It’s a twofer!

Like Buster Keaton, only not

The other day, I was deburring some metal samples on the belt sander at work. I was working with a piece that was fairly small, sanding away at the little metal splinters left from cutting the piece off with an abrasive saw, when suddenly the sample disappeared. I stood staring at the belt sander in disbelief for a moment before it registered in my mind that the sample was not going to loop around on the belt and reappear on the opposite end as if I were in a cartoon, and I finally turned the machine off. I’d never had to plunge into the bowels of the sander before, so I inspected its exterior to figure out just how I was going to open it up. Prying the side of the machine off, I crouched down to get a closer look and was met face-to-face with, and I believe this is the technical term, industrial gunk. Before I realized just how wet and thick the gunk actually was, I stuck my hand in there (gloved, of course – do not discount the importance of wearing gloves around machinery!) and pawed blindly for my sample. This got me nowhere pretty quickly, although I did find a chunk of metal that had probably been marinating in there since 1978. Anyway, I spotted some wide tongue depressor-ish things on the workbench nearby, so I grabbed them and then went at the gunk like I was a grade school nurse checking students’ scalps for lice. After accidentally flipping the sludge on myself, I located my sample and rescued it from the depths of gunkdom. Upon standing up, I smacked the back of my head into some ventilation piping that was coated with industrial fluff. Figuring that I was now sporting a sizable amount of said industrial fluff in my hair, I reached up to scoop it off and caught myself just before I applied a layer of the gunk, which was still coating my gloves, to my hair. Who knows – maybe it would work as a deep conditioner. I don’t want to be the one to find out.

I’m thinking it might be time to start selling tickets to watch me using the cut-off saw and belt sander.

What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate

Sometimes, when one works in an office setting, conflicts arise. Sometimes, people don’t communicate clearly, or frequently, or respectfully, or at all. Sometimes, this makes it very difficult for jobs to get done when and how they need to get done.

Don’t be one of those people.

I suppose one has the right to spend his or her days belching negative chi into the atmosphere. But like the modern-day quest to offset one’s carbon footprint, what about offsetting one’s contribution to the world’s lousy mood? Be kind, people. Be kind.

Like Mike

GE is being overrun by engineers named Mike.

I found it amusing, and I was actually quite grateful, on my first day this summer when I discovered that half of my group is named Mike. I’m terrible at matching names to faces, so this situation has made my odds of getting people’s names right way better than usual. In my mind, I declare people either “Mike,” or “Not Mike,” with startling accuracy. It’s gotten to the point where now, I have a hard time remembering female engineers’ names (which used to be so easy, since there are so few of us), but when I’m introduced to a male engineer, more often than not, his name is Mike. Just today I met a new Mike. Last week I got to check out some hardware on the shop floor with another Mike (who I refer to as “Design Mike” in order to differentiate him from “Manager Mike,” “Old Mike,” “Young Mike,” “Banana Mike,” and “Last Summer Mike”).

This morning, I was sitting in on a meeting with Young Mike, and I happened to glance up at the wall of the conference room at one point to see Prof. Williams watching me from within a picture frame. Prof. “Not Mike” Williams is a bit of a legend in the materials department at GE – as soon as someone hears I’m from Ohio State, they gush with (well-deserved) praise for him and usually a fair amount of ribbing. He used to be a GM there, and from what I gather, he was pretty well liked!

Last Friday, when Design Mike invited me along for a meeting and side-trip to see some disassembled engines on the shop floor, I’m afraid I may have leapt to my feet before he could even get the words “shop floor” out. (Any invitation away from estimating volume fraction via grid-counting would have probably elicited the same response.) I got to see an assembled section of an engine for which I’ve been doing some work on much smaller parts, which is always cool. Plus, I love the shop floor. Love it, love it, love it.

I find it awkward during these internships, however, to find a good balance between working on things with which one is familiar and learning about something completely new and sometimes beyond the scope of one’s base knowledge. Last summer, I’d asked Last Summer Mike to go a bit more in depth on a project I’d been working on for him. He prefaced his explanation with the disclaimer, “Where would you like me to start? I don’t want to talk down to you…” to which I replied, “I don’t mind if you talk down to me. I don’t know anything, so I’m okay with that.” He laughed. I think it’s good to enter into a learning experience like these internships with one’s pride tucked away from time to time. I won’t be insulted if people have to spell some things out for me in basic terms, because I know that the reason I returned to GE is because I have so much to learn.

Engineering swag

Received today: 10X magnifier, for inspecting scandalously porous metals. (Or MSE letterhead.)

GE clearly knows the way to an engineer’s heart: a complimentary magnifier, a comfortable pair of safety glasses (inadvertently left perched atop one’s head all too often), and the occasional free lunch. Take me, GE — I’m yours!

(It was recommended that I engrave my initials on my new magnifier and attach it to the lanyard that holds my ID badge — a magnifier is that hot of a commodity. So, sadly, the above paragraph is not as sarcastic as you may have initially assumed.)

