Screw Job

One day at worked I realized that a good majority of my day is spent moving things around. Boxes, trash, piles of dirt with a broom. And there is no shame in his work or in staying humble but that is far removed from what I tell people I do. But, that is how it shakes out and someone needs to move these boxes. 

And that got me thinking of the making formerly intransigent objects mobile. Because another big part of my job is the 1st law of motion. Objects at rest stay at rest unless acted upon an external force. I am that external force. That case of paper? MOVED! This trash? DUMPSTERED! That overflowing dumpster? COMPACTED! This bureaucratic red tape? CUT! These binders? FILLED WITH RECEIPTS!

Then that got me thinking of stripped screws. We strip screws at work all the time. Which would make sense if say we were a carpenter or body shop but we are a school.

Its the tables which are all adjustable but only so through the technicality of the word adjustable itself. I could ride my cat cross country. It would take forever, involeve a lot of blood, and be no fun but sure he is a beast of burden. And so are these tables!

Now our tables come in two varieties. The ones I bought and the ones I inherited. THe ones I inherited are leftover civil defense monsters that weigh 900 lbs. I swear they are lined with lead to stop fallout when kids drilled to duck a cover. Then the ones I bought are the best soft cheese steel China can offer. Hey, I can admit it but I tend to get the lowest bidder because its a table!

Regardless of the style all are adjustable by using a series of screws that thread through a tubular slot in a metal sleeve anchored to the table. These then lock into a leg with different holes to lock in heights. Aligning these guys is a Death Star Trench run of suck. Both the screws and then the legs which, on the older tables, have been Fraknesteined together so even at the same damn height they don't align because 12" inches on Leg A IS NOT the same 12" as Leg B!

And all have either sunken fishing boat irons rust or brittle steel that strip at anything but the perfect turn with a screwdriver made just for it. So I strip all these guys. Usually the very last one when I think I am done and then it is FUCK!

But I have a stripped screw retriever. A tiny set of screws you hammer into the broken head and then wrench out so all the bound tension countervales at the turn of a crescent wrench and success! Feels amazing to pry one of those out and in my mind the scene goes like this...

Me: I got that stripped screw out for you. Leg is fixed

Teacher: ***swoon*** My hero!

Me: Alright!

But it really it is much less adventurous

Me: I got that stripped screw out for you. Leg is fixed

Teacher: Cool

Me: Cool

Still feels great to get them out.