Sometimes you just know it's going to be a rough day at work.
My first clue last night was arriving at the time clock and learning that the air conditioning wasn't working properly. Apparently Florida Power and Light (FPL) had been doing some kind of power transfer and did something that bollixed up the local power grid at work and fried out two of the four big "chillers" that cool the building. The front of the building was hotter than the back; my machine is closer to the back than the front, so it was cooler there. It was still warmer than usual, and especially in the first hour or so, when I had to trudge back and forth from my machine to the front of the building in search of empty equipment. By the time I got everything in place an hour later, I was starting to overheat, so I went to the restroom and ran cold water over my forearms and splashed cold water on my face to cool off. I regretted very much wearing jeans instead of shorts. Hindsight's 20/20.
While printing out my labels for the trays, both of my printers ran out of labels. I normally print two sets at once, and oddly enough, both printers ran out on the same label, number 55. Very strange indeed.
Next, I started having problems with my machine. It took two hours to fix it. It turned out that not only had a diverter gate gone bad, but one of the light barriers also went on the fritz at the same time. Losing that much run time meant that we had to reorganize things a bit. Fortunately, our mail volume wasn't particularly heavy and we got both of our dispatches out on time. All's well that ends well.
