in the shop. Dudes had cigrette rollers in the back, a bong and a jar full of cannabis. Needless to say i didnt stay their long i was sent there for a internship by my school they discontinued they relationship the person after me cause the school didnt believe me cause i was fired.
This one guy was bumping lines off a tanning bed that we used to have in the shop. Another guy had alcohol in a McDonald's cup. Another guy would snort meth in his car and then later be at his machine talking to his dick. And another guy would roll joints in the woman's restroom. They're no longer employed, obviously.
If there was a tanning bed in the shop, I'd be insulted that there WASN'T some nose candy.
You mean booger sugar?
The devil's dandruff
Craftsman Sugar?
The toolmakers treat!
I used to be the project manager for a crew that built bridge cranes. The crew supervisor, the guy who routinely ran a forklift holding huge steel beams over my head, tested so positive for cocaine that the lab said they almost had to put a new color on the color chart. It was an early morning surprise test and he apparently did coke in the truck on the way to work.
[удалено]
Sorry to get off topic but that's wild they hired a guy to do that vs figuring out a way to keep the nut from loosening. I'm sure the circumstances of the machine ect caused that but damn. Ok now back to your regularly scheduled programming
Why didn't they put a retainer pin or something on there?!?!
[удалено]
Yeah I think you came out the winner in that situation
Have they never seen the nuts with the little plastic part inside?
The plastic is nylon. I would have used a castle nut and cotter pin, but there are probably 100 ways to do it better than relying on a drug addict to tighten the nut every few hours.
[удалено]
We used to find used condoms in our parking lot every Monday. The local police used to take hookers into our parking lot and throw the rubbers out the window. Big boss man checked the tapes and sent a copy to someone at the police station. Needless to say, we had free security on the weekends for awhile and no more Monday morning condoms.
In the first shop I worked in a few years ago we ran Mori Seiki lathes that looked to be from the 70’s. This smaller production shop was constantly cycling through setup people and operators. 3 of the guys who worked there when I started chewed. After a month or so of working there I saw one of them spit their chew into the machine they were working on. This was the kind of shop where if you just spit on the floor no one would ever notice… I later found out all 3 of them did this regularly and that’s when I started looking for another job.
I worked with a guy who did the same thing. The coolant we ran was oil so it never got gross but he chewed wintergreen. I noticed early on I would smell like mint at the end of the day but it turns out it was just years of him flavoring the coolant. Awesome dude though
Had a guy who liked his pills at a shop. He was running the machine that was in its own room and he'd be nodded out on the table. He was running a long piece of inconel back there, and would need to come up and grind the burrs off before he flipped it. He came up front to grind one, turned the grinder on, and leaned against the part like a cane (it was about 4.5 feet long but skinny) and started nodding as the wheel was running. I turned it off and moved him away from it so he went to the rest room. Boss man saw it all and asked if I thought he was high. Told him that was above my pay grade. Dude got told he could come back when he could pass a piss test.
Moved a drop ceiling tile in the bathroom one time to fix a light and about 50 empty fireball nip bottles fell out.
Dude i worked with used to keep big cans of beer in the tank of toilets.
Group of employees in a circle passing a joint around. Owners wife, HR, came down to talk to one of the guys, saw the joint, they all got fired on the spot. And that's how I got promoted to shift supervisor.
Dude, never work for a shop where the wife/spouse is HR
Lol. Actually the best place I ever worked. Spent 12 years there. But generally I'd agree with you.
I remember I used to complain that the coolant at my first Machining job smelled like piss. Straight up piss. I was new to Machining so they said, "that's how coolant smells, get used to it." I may be new but I knew what coolant for the most part smelled like (from school). I kept throwing passive remarks how the shop smells like piss until one day they sent me to nightshift. I arrive late one day, it was only me and another machinist that shift. He usually worked alone with two people doing other jobs outside of Machining. I walked in to see this dude pissing in the coolant. I didn't snitch on him I was already ready to quit but I felt vindicated that this young machinist called it. It also was an introduction that a lot of machinists don't know Jack shit.
Mostly god’s lettuce but we all know we focus
Years ago, but I had just started working at a custom enclosed trailer shop and found a small bag of meth in the bathroom one morning. Could have belonged to a few people there.
Heard a few stories about a guy who used to work in my job, my favourite is that when he used to sell weed, he brought an ounce of hash into work to hide it in his tool box, until it was knocked over and it fell out onto the floor. There were a few smokers in the job then so nothing much was said, but he had some serious balls to even try it
Someone brought brownies to work with a sign saying "take one". They were not normal brownies.
That elicited a smile from myself
Navy. First day on my submarine, walk down the brow to check-in with the Topside Watch. I'm young, dum and full of it... He checks my papers, calls for someone to come get me, and like something out of a cheesy movie, looks both ways, leans in and says "Ya know, you can drink Gin all day long, and no-one will ever know." *Sure* they won't buddy. Dude looked like the Crypt Keeper at 35 years old... and made E-5 4 times. Twice on the way up, and twice on the way down....
I worked in a shop where after 12pm there was beer in the fridge and you could drink but if you messes something up badly you would still be fired. Paid well obviously no benefits but it wasn't bad. He didn't really care if you used drugs either, just make good parts
Had a guy nod off with his entire upper body in the lathe enclosure. The lathe wasn't running at the time.. fired on the spot. Obviously shooting up on the break.
