Beet Harvest Day 11 – Does Anyone Have Clean Underwear?

Morning Conditions:

Does Anyone Have Any Clean Underwear?

This was the first question posed to us this morning in the safety meeting.

Only about a quarter of the group raised their hands. 😬

With each shift actually being 12.5 hours to include the safety meeting, it’s hard enough to have the energy to shower and make food. Hardly anyone has managed laundry.

Karma and I already learned from previously years in the van though.

Minimize clothing EXCEPT underwear and socks. Always have at least two weeks of underwear and socks in the van at all times.

Overtime Day!

Since it’s Saturday, we our ENTIRE 12.5 hour shift is time and a half! 🥳. Love it.

We do the exact same work and get paid a lot more. 🙌

The entire north end crew (pilers 5-8) did a little dance when time and a half was mentioned. Since everyone here is trying to make as much money as possible as fast as possible, this is helpful.

We Re-devised the Break Schedule

Yesterday, we got thrown for a loop working an extra person into our break schedule. It worked out fine and everyone got the same amount of breaks, but we all realized how to be more efficient toward the end of the day.

Luckily, they leave that all up to us and we’re all competent people. That allows for the constant rotation.

The Truckers Are Showing Distinct Signs of Fatigue

We have all noticed the fatigue appearing in more and more of the truck drivers. They’re comfortable with the process and starting to jump the gun a bit.

How so? They’re lifting their boxes to fast and overflowing the end dumps. They’re also starting to not wait until their boxes are all the way down before starting to drive forward. (They’ll hit the dirt return with the box if they do that).

Thus, we’re having to be even more cautious.

We’ve also noticed one’s breaks kinda suck so we’re giving him an extra wide berth. His truck has got to be from the 60s, too. Shit is OLD. 🚛

On trucker was too tired to back up 10 feet after we gave him his dirt and he drove into the beet pile. He just drove straight over the edge of the pile.

Karma was giving our pile operator a break, so I signaled it up to him and he called it in on the radio. Our foreman intercepted him on the way to the scale house and had a little chat. He didn’t come back to our piler after that 😂

Roughly 63% Complete

We got word that as of midnight the previous night we were roughly 63% complete. Our shift with 4 pilers yesterday processed over 1,000 trucks during 12 hours.

They say we are still in the peak truck volume. Apparently, the last 15% drags out like crazy. It has been likened to getting 1,000 paper cuts.

We have had a steady stream of trucks still and a line most of the day.

Evening Conditions: