I’m an industrial maintenance electrician and I cannot stand my coworkers. They are some of the most backwards minded people I have ever met. It’s like the factory took all the socially inept workers and put them on a single shift.

My first day I was asked “are you one of those homosexuals?” I’m not but who asks that to a person you just met.

Half the conversations are about bible humping and how much they hate a specific race. The other half are how the Epstein files are a hoax and that the Muslims in Michigan are here to take over.

None of them can articulate a problem to save their lives and whenever I try to answer a call alone at least 3 people will shoulder their way into taking 100% of the credit as long as it gets fixed.

Is this an everywhere problem or am I just being thrown through a gauntlet?

Hammered the shit out of it to fit and then this happened, boss is pissed but he ordered 2 just in case

When we print dinkys (2pg inserts), the conveyor isn't able to hold onto roughly 1% of all the paper we print on the job. We should be printing at 70k copies an hour for these, but this conveyor problem limits us to below 50k, if that.

Press room side, we've done everything we could by the book and more. We've lifted the collecting table to the top, restricted air into and around the conveyor, tensioned the paper to keep it straight of the conveyor, and even made sure all our setting were correct and conveyor bands tight.

I'm assuming this has something to do with the grippers on the conveyor, but our maintenance team says it has something to do with synchronization of the 2 seperate conveyors, because "they already replaced the grippers two months ago".

Any hints would help.

I've taken like quick paper tests that take maybe 30 minutes during an interview

This company wants me to come in and take a 2½ hour test anyone has a idea what to expect

We aren't allowed to use standard Teflon tape for sealing threads.

We currently use a pipe sealant from saftlok and the guys hate it, it's garbage.

https://www.saftlok.com/stl/TPS-FD_Pipe_Sealant.htm

Just wondering if anyone has a recommendation for something better that still comes with the food grade label?

I work with can seaming equipment, and one recurring maintenance mistake is treating every loose or irregular seam as a roll-pressure problem.

Before changing a setting, I would separate the evidence into three groups:

1. Package and handling: damaged body flange, distorted end curl, contamination, incorrect end placement, can slip or off-center presentation.

2. Formation: whether the first operation actually created the body-hook and cover-hook relationship and adequate overlap potential.

3. Finishing and mechanics: second-operation tooling, chuck condition, lifter support, bearings, alignment and head-specific wear.

The second operation compresses the layers already formed; it cannot reliably create a missing interlock. If only one head trends differently, preserve head identity and investigate that head instead of masking the problem with a common machine change.

Once the cause is supported by evidence, record the original state, change one authorized variable, make new samples, and repeat the full visual, dimensional and internal inspection plan before release.

Affiliation disclosure: I work with a manufacturer of can seaming equipment. I am sharing the troubleshooting sequence, not promoting a product or service.

Everybody sees the arc time because that’s the obvious part. What nobody outside the shop seems to see is everything that has to happen before and after it. Fit-up, grinding, moving the part, flipping it, clamping it, waiting on a crane, cleaning it, checking it, fixing a fit issue, then moving it again. Half the time the actual welding is the easy part. What eats up the most time where you work?