I have yet to determine when one gets enough seniority to do much of anything at work, but it definitely can be measured in the number of buttons you might be allowed to push. Meet some buttons.
The big red one is the first button everyone becomes acquainted with. It's the STOP button. Every station has one. If anyone in the room yells "STOP" anyone who is anywhere near a button hits it. The point is, shut the machine down NOW. Some paper jams shut down automatically, but a lot of problems don't, so we all get really comfortable with the STOP button.
The toggle switch with the arrow is a feeder switch. I'm now trusted to turn the feeder switches on and off when told, and sometimes the detector switches. This station doesn't have one, but they are usually in the slot that is empty on this station.
Here's the main control station.
You don't see any arrows to those buttons. That's because I haven't been allowed to touch any of those yet. The green button starts the whole machine. The counter (at 0 in this picture) shows how many papers per minute are being stuffed when its running. We generally run between 60-75. Of course, that's only when the machine is actually on.
Here's an ominous button.
This is the main power switch for the whole machine. It actually turns off all the motors with one pull. I've been instructed to pull it twice. No one pulls that unless the big boss says so!
Today, I got to push a new button! I like it. It's the green one.
That button turns on the conveyor that takes papers from the stuffer to the stacker, and from the stacker to the strapper. I feel very honored.
My real goal? To be allowed to drive the forklift. I've learned that one other girl is allowed, so there is hope for me. There's a lot of gender bias in general.
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5 comments:
You are becoming the button queen, Miss Joan. Buttons have always overwhelmed me. In my rape cases, we did colposcopic photography & I, fastidiously, color coded cables to hookups, etc, with electrical tape so, if things ever got separated, we could hook things up again. It was a life saver when the agency moved from the ER to a site upstairs. We were all alone doing our cases so we had to know everything or call in one of our nurses colleagues at 3AM or so!
With all those buttons I imagine it would be easy to press the wrong one if you didn't know what you were doing.
There are only 3 people at work that drive our forklift and they all have to be licensed to operate it
Button. Button. Who's got the button? Which only illustrates that ours is a push-button world, and this is a push-button age.
Now, if someone would just push my buttons . . .
True: I was thinking "Button, button..." and of course Chuck got there first. Fork lift: lots of responsibility. Have fun with it. I'm sure they will allow you a shot at it.
Carmen- your career sounds so much more fulfilling than pushing buttons!
Ann- I'm sure no one where I'm working cares about licenses to drive a forklift
Chuck- Which buttons do you want pushed?
Vanilla- It's a very short drive in our tight space. I hope some day they'll let me try.
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