2015 Collection: Sporadic Notes From The Toy Factory #14

June 23, 2015 Heat Exchangers

Sort of an in-between day; the building is unusually warm. My upper body is soaked with perspiration, so I've taken off my cap to soak it in cold water. With my long hair and full beard, I've learned to deal with the energy-sapping heat at work by wetting down my head and neck, and letting the cool water just soak it. People think beards are hot, when the reality, for me, is that when they're wet they act like heat exchangers and cools my face as I drive.

Appearance-wise, you can't tell the difference what moisture is outside your clothes, coming in, or outside your clothes coming out. Further, it isn't like an employee can wear anything they want in a factory setting -- least here in Minnesota -- because of OSHA safety regulations. Long sturdy pants, steel-toed shoes or boots, upper body shirts; sleeves optional depending on what you are doing; as well as safety glasses that tend to hold the heat to your face; and ear protection.

Evening shift is the worst during the summer as the day shift work force heats the building up by 3 o'clock in the afternoon, just when evening shift starts. Walking into the plant, just before every one is walking out, is, in a word, 'brutal.' With gigantic heat exchangers on top of the building exhausting the heat and huge floor fans circulating cooler air throughout, it gets cooled down by 11 pm just in time for the graveyard shift who work from 11 pm to 7 am.

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