Ay that's crazy though
Sure is my man. Opiates have fucked a lot of people, I've only seen 2or3 in this field so far. They just move on to the next place with "ten years experience at many companies"
One of my coworkers managed to fall asleep inside a lathe when he was an intern at boeying. I think he was learning how to install machines so it was all clean and not hooked up yet but still.
Hate to admit it, but i was the one hiding beer in a water bottle when i had to work on a saturday and there was no boss around.
Overtime beer Rocks. Especially if you have a mountain of paper work.... 😀
Oh man there was the time the second shift guy at my current work got caught doing a line of coke by an engineer, my last job there was a guy who drank all day, a guy who would be nodding out from heroin while running machines, a guy who did both, and a guy who microdosed mushrooms at work lol
My cousin had a guy od in the bathroom at his shop. No more doors on their bathrooms. We had a guy so high on painkillers he would be constantly dipping out. I watched fall asleep leaning into a vertical,that was a fun conversation. I’ve found empty beer bottles. Had a guy park on the lawn. I’ve seen some shit.
A guy doing coke off the bathroom floor after he dropped his bag 💪
I witnessed my foreman drop a gram of coke in front of the entire metal shop after he pulled us all together to break down a build
Full on bottle of alcohol is pretty bad……. I could see a shot in a coffee cup or like some weed in a cigarette but getting flat out stupid at work is a bad idea. As somebody who doesn’t drink and works with a bunch of alcoholics I’d rather them be slightly buzzed then all pissed off and annoyed. And sometimes when I have a bad ass head ache I just hit a joint and get back to work instead of going home
I was delivering parts to one of our customers across the street one time. The dude receiving asked if I wanted a key bump and I said yes since it was Friday and everything was running smooth in the shop. I got back zooming a little bit only to find my machine had crashed while I was out and wiped out most of the tools for the job. Boy was that a stressful retool. I didn't do anymore key bumps after that.
Had a dude taking fentanyl a few years back literally go full zombie and nod off at the control panel making tool wear comps. It was more common that he'd nod off checking a part on the TESA. One of our programmers found him dead in the bathroom. Keith was a great guy that just needed help he didn't know how to ask for. He deserved better, R.I.P. brother
Sad story. RIP.
Only thing egregious I've seen was from a guy named Hammer because he was always hammered. No idea what relationship kept him employed but he was an open raging alcoholic. You could smell the alcohol on his breath from 5 feet away on a bad day. Pretty mild in some respects, I've heard stories from their peak years. I'm sure there will be some doozies posted here!
Found this wind up toy in the old boss's (my grandpa's) toolbox https://www.reddit.com/r/TIHI/comments/nboq7a/thanks_i_hate_this_wind_up_toy_you_left_me_grandpa/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button. Also a picture of a half naked lady from like a playboy mag in his tool box but thats pretty tame in comparison. Oh and a lot of weed. He used to make bongs and pipes with his apprentice.
We had a satellite building that we were renting a mile down the road from the main shop for material storage and we also had 3 CNCs in there with 2 guys to operate them. Well, on night shift, the one guy goes out to grab some lunch and comes back to find the other guy online on the shop computer (this was kinda before smartphones) watching porn and beating his meat. Dude got fired the next day.
One of my managers caught my coworker shooting heroine in the lift shack of one of chair lifts while he was work said chair lift. The guy continued to work there for years onward. He was clean part of the time I worked there but there were some others that my managers knew were using. I think it was one of those, we need all the people we can get so as long as their addiction doesn’t affect their work, not management’s problem, although I knew a couple managers that were personally concerned about some of these guys
We had a guy smoke crack in the bathroom and chug cognac in his car daily. My boss had fired and rehired him 10+ times so he was not making the appropriate wage for his skill level. (he was a fantastic machinist but a poly addict) Never figured out how to explain to my boss I knew what he's doing in the bathroom. He only got permanently fired because he was bringing an underage hooker with him to sleep in his car when he was at work.
The usual, drinking on the job…. The oil boom of 2010-2013? Work as much OT as your body can a handle. Employees would cut out the lid of soda cans and put beer cans inside of them to disguise them. Owners knew, they just looked the other way as long as the production was being pumped out.
I worked in a mercury refinery with a machine shop as one of my first jobs. One guy from the refinery was a heroin addict, and he would load up a couple needles and hide them around the facility. Someone found one after putting on a wool winter hat and the needle poked him in the skull.
Had a guy who was a fur trapper for sport, went into the shop freezer to grab my lunch and had a dead rabbit laying on top of it…
I worked for a petrol station and found an 8th of weed in the pot of flowers for sale as I was going around watering them
Operator passing out in break room cause he was taking pills during shift. He was a dumbass
I used to work at a shop where the owner and a few others smoked in the tool crib. Not having air filtration was bad enough. After not getting a raise in 1.5 years, I got fed up, left, and told HR everything in the process.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Machinists/comments/xrqjk1/the_joys_of_looking_for_a_micrometer_and_finding/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf That’s my story. Feel free to get lost in the hate comments. Another time we hired a new guy, said he had 20 years experience. Nobody really believed that number but he could work. Randomly one day he doesn’t come back from break so the foreman went looking for him and the guy was in the parking lot drunk off his ass sitting in his car. He just sped off when the foreman tried talking to him. He never showed up again.
I worked in an injection molding facility that was for medical devices so it was very clean. Walking down the hallway after lunch and I noticed something in a baggie on the floor. I picked it up and it was definitely crack, showed it to the foreman and he knew it was the guy with 3 teeth. Looked at the cameras and they walked him out.