Know Any "Left Brain" Folks?

A lot of folks in the paper industry are what you'd call, "Left Brain" folks. Here is a humorous story about a Left Brain person:

LeBron Chooses

The Fly, by JF

We were meeting in the new “Board Room.”   It was outfitted in grand style, to suit the grand folks that were meeting there.  A very large round table was in the center of the room.  It is the largest round table you will ever see, maybe 12 feet in diameter.  Our former main office had to be torn down because of a paper mill expansion in the mid 1980s. The meeting was with the construction and engineering “Firm” that we had hired to build the new paper machine.  This meeting was to talk about the relatively small amount of expansion in the Kraft pulp mill and other lesser items.  There were plenty of suits and yellow legal pads in evidence.  I was there because some testing labs were to be combined in a passage way on the second floor over the road between an existing machine and the new machine.  As an aside, when winter came, there had been no insulation in the floor of the lab and the temperature on the floor hovered around 40 degrees F.  This caused much unrest.

The Firm had their chief Kraft mill guy giving the presentation, with plenty of backup.  This person was really a good engineer and was well respected at our plant.  He was in his late 40’s, I’d guess.  He always wore a black suit and a 60’s era narrow black tie…the same one every time he came.  I loved those ties and I admired the way he gave slide show presentations.  He would say, “”This is slide one” and after a short pause with no other explanation, he would say, “This is slide two” etc.  The whole show didn’t take long that way, what a relief.  After the presentation, we broke for lunch.

When the meeting began again, a fly had entered the room.  This was not easy as there were at least three doors to conquer.  He was a normal southern black fly that we have all encountered at picnics, barbeques, homes etc.  We know of his nimbleness and ability to escape death or even to be touched.  His relative, the northern black fly, as in Maine , has the ability to stab you with his stinger which usually brings about his death because of his lack of nimbleness.  This fly flitted about the board room, as flies do, and was shooed off by the back of many hands (note how we shoo flies).  We all know where flies land and what he steps in and want none of it. 

Eventually the fly landed in front of one of our engineers…Tom.  He is a southern boy and had encountered flies all of his life.  Carefully Tom’s hand formed the  thumping position as the fly wandered around the yellow pad.  I watched entranced.  Soon the spring was sprung… and the fly disappeared; you know how flies can disappear in your house.  Was it a hit or a miss?  For a few seconds neither Tom nor I knew about the drama taking place; we were the only ones aware.  Finally across the large 12-foot table, a Firm’s young engineer looked down and then straight up!  What had killed a fly in the air?  There he lay, apparently dead, on his yellow pad.  The Firm’s engineer pulled the yellow pad, ever so slowly, off the table while watching to see if any one was watching.  The poor dead fly was deposited on the carpet like a sailor buried at sea.

It was very, very hard to keep from laughing out loud in an otherwise somber meeting.

This was one of my more memorable meetings.  Tom and I still laugh about it every time we see each other.  

By JF

The Empire Is Back!

Did I Mention Roach? - Its Wild Bill

Roach was my 1968 VW mill car. Roach was painted dark blue.  At that time [early 1980's] you did not drive a 'good car' to a paper mill. Now do not get upset because by the mid 1980's the paper industry had upgraded all systems and pollution was not an issue.

 

In 1984 we were in the middle of a major expansion which included a new paper machine, new boilers [state of the art pollution control] and, at that time, the world's largest mechanical pulping or TMP [thermo mechanical pulping] mill.  I was the engineer for the new TMP Mill.   Using today's dollars, the expansion would cost about $US1.2 Billion.  We had 4,000 construction workers on site. 

 

The TMP Mill used liquid SO2  [sulfur dioxide] to formulate sodium hydrosulfite bleaching liquor for bleaching TMP.  The new system had two 13,500 gallon S02 tanks.  Liquid S02 is as hazardous as chlorine gas. If one of the two new tanks failed, well, honestly say goodbye to about half of the county.  In the previous year I had rebuilt the existing S02 system after researching the issues.  I gave these specs to the project consulting engineers and directed these guys to duplicate the design. No such luck!

