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sans_souse01/21/20252 repliesview on HN

Tell me about it. I worked for 3M owned Saint Gobain running kevlar and fiberglass sheets thru 5-story oven feeds. it was often 105°F on the floor, but if you were unlucky enough to lose your line you'd be hiking up 5 stories of oven stacks where temps would be soaring. Not to mention every Friday PM shift would start with running junk lines super hot to "clean" (burn-off) all the accumulated Teflon in the oven walls and exhausts (which did not work efficiently enough) from the prior week. So, at 3PM you would start your shift already drenched in sweat watching as a Teflon smoke plume formed at the ceiling of the 7-story plant, like a dark storm cloud, and slowly make its way down to the floor. By 10PM we would all be coughing and exhausted, scratchy throats, etc.

A lady on 3rd shift who ran my machine had a near death incident and the company swept that under the rug along with plenty of other seriously concerning practices.

AMA!


Replies

ambicapter01/22/2025

That job sounds like literal hell on earth.

sunshinesnacks01/21/2025

I don't doubt those temperatures at all. But do you know what the relative humidity was? It's the combo that causes problems fast. 100 F and 60% RH is miserable and dangerous, but that's a wet bulb of about 90 F, so there's some marginal potential for your body to cool itself. 100 F and 95% RH is a WB of 98.6 F. Any heat generated in your body has no where to go.

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