As I told a few people in IRC a day or two ago, I've been working at UPS for a few months now. It's one of the reasons I've been gone... too busy working. I work in the ECS (Exception Capture System) department. What's that? UPS uses maxicode labels to sort packages internally. If you've ever gotten anything from UPS, those are the labels with a bullseye in the middle and dots around it. Now, whenever the sorting system can't read one of those labels for whatever reason, be it the label is damaged, the zip code encoded in the label dosen't exist, whatever, it's my job to correct it. Those packages are sent to my department via conveyor belt (_everything_ is via conveyor belt there), and us little peons are given the task of sending the package to it's proper destination.
Most times the problem is that the dork who addressed the package wrote down the wrong zip code. We have an address system we work with to find the correct zip code for that particular address on the package. We then print a new label, smack it on the box, and send it on its way to be re-sorted. It would be an easy job if I didn't have to pick up every single box off the belt, and place it in front of me to work on. And WHY IS IT THAT EVERY BOX WITH A BAD LABEL IS LIKE 900 pounds?!... ahem.. sorry.
Things are always breaking open on our conveyor belts. Our main belt is still rainbow colored from 10 large boxes of oil paints breaking open. Nasty looking chemicals break open alot, too, which is why we have a haz-mat (hazardous materials) team on standby all the time. Oh, and did I mention the time a big box of crickets broke open? That was fun.
Anyway, yesterday a box broke open a ways down the line, and a smell started to escape. No biggie, that always happens when something breaks open. But it started to get worse. And worse. And worse. And worse... It became so overpowering, our department was actually evacuated and the haz-mat team was called in. Two girs had starting vomiting, and many people (including me) were feeling very queasy. According to one of the haz-mat members, the smell when he got near it was that of acid burning through metal, and he was worried that it was a container of acid that broke open and started eating through the belt system. We were moved farther back, and one of the haz-mat people donned a full protective suit to go clean up the mess. He got near the box, checked the label, and inside was...
A five-gallon drum of super concentrated liquid cheese.
I have no idea how any kind of cheese could have the smell of acid burning through metal, but this stuff did. I never got near enough to be sure, but it appeared to be about as thick as wet cement, too.
The two girls that got sick were actually taken away in an ambulance. We also got to go home early.
I really did feel queasy after breathing those fumes that night, so I decided to call in today and say I wasn't up to working due to the smell from the other day. Everyone I talked to said they were going to do the same.
Cheese fries, anyone?
