Workplace rant

I live in central Illinois... which is like an armpit's armpit and we have some wild temperature swings. Tonight it's going to get down to 35 and tomorrow it is forecast to hit 28. My workplace is heated by steam and in a bid to save money, management in all of their infinite wisdom has decided to delay turning on the steam(heat) for at least another month. I can deal with the 110 degree (in shop temperature) summers but this is bullE36 M3.

If I wanted to work in the elements I would have gone into construction or landscaping.

I think I'll build a fire in the middle of the shop.

Aw man I just gotta know if there's heat in said managers' offices.

Never gets below 68 or above 75 in their offices, they are on a different system, in a different building.

Got an electric space heater at home? Plug one in to your office. They'll probably cite/make up a safety rule to get you to put it away, but worst-case scenario it's a good way to make a statement, best-case scenario you'll get a warm office on their electric bill.

My office is a 60,000 sq.ft. machine shop.

But yeah, I'm bringing a heater.

Great! Tell your friends to bring theirs too!

Our shop is in three parts. Engineering and management in the climate controlled front office, cnc and manual machining in the upper shop, with gas heaters that turn on at 55 degrees, and the lower Bay that has four 30 foot garage doors to let the heat out, and one four by four foot wood stove to try to keep a 60foot high Bay above freezing....

I'm glad I'm a machinist and not a welder, but I frequently find myself wishing I'd finished engineering in the summers.

I used to chuckle because a previous employer of mine would wait forever to turn on the building heat. He would tell everyone it felt fine to him, so we had to deal with it. Once his office door closed the whirr of countless personal heaters filled air. There had to be 20 space heaters in the office area. When he'd open his door we'd all click them off again. No idea what the electric bill looked like but I guarantee it was a hell of a lot more than the gas bill would have been!

You should use what SWMBO refers to as a Hobo Furnace.

Take a pallet, cut it up, and place into a 55 gallon drum. Then set it on fire.

Buy a pair and grow a pair.

(I said that in my a-hole supervisor voice and I am kidding. Remind them that being cold affects mental processes and reduces workplace safety and efficiency, potentially greatly offsetting any savings gained by not heating the place.)

the building i work in is 100% heated in the winter by the heat radiating off the tons and tons of steel rings and cylinders that are setting around cooling after coming out of the oven..

here is a cool digital pic i took of a pallet of rings that was sitting outside cooling a couple of months ago.. it was glowing faintly reddish orange to the eye, and this is what it looked like to the camera on my phone:

i couldn't stand within about 5 feet of it due to the heat... and this is a small pallet of small parts.. a couple of pallets of 6' diameter rings heats up the shop pretty effectively when they are strategically placed..

It looks purple on your phone because of the infrared radiation, which the camera can pick up and turn into a visible color. If your phone didn't have such a good IR filter, they'd just be white flares.

Leave late one day. Place all of management's chairs and computer mice in shop. Come in early next morning and return items to rightful places. Wear insulated gloves to avoid any accidental warming.

The place where I worked as a grease monkey was a 3-bay shop, parts store, with 4 apartments above the parts-store and associated warehouse. The apartments upstairs smelled like tires, which I'm not sure is healthy.

Anyway, the shop charged for "Oil Disposal" ever since the days when you could no longer dump oil down the drain.

The owner, however, modernized, and bought a waste oil boiler. Smart guy. Uses this to heat the entire building, shop, warehouse, apartments, all of it. Has 3 huge oil tanks for storing waste oil. Probably saves a good chunk of change.

Still charges customers for "Oil Disposal".

We have a customer account like your employer......the workers got OSHA involved. Needless to say, they got heat.

Jimmy Carter said: Put on a sweater.

The only intelligent thing he ever said.

Have all the shop bound employees take their breaks in his office. Clap and rub your hands, blow on them get yourself warm again and hold the office door open as you go back to the shop floor so the next guy can do the same. Stagger your breaks. Repeat as often as shop rules allow you to break.

The U.S. Department of Labor enforces federal laws and standards for workplace and employee safety. Within the DOL, the Office of Safety and Health Administration is the key agency that monitors workplace regulations nationwide. OSHA's recommendations for workplace air treatment set federal standards for temperature and humidity levels. Regardless of business size, the minimum temperature for indoor workplaces is 68 degrees Fahrenheit and the maximum is 76 degrees Fahrenheit. The acceptable range for indoor humidity is between 20 and 60 percent. OSHA set these standards in 1975 in consultation with the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers. The Department of Labor provides assistance to help your business comply with federal standards.

sounds like you need to file a compaint

Long underwear.

PHeller wrote: The place where I worked as a grease monkey was a 3-bay shop, parts store, with 4 apartments above the parts-store and associated warehouse. The apartments upstairs smelled like tires, which I'm not sure is healthy. Anyway, the shop charged for "Oil Disposal" ever since the days when you could no longer dump oil down the drain. The owner, however, modernized, and bought a waste oil boiler. Smart guy. Uses this to heat the entire building, shop, warehouse, apartments, all of it. Has 3 huge oil tanks for storing waste oil. Probably saves a good chunk of change. Still charges customers for "Oil Disposal".

Pretty standard practice. We charge for hazardous material disposal too, but actually sell our used oil to a recycler. The big ships burn it as fuel once they get far off the coast.

The Canadian wrote:

The U.S. Department of Labor enforces federal laws and standards for workplace and employee safety. Within the DOL, the Office of Safety and Health Administration is the key agency that monitors workplace regulations nationwide. OSHA's recommendations for workplace air treatment set federal standards for temperature and humidity levels. Regardless of business size, the minimum temperature for indoor workplaces is 68 degrees Fahrenheit and the maximum is 76 degrees Fahrenheit. The acceptable range for indoor humidity is between 20 and 60 percent. OSHA set these standards in 1975 in consultation with the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers. The Department of Labor provides assistance to help your business comply with federal standards.

sounds like you need to file a compaint

wow.. shop I once worked at had no heat.. once saw the thermometer hit 14 degrees several days in a row. We spent that week huddled around an electric space heater

The Canadian wrote:

The U.S. Department of Labor enforces federal laws and standards for workplace and employee safety. Within the DOL, the Office of Safety and Health Administration is the key agency that monitors workplace regulations nationwide. OSHA's recommendations for workplace air treatment set federal standards for temperature and humidity levels. Regardless of business size, the minimum temperature for indoor workplaces is 68 degrees Fahrenheit and the maximum is 76 degrees Fahrenheit. The acceptable range for indoor humidity is between 20 and 60 percent. OSHA set these standards in 1975 in consultation with the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers. The Department of Labor provides assistance to help your business comply with federal standards.

sounds like you need to file a compaint

How does that work for a place like a steel mill? There is simply no way to get most parts of a mill down to 76 degrees...

In reply to The_Jed: Your employer is stupid. How can you read a mic if your hands are shaking?

I work in a service drive, of course. The weather there is the same as it is outside, there are heaters for winter but once the doors go up that's it.

I honestly have gotten to where I like it. Well, except for midsummer when the Twins stick to my thighs. THAT I do not like.

Is there a sprinkler system?

I say a fire barrel.