 

We filled one new S02 tank in the morning and at 2PM two days later this tank started to fail due to incorrectly specified gaskets.  To truly experience an S02 leak you must go into your yard and pick up and put dog droppings into you mouth.  The good news if you smell rotten eggs your are still alive!  I called the chemical supplier and had two chemical tucks expressed to the mill.  It was around 11PM when the tank was empty and danger had passed. Time to go home.

 

I started Roach and started to drive home.  Fog had started to settle and when I began to turn off HWY 5, I missed judged my turn.  I drove about 75 feet and started to turn left.  At that instant I saw head lights in my right side door window.  I then headed for the ditch on the right side of the road.

 

An off duty  construction worker [from the project contractor] driving a step van rear ended Roach at about 70 MPH.  Roach and I were launched about 50 feet before landing in the ditch.  Poor Roaches engine ended up in the back seat!  Yes he was dead!!  I was alive but sore  for days.

 

Roaches replacement?  A 1974 Super Beatle painted orange named Tigger!  I had Tigger's engine rebuilt and had him painted CLEMSON Orange.  Now, no one could not say they did not see me ever again!  All Yankees loved Tigger as he was a Southern Car with no salt damage.  I sold Tigger to a young girl in Ohio in 2007 just before moving back south.  She was only 12, but her Daddy said she just loved VW Beatles and would take good care of him.

 

FYI - My wife names everything we own.  My Mercedes is named Scarlet, and my truck is named Buba.   Oh yes,  it was time to replace Roach!

 

Wild Bill - Alive and Well! 

The Latest Shift Happens

You've Got To Move Fast Just To Keep Up!

The water cooler wisdom blog has an interesting post today on communication. Check it out.  You might learn something:

How to Communicate Across Generations

In every talk I give at a corporation or conference on intergenerational communication, someone raises their hand and says that people of different generations don’t vary in their styles and that it’s all in my head.  If you’re tempted to think that, here are some examples of the types of remarks I’m always hearing:

Born before 1945, they’re the loyalists, the ones who spent a lifetime at the company and expect to be rewarded with a Rolex:

How can I help YOU?

Flexibility is a code word for less work getting done.

If I’m not yelling at you, you’re doing fine.

Baby Boomers

Born 1945-63, they’re the hippies and the yuppies, the ones who worshiped the Beatles and clawed their way to the top:

I paid my dues to get more money, a better title, and a swankier office – what are you going to do?

You’ll get your feedback, that’s what annual performance reviews are for.

We’ve been in business for 50 years, we must be doing something right.

Generation X

Born 1964-79: they’re the loners, the ones who learned to be self-reliant while their parents left them with latchkeys:

Company loyalty – what’s that?

I can manage my own career, thank you very much.

Give me the skills or give me death.

Millennials

Born 1980-95, they’re the techies, the ones whose parents taught them they were special and entitled:

Sorry to interrupt, but you haven’t told me how I’m doing in the last hour.

Let’s cut out the red tape and cut it out now.

How can YOU help ME?

You can see that when it comes to communication, we’ve come full circle from the customer-oriented traditionalists, who wanted to know how they could help you, to the self-focused Millennials, who want to know what an organization and its people can do for them.

Adapting your style to suit the different perspectives of the multi-generational workforce will increase your team’s productivity and support a stronger sense of loyalty and positive morale.  Here are some ideas to start you off:

Traditionalists

• Empower traditionalists to make their own decisions by encouraging them to “trust their gut” and supporting them in whatever they determine is the best course.
• Have deference for their years of experience and listen.  After all, what has happened in the past is the best predictor of what will happen in the future.
• Talk to traditionalists about their learnings and their long-term plans. Don’t assume they have one foot out the door just because they’re what used to be retirement age.
• Provide constructive feedback as you would to any other employee – they can and should learn new tricks.

