Tuesday, March 27, 2007

free laceweight!




Yup - free. The one perk of this job that I have discovered so far. (Actually, second perk - I can blog from work, during down time, that's first.)*
I work for a rug company - we manufacture and import. In the manufacturing process, obviously, we use yarn. Most of it is heatset polypropylene, or bulk continuous fibre (BCF). Neither of these has a particularly pleasant feeling. Long wearing and great for rugs, but for knitting? Not so hot.
However... we also get samples of yarn from yarn manufacturers. The stuff above? 100% viscose. Still not the top of the line wools and silks, but acceptable. Our buyer and I eat lunch around the same time, so she always sees me knitting. She asked if I wanted this stuff. I rarely turn down free yarn, so I grabbed it. I haven't swatched yet - who knows, it may knit up horribly. If so, all I've lost is the time it took to swatch. It may be a hidden gem. I'll keep you posted.
What I'm really after is the viscose still on the Buyer's desk - luminous gold and scarlet cobweb weight. Slippery as all get out, but I think it would be fabulous. She is holding on to it - it's very pretty sitting by her monitor. I may have to promise her something made out of it to get my hands on it!

*For those keeping track of the trials and tribulations of my job, things seemed to have evened out. I have taken on an entirely new job in addition to my present position, and I am finding that not only do I sort of like what I'm doing, I'm pretty good at it. And it's been noticed by the higher-ups. So, that's a good thing. However, I am still at odds with The Most Useless HR Person On Earth (TMUHRPOE) - that will never change until she realizes that my family will ALWAYS come first. She doesn't get that, and probably never will. (Should I mention that her 20-ish daughter is estranged from her?) The point in my favour is that I work here in the Toronto office with all the big guns. She's in the Montreal manufacturing facility. That and the fact that I really don't care what she thinks. As long as my boss is happy, and his boss is happy, then things are good. She's an HR person who only sees things in Black or White. There are no shades of Grey in her world. She also reports anything told to her to management. Is it obvious that she had no HR training?

5 comments:

Unknown said...

When you can't get raises or recognition, perks are what it's all about!!!

And about that red viscose ... stay late and hold your bag open nice & wide while you walk by her desk so that the cone can have a safe place to land when it accidentally tips over. Ooops!! LOL

TracyKM said...

That's a pretty nice perk. Wish I had perks like that! Don't suppose there's any openings for mechanical engineers with design experience in steel mills and the plastics industry? LOL.

Sandra said...

Tracy -
perks notwithstanding - I would not recommend ANYONE I like towork here. Trust me - there are quite a few of us trying to get out!

Janis said...

Aw, I miss free yarn. It didn't happen a lot at the Lewiscraft, but it happened enough that I miss it.

Also? I went to that new yarn store today, and - to my surprise! - they gave me a 10% discount because there was a sale starting on the weekend! And no one hounded me either! I think it depends on who's working that day, but my first thought when she gave me the discount was I HAVE TO TELL SANDRA!

CatBookMom said...

How is it that so many clueless, genetically unsympathetic, and inflexible people wind up in HR depts?

I have many stories of the idiots in the HR dept at my last job. When I suffered burnout a few years ago and had to quit working, I was 'officially' terminated due to having run out of my short-term disability leave. In the 3 months I'd been gone, the company had moved and was now nearly 30 miles away, about 75 minutes' drive in the off hours. The HR person dealing with my 'case' insisted that I come personally to sign 2 documents and to return my keycard for the office building they no longer occupied.