Only at Ohio State

When people comment on the size of Ohio State and wonder how students get through their time here without being swallowed up by the masses, rather than launch into my recruitment shtick (I used to work in recruitment), I like to tell stories about some unique experiences I’ve had while at OSU. (Quasi-recruitment shtick: While OSU is large, the MSE department is small, which gives it a fun, mostly-non-dysfunctional family dynamic. I’m sure I’ll write something about the adorable MSE family sometime down the road, but for now, I’m going to focus on OSU as a whole.) Here are a few of my favorite stories:

I’ve been up in the (haunted?) tower of Orton Hall twice. As a member of Chimes Junior Class Honorary, part of the induction ceremony involves heading up into the bell tower, signing one’s name in a book, and then playing Carmen Ohio on the chimes. Usually the bells play the standard Westminster Chimes every quarter hour, so hearing Carmen Ohio on repeat for an hour is pretty unusual. I was historian the year that I was part of the outgoing Chimes class, so I kept watch in the tower, taking photos of each new member as they played the chimes (and secretly hoping that the ghost of Edward Orton would appear – it didn’t). At one point there was a lull in the stream of students coming into the tower, so I decided to set the earth reverberating with a rousing rendition of the Peanuts theme, “Linus and Lucy,” as any responsible Vince Guaraldi fan would do. I’m still curious if anyone walking across campus while I played recognized the song and wondered what was going on.

I shook Hillary Clinton’s hand. In February 2008, Sen. Clinton stopped at French Field House for a political rally during her quest for the Democratic presidential nomination. I vaguely remember not having any problem sets to work on that evening, and I’d never been to a political rally before, so I braved the bitterly cold wind and walked over to the field house after work. I managed to get there early enough that I was ushered to the infield, only three rows away from the front of the tiny stage. I stood there reading a book for the few hours while I waited, and then Sen. Clinton finally arrived, with Sen. John Glenn, Gov. Ted Strickland, Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman, and Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones in tow. I stood just a few feet away from them, starstruck. At the end of the speeches, all of the politicians made their way down to the floor to move along the ropes, shaking hands and talking with people. The crush of humanity pushing toward the politicians moved me up a row, so I just HAD to stick my hand out. Sen. Clinton took it in hers and, smiling at me, said, “Thank you!” (And then I was snubbed by Sen. Glenn, but I still love him.)

On my way home, I called my parents on my cell phone. “Mom, guess what I just did?”

“I give up.”

“I just shook the hand that beat the crap out of Bill Clinton!”

“No way.”

“Yes way!” I replied. “It sounded like she was working on a cold, too, so if I rub my eyes right now, I could get Hillary Clinton’s cold!”

“DON’T RUB YOUR EYES.”

I salsa-danced with OSU President E. Gordon Gee. I took a social dance class in the autumn of 2007, and President Gee showed up to one of the classes to take part in that evening’s lesson and, more importantly, to mingle with the students. All of the great things that people say about President Gee are completely true – he’s a really enthusiastic person who truly loves his job. Not only that, but HE asked ME to dance. It was almost as if karma was trying to make up for all those middle school dances I spent standing next to the gym bleachers, awkwardly bobbing my head to Smashing Pumpkins. Even though President Gee warned me that he was probably going to step on my feet as we danced, he was a fine salsa partner. And I’m not just saying that so I can get a bow tie cookie.

This is just a sampling of some of my fondest memories of Ohio State. Within each anecdote you’ll find some words of wisdom for the academic careers of prospective students and current students alike: get involved, take some fun classes in addition to your engineering course load…and don’t rub your eyes.

Corrosion can be beautiful

Photo taken along the Xenia to Yellow Springs bike trail.

It’s still safe to fly

This summer, I’m interning for the second time at GE-Aviation in Cincinnati. I’m working in structural materials application engineering, which is comprised of a group of engineers who essentially try to fix somewhat current materials-related problems in the non-moving parts of the jet engine. Last summer, I worked in the development side of structural materials, so that was all work geared toward a final destination some five or ten years from now. It’s been a nice change of pace!

So far I’ve actually been making some connections between coursework and the metals I’ve been looking at, which is pretty exciting. That didn’t really happen for me last summer, although after last summer’s internship, I felt like I’d learned a lot and was ready to take on the junior year coursework with my fists at the ready. (Then I experienced fall quarter’s thermodynamics course, MSE 401, and quickly dropped my fists.) This summer, I’ve been thankful Dr. Clark’s class (MSE 543) is still fresh in my mind! Little by little, more pieces of the materials science puzzle are falling into place in my brain…

During my first week back at GE, I was working with some parts from a combustor. Since the combustor of a jet engine is ridiculously hot, developing and maintaining materials for use in this section is quite a challenge. In all my nerdy glory, I found myself fascinated by the thermal barrier coating (TBC), since I hadn’t yet learned anything about coatings in my MSE travels. The TBC on most of the parts had the coloring of a perfectly toasted marshmallow. However, there were a couple of parts that looked like they’d fallen into the campfire. As I frowned at a particularly nasty-looking region of one of the crispy samples, my manager walked by.

“Ohh, that doesn’t look good!” he commented.

I shook my head in agreement.

“Well, don’t worry,” he said. “Just remember, it’s still safe to fly!” Grinning, he walked away.

What a kidder.