Boomers

• Give recognition whenever possible.  Acknowledge Boomers’ contributions and be cognizant about implementing their suggestions.
• Encourage them to mentor younger colleagues and learn new skills and technologies so that they can continue to hone their potential.
• Allow them to experiment with their jobs.  Many Boomers are getting antsy and want to do work that’s different and more personally meaningful.
• Respect the status quo.  Boomers feel that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.  Don’t insist on change for its own sake.

X-ers

• Share your unique expertise.  X-ers are interested in amassing as much training and knowledge as possible.
• Look to X-ers as team leaders.  They have been chomping at the bit to be out of the Boomers’ shadow for years and are ready for their time to shine.
• Use technology to make team meetings easier.  Many X-ers have families to think about, and they appreciate you keeping their necessary work/life balance in mind.
• Don’t block their path to decision makers.  X-ers just want to get the work done and can get impatient with turf wars and too many bureaucratic channels.

Millennials

• Take Millennial employees out to lunch and inquire about their career goals and aspirations.  They want to feel like you care.
• Explain to Millennials why things are done a certain way in your organization, educate them on who they need to talk to to get things done, and spell out “unwritten” rules to ensure compliance.
• Have an open-door policy in which you are available for Millennial team members to ask questions and receive guidance.  Provide constructive feedback in real time.
• In the event of a crisis, don’t shut them out because of their status as junior team members.  Millennials love the apprentice approach and will learn so much from having the opportunity to work by your side.

This post was originally published on Intuit's Quickbase blog.

The Paper Mill, 1953-1954 - by JF

They led me to an enormous room that contained a huge machine.  I’d never seen anything like it.  As an “Extra Board person”, I was almost overwhelmed. It was hot and the noise level was high and there was a characteristic smell that turned out to be hot linerboard.  It smelled the same in all the  other linerboard plants that I was ever in.  The machine was running fast - very fast!  Rolls of paper were spewing out and rolling across the floor.  Men were grabbing them and on painting numbers  with a stencil and then pushing them onto a little metal conveyer in the floor where they moved off to somewhere else.  This turned out to be my job – stenciling and pushing rolls around. The work was not hard but was constant.  I didn’t get to eat lunch or do any exploring.

The plant had begun operations in 1939, when a lap pulp machine  moved there from West Virginia .  In the ‘50’s, there were three machines making linerboard, corrugating medium and milk carton.  The pulp machine was gone.  The mill was doing just fine and was pushing 2000 employees.  Later a fourth machine making a hardwood free-sheet was added.  Now, in 2010, there is one machine operating, I’m told, and it is run by a Canadian Company.

A horn started blaring.  All of the men ran to the other end of the machine and began crawling all over it which now had parts shut down.  It looked dangerous.  There had been a break.  I asked a man whom I later found out was the foreman, what I could do.  He said don’t get in the way … I didn’t.  Eventually the sheet got through the machine…by magic I think.   The last step was the men threw the paper into stacked set of steel rolls with a stick….more magic.  We all went back to work.  Soon there was another break and I ran down to the other end and watched again.

Later the foreman came back and asked me if I wanted to work over (overtime) to change the wire.  That was time and a half.  It was enough for a week and a half in college time.  Two and a half weeks counting the first shift.  I said sure. 

I had no idea what a wire was.  I was thinking of a long telephone–like wire that was on a roll and required several men (and a boy) to roll up.  I found out what it was; people moved the machine out of the (screen-like) wire, then put the machine back into the new wire.  My job was to hose down everything in sight for eight hours.  A few years later I found out it included hosing young process engineers that happened to be walking by.

The foreman was a Georgetown (SC) person.  There were an amazing number of Georgetown people in southern mills at that time.  These folks had started in Georgetown , SC or came through there in the 30’s,through the 70’s and maybe longer.  Most of the people did very well.

The paper industry in the US ran full during those years  and delivered good paying jobs for tens of thousands of pulp and paper and forestry workers and their families.  I couldn’t wait to get in school to learn what I was doing.

JF

The Last Honest Politician?

