I Can Haz Weekend?

So you're aware that we had an election a couple of weeks ago, of course, and that this Obama guy won it. Because he is to be our next president, my Place of Employment has gone batshit crazy. Everywhere there are Chicken Littles running about proclaiming the sky is falling, which is to say, these people believe that Obama is going to come and shut us down ... or at least the parts of us that make semi-automatic weaponry, and I am part of one of those parts of us. As a consequence, orders for the guns in my line have gone through the roof, into the sky, up past the clouds, and are currently circling the moon.

Since the election orders have been placed for approximately 16,000 of the rifles that I happen to work on. We sold 6000 in one day alone. That's a lot of firepower being let out into the world, but of course ... we have to make most of them first. To accomplish this, the Powers That Be (who are among the Chicken Littles already mentioned) have bumped up our daily numbers. We were at 125, which we were easily making back when I was on bolt-fit. Now they want between 250 and 300 every day from now until infinity until the madness dies down.

Yeah, and we haven't done that. On our best day ever since I've worked there we did 220, and we were hauling ass, man. I bolt-fit my little heart out, and at the time ther was a second bolt-fitter (I believe it was Brad). Now I'm on trigger housings, which I'm pretty good at, yes, but it's really hectic keeping up with the sub-assemblies for even the numbers we're making. I'm supposed to get another person over there to build those subs, but so far it's only been here and there. Bolt-fit, with Cooter over there, is also struggling.

And so we're getting a lot of overtime. I've been working six day weeks (five 10 hour days and 5 hours Saturdays) for what now seems like years, even though it's really only been maybe a month or so. And I'm tired. By Thursday I've totally lost track of where I am in the week and have to stop and figure out what actual day it is. It feels like I've been there every day since sometime in September without break. The weekends fly by, and I don't get nearly anything I want to do accomplished.

But the machine shop is having a hard time keeping ahead of us. They've had some problems, and we've been stuck waiting for parts, and so on. So they're working mandatory Saturdays (8 hours last week, 10 this week). the PTB decided to shut us down and save what barrels are ready for Monday. So today I worked an 8 hour day building up triggers and mag-latches, and hammer struts, and doing miscellaneous other things. Jim and Brad worked, too, doing similar. Cooter wasn't there. If he doesn't *have* to work, he doesn't work. There are reasons that I often hold him in contempt, and this is one of them.

And we're off tomorrow. I have a full weekend to myself, to do whatever I want. So in preparation for the big push next week, you might think I'd want to take it easy and rest up, and the truth is I am pretty exhausted. But no ... I'm going to empty the fuel tanks. Everything that I've had to push back, everything that I've wanted to do -- it's all on the docket. I'm going to cram as much stuff in here as humanly possible, including a good chunk of writing time, and I'm going to live life to the fullest.

Because as things look, I might not get too many more weekends like this for a good long time.

Virgorama

For many people, 10:30 a.m. is the single best time of day to come up with fresh insights and new ideas. But that won't exactly be true for you in the coming week. I mean, 10:30 will be a time when you're likely to be really smart, but then so will 11:30, 1:05, 2:37, 3:46, and 4:20. For that matter, 6:35 may also bring a gush of high intelligence, as well as 7:27, 8:19, and the last ten minutes before bedtime. What I'm trying to tell you, Virgo, is that you're in a phase when being brilliant should come pretty naturally.

In support of this supposed brilliance, Stray Bullets returns to your local stations tomorrow afternoon.


yes, really.