The office: Chatter about your job

Had a callout today that managed to involve both of my jobs; a helicopter coming in from offshore with one engine out.

At my job, we're looking at picking up a massive contract. Boise-Cascade (a national lumber company) has expressed interest in carrying our "Tetraleaf" product. We spent today prepping four samples that they are going to take on consignment to sell, and one of their reps is coming to our facility sometime next week.

"Tetraleaf" explanation; we take a laminated timber (called a "glu-lam", you've probably seen them holding up gymnasiums) and wrap it in cabinet-grade veneer of whatever wood species the customer requests. For an additional fee we can slice our own veneers out of the same piece of wood and match the grain around the corners, creating the illusion of a solid timber (note; sometimes this isn't necessary to achieve the same effect...really tight/straight grain in some species means it'll look solid whether we do the matching or not). The company I work for pioneered this technique back in the early 90s as an answer to the declining stock of high quality solid timber (and the general ugliness of standard glu-lam).

when paired with a competent designer the result can be pretty amazing. Now we want to offer the same general product as a commodity a contractor can buy...say, for installing as a column or accent beam over a fireplace.

It's a big step for us. We're excited as hell and hope it works out.

So basically to cover the ugly that is some types of Glu Lam you guys put a layer of veneer over it. Adding a more pleasant aesthetic to a product designed more for structural integrity. That about right?

Believe it or not that is the exact same technique used to make the many wood doors where I work. They look like single cut timber pieces from the same log but if you look closely you can see that it is veneer. They have aligned grain veneer over something supposedly similar to Glu Lam. For the most part they did a good job as it is hard to tell unless you look close. The heavy use doors it is easy to see. The low use doors you can't really tell unless you look very closely and catch the very small adhesive line.

So basically the products end up looking like these All the search results that had Veneered lumber were of course pretty but this was top of the list.

@Tuefel: LOL, you just linked my company's website. :D

And yeah, that's what we do. Veneering has been around for a while but we were the first people to apply it to timber. Funny aside; my boss took his idea to the Timber Framer's Guild back in 1990 and they basically laughed him out the door, saying that engineered wood products "will never be a legitimate part of our industry". Seems he got the last laugh. :D

edited 20th Mar '14 8:10:43 PM by drunkscriblerian

Drunk: Ha. Talk about a lucky hit. I used Tetraleaf Veneer for the search term. They had Tetraleaf TM so I figured they would have the best examples of what you described.

Yeah I would say he got the last laugh for sure. A while back when you talked about veneering over structural lumber pieces I started looking at things around me. Pretty much every door is made like that. Very very fine veneer lines. I wasn't entirely sure at first until I checked the door edges on the heavily used doors. Some have had enough moisture damage from humidity and exposure to varying tempratures the veneer has either sunk or pulled ever so slightly away before being glued back into place. Hell the desk I work from is made like that. Though it's veneer job was rather poor it comes up at the edges and people pick at it a lot.

edited 20th Mar '14 8:21:17 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Three weeks into the new job and I am absolutely horrified that three of the people that I work with were considered "good hires". If I am anything like any of those people I am going to allow my inner serial killer to awaken and arise and then I am going to kill my boss before I kill them.

Dear Internet Alarmist: I am not serious.

edited 21st Mar '14 8:43:15 PM by blackcat

blackcat: Ooh you're ready to be your own murder mystery.

OMG Tuef what a great idea. And so much better than what I was thinking.

I work for the Internal Revenue Service.

(Cue Dramatic Thunder)

Don't worry, I'm not an actual tax collector. I just work in the mailroom. It's not the most exciting job in the world, but it pays the bills.

Hehe, pay bills, IRS.

Ha

We had this two days ago and a nice big van blazing away to itself on the main road last night. Practically the whole village came out to watch and my wife was there taking photos and waving.

...All you needed, from the sound of it, was a Dibbler to show up for the complete package.

Was somebody passing around a Thermos of tea, at least?

edited 26th Mar '14 4:30:39 AM by Euodiachloris

They should've been. We could've roasted sausages on it. Two more engines showed up because somebody a few streets away thought it was a house fire, so we got the odd spectacle of two engines driving through an ongoing incident and disappearing around a corner, only for their white-hat to come toddling out the back door of a house next to the fire and watch us over the garden wall.

There was a guy videoing it. Here we are. Left-overs.

edited 26th Mar '14 7:45:59 AM by InverurieJones

At certain times, my current job is one of the greatest I've ever had.

This is not one of those times. We're in between projects, and now I'm putting out the occasional fire and hoping that none of them pop up in any of our nuclear projects. Not because it means a bad thing, but because nuclear quality is a bitch-and-a-half to work through. I've known vessels containing actual lethal chemicals under tremendous pressure and temperature to have less regulation and documentation than a fricking feed water storage tank on a nuclear site.

Ooh, nuclear fires. That sounds entertaining.

Did the knell of the impending paperwork not warn you that any entertainment derived on the ground comes at a deadly price?

Work was fun today.

Everything kept breaking, plenty of injuries, two new hires, some jackasses kept everyone working in the kitchen until midnight.

Hooray for NCAA season...

Sigh. I got them two job blues, I got them two job blues.

Muscles twanging on my back and neck

there's trouble with my sacroiliac

Two job blues, I get dem two job blues

This is one of those places where if you demonstrate any snap at all you are instantly scheduled for the busiest days and the hardest shifts. Because working harder under the worst circumstances is how you should reward competence.

The owner came in while the GM was on vacation, transferred a key person to a store she does not want to work at and then threw out the schedule the GM created for next week and made a new one. Ain't no body happy.

I'm already looking for another job. I don't need this crap.

This is that butcher shop that you had such high hopes for? I'm sorry.

It's what I get for believing someone's version of themselves rather that waiting to form my own opinion. There ain't nothing pretty about the food biz. It's not a bad place, it just isn't a great place.

edited 4th Apr '14 9:23:42 PM by blackcat

Hug?

Thanks, mate.

Gah. I was on cash register today and there was a line for five hours straight. It doesn't sound like much but this is a store with one cash register and a constant stream of orders. There were times when no one could get to the phone.

My personal beef with the situation is that the food stamp and credit card machines are dial up. And the conventional wisdom is that if the machine doesn't connect to a line right away, you should cancel the transaction and start over again.

Oy.

Hug?

Oh Mads, they won't get wireless technology because it isn't secure. And apparently the food stamp system has to be dial up. I just do not understand the world. It's official.