The Chip Test and Other Adventures

In the 60's and 70's when paper mills were improving operations for environmental compliance, many waste flows were not measured. A quick way to get a "ball park" flow was to measure a drain area under liquid and then toss a wood chip (or stick, or paper - anything that would float) and measure the time it took the chip to go a measured distance. From this a phrase was often made, "accurate enough for paper mill work".

Early in my career, I (along with another process engineer) was given the task to measure the air flow leaving a turpentine condenser. There were no sampling ports and no shutdowns planned to add them (plus, no one wanted to work on them anyway). One of the Technical Managers found a trade journal report which said you could take a plastic trash bag, cut a hole in the side, tape it to the discharge, and get a "paper mill" quality measurement of the flow.

With this knowledge, we surveyed the job site, which was covered in emulsified sulfate turpentine, and realized there were times when the stack would blow emulsified turpentine on whatever (or whomever) was in the area. With this knowledge, we decided to proceed with all disposable clothing.

After carefully cutting the whole in the garbage bag, we taped it to the pipe and began taking measurements. All was going great until several digesters started venting non-condensible gases at the same time. The garbage bag started blowing up like a balloon - which caused the hole we had carefully cut to increase in size (making the paper mill quality measurement much less so).

Regardless, we continued to collect measurements. Suddenly, the stack went from pressure to a vacuum (apparently several digester vents stopped and the cooling water flow control was very slow) and sucked our bag right off the pipe and into the condenser.

We looked at each other, wondering what to do? Do we tell anyone? Would it make any difference if we did?

Since we were hot, and smelling like sulfate turpentine (which is not good) - we quickly decided we had enough information and completed our task - without a mention of the missing garbage bag.  And you know - that garbage bag never did show  up -  in the future - I was never surprised at what was found in the process.

"Smells Like Money" or "It'll Take The Paint Off Your House!"

Former Rock Hill Mayor John Hardin was a very entertaining person. He collected some of his more interesting stories into a book, It's Been GRAND! The Life and Times of John Anderson Hardin. It's a great read, even if you don't know the characters or the area. He has several stories about Bowater moving to the area. My favorite is below - read the book for the others.

The big Bowater newsprint plant announced they were coming to Rock Hill. It's one of our biggest plants now, on the Catawba River outside of Rock Hill. It makes newsprint, you know, for newspapers. Well, we were all excited about them coming to town. The Bowater Company flew a group of us from Rock Hill over to Tennessee where they took us to the plant in this big bus. All of a sudden this odor hits us. We said, "Guink! What is that?" Paper mills, you know, give off a rather disturbing odor and we thought that when we got back to Rock Hill, we would get run out of town. But it was such a big plant and such a big occasion, we thought that might offset the odor.


Well, we got back to Rock Hill and Connie Morton, my friend who had been on that Tennessee trip, had me at the radio station and we would make calls to people in Tennessee. We would call the head of the bank, the Chamber of Commerce, and I'd talk. I'd say, "Our people in Rock Hill want to know about this plant. I understand there may be some little odor connected with it." Each and every one said, "Well, there may be, but it smells like money." Well that was fine. Then we called the sheriff and had the same little talk. At the end of the conversation--we were on live radio--I said, "Sheriff, I understand there may be a little odor connected with it." He said, "Odor! It'll take the paint off your house!" And I said, "Thank you, Sheriff," and I hung up.


The Bowater plant (now AbitibiBowater) celebrated their 50th year in production in 2009 and no longer produce newsprint - a sign of the changing times.

Dressing a Rabit

“Ranger”- a nickname- had worked in a paper mill for almost 40 years. He officially worked in stock prep although he actually worked in the “computer room.”   This room was huge as it was about forty years ago when very large computers were just beginning in paper mills. There was plenty of idle time when things were going well so Ranger would tell of his various skills which pretty much ran the range of what a he-man would brag about.  He always had a big audience because of his story telling abilities although only one listener was all it took.  In fact, he got  votes in a couple of state elections as a write-in candidate; but didn’t win.

