Log 17: The Plexiglass Incident
In the morning, Graeme had me adhering plexiglass to large metal frames. By the time I hauled all of the frames and the plexiglass sheets to my work station, my arms were already burning. Next I needed to lift each frame onto a table, peel a tightly bound protective film off each sheet of plexiglass, use double-sided tape to stick it to the frame, and place the finished product back with the other frames. Easy enough.
However.
When I went to grab my first sheet of plexiglass from a stack on the table, its weight pulled the sheet underneath right along with it. I heard a distinct crack as that sheet smacked onto the ground. For a second I just stood there, chest tightening, praying that the sheet hadn’t taken any damage, and simultaneously knowing that it definitely had. When I inspected the plexiglass, my worst fears were confirmed; the bottom right corner had been badly cracked. This might not sound that terrible, but it’s not like there’s just mountains of plexiglass lying around the office. You get a set amount of sheets for a set amount of frames, and now, because of me, we were short one. To make matters worse, these frames needed to be finished that same day.
I think I messed up pretty bad on this one.
Doing my best not to panic, I walked briskly over to my Uncle Preston to get a second opinion. “I think I messed up pretty bad,” I said worriedly. “Oh, I doubt that,” he said with a smile, following me back over to the scene of the crime. When he saw the broken plexiglass, he didn’t say anything for a second. Then, “Okay, yeah, that’s pretty bad.”
One time, at a party in high school, I stumbled into a marble table on the host’s screen porch and knocked it to the ground, where it shattered into pieces thanks to the freezing weather. The plexiglass incident felt like that. Except maybe worse, because the host’s family wasn’t planning to sell the marble table before the end of the day. And I wasn’t employed by the host’s family. And the host’s family couldn’t fire me.
The good news was, Preston didn’t seem too stressed out about the incident, explaining to me that it might be a bit of a hassle, but he could have Chris cut another sheet. My chest tightened again. “Uh, Chris is home sick today,” I said nervously. Preston looked at me inquisitively. “I overheard Tod say so,” I explained. He sighed. It’s times like these that I’m thankful to have my uncle as my boss.
With Chris out of commission, Preston called Bob down to see if he could cut a new plexiglass sheet. “Who’s the Bozo that did this?” He remarked as he walked over to inspect the damage. “I don’t know, some guy just ran in here and pushed it off the table!” I replied jokingly, hoping to lighten the mood - my mood, that is. Bob just looked at me. After a few seconds of silence, I clarified the situation with a meek “I mean, it was me.”
Highlight: For the rest of the day, I relegated myself to routing more pine blocks in the saw room, rather than risk another misstep. This may sound like a punishment, but as we all know, repeated block routing is a favorite of mine.