 

One night the discussion was about hunting; the other two subjects were almost entirely about women and sports, of course.  The discussion drifted into dressing and eating game.  As many people in the group were hunters, they ate the game they killed.  Ranger allowed that he could skin and dress a rabbit in less than a minute.  The folks laughed and afterwords decided to call his hand about his bragging.  On night shift, one of the guys brought a rabbit box and set it out behind the filter plant, at the far side of the mill, in some weeds.  Sure enough, the next night there was a rabbit in it

 

The gang gathered in the computer room and asked Ranger again about his story of the time to dress a rabbit, which he repeated. He looked shocked at seeing the rabbit but with bravado told everyone to “Come on.” They followed him to the test station where there was a sink.  One person had brought a stop watch and on “GO”, Ranger reached in his pocket; pulled out his knife; opened it on his leg; skinned and dressed the rabbit.  The time … 45 seconds!  He said, “Boys, when you can back it up, it ain’t braggin’.” 

 

No one challenged him on his deer stories.    

Tex "On The Job"

Mills in the south tend to get a lot of unusual characters. There was an Aggie engineer whose favorite expression was that he was going to get a can of "Texas Whip Ass" out and take care of the situation. He also claimed to be a Texan but everyone found out he was actually born in Oklahoma (another story).  Anyway, one summer we had more than our share of wasp nests. This Okie turned Texan took it upon himself to rid the mill of every nest he could find (must have been a childhood thing). Anyway, a talented operator (why is it always operators?) decided to capture the event with a drawing. Although they look like flies, they are actually wasps.

The Adventures of Turnip Man

A paper mill has a lot of talent that is not needed for making paper. In one mill that I worked, one of the paper testers could draw really good cartoons. His characterizations of people he worked with were dead-on. He worked with a 40+ year old bachelor whom he turned into "Turnip Man". A few times a week, a cartoon would materialize throughout the mill telling of the adventures of "Turnip Man". Turnip Man wore tights and cape (think of super man) with a picture of a big turnip right on his chest. The cartoonist always had flies swarming around his head.

Needless to say, "Turnip Man" was not amused, and to paper mill tradition, to battle continued to escalate.  One day, a group of employees decided to have the First Annual Turnip Man Festival. While the real Turnip Map was sleeping (having just finished third shift), they invaded his yard, strung turnips around it, started a fire and a big pot of turnips. About lunch time, the woke Turnip Man up so he could be photographed by the local newspaper with his fellow employees enjoying turnips in his front yard.

The adventures of Turnip Man would have gone on for a long time,  but the cartoonist got a job at a newspaper near Plains Georgia to draw political cartoons (when Carter was President).

Working in a Paper Mill is Like Being With Family - Almost.

When you work in a business that is 24/7, 365 days a year - you tend to spend more time with your co-workers than with your family. You share a lot of Thanksgiving dinners and big ball games with the folks you see nearly every day. Sometimes, those workers will take the opportunity to play games.

A good opportunity usually presented itself whenever a new employee started on the night shift (They don't call it graveyard for nothing). It was an opportunity to fully evaluate that employee's personality - and other things. They would  try to determine if there were any "phobias" - and then just wait.

They'd wait for the employee to be by himself - call and hang up, call and hang up. After several nights of this, they'd get in a conversation and mention a story about someone having a massive heart attack at that spot, and on every anniversary, the phone would ring but no one would be there.

Or they would put a little bit of grease on the ear piece - call and tell the employee the lubrication mechanic was greasing the phone line and wanted to be sure grease had made it to the other end. You'd be amazed at how many people would get taken in.

In The Beginning - The Beginners Guide To Papermaking

With 25+ years in the paper industry - and almost all of it in the "backside" of the mill - there are a lot of stories to tell. Some humorous, and some helpful. Hopefully, they will be captured here - and some stories that you may have as well.

Back in the 70's, a fellow student provided everyone with a copy of "The Beginners Guide To Papermaking" . I'm pretty sure it was produced by an artistically talented mill employee. If anyone knows who the author is, please let me know so I can give them credit.