Hi. Welcome to my story page.

I went to work and like every normal working day I went to my permanent headend position. My duties at this station was to make sure that the debarker, conveyor belts leading to the chop saws did not jam up. We were about 1.5 hrs. into the shift when I was asked by my forman & mill supervisor to go to my spare job which at that time was chipper attendant. As I walked towards the chipper station I noticed that every conveyor belt & conveyor chains leading to and from the chipper were shut down & plugged solid with mill waste. I also noticed that the chipper was not operating. When I got to the chipper station I noticed a millwright trying to throw the mill waste onto the conveyor leading outside the mill & onto the mill floor. I asked the millwright why was the chipper was shut down and he told me that the reason why the chipper was shut down was because he was supposed to fix the broken welds in the steel walls and also that he requested the knives in the chipper replaced and was waiting for people to come and change them. The millwright was very mad. He told me that the last shift millwright foreman was ordered to have the welding done because it was written on the order board in the millwright room. But the last shift was so busy they did not have time to to do the welding even the blades on the chipper did not get replaced. We proceeded to throw as much waste out of the vibrator & conveyor chains as the two of us could. Awhile later my shift foreman came down to the chipper. As soon as he got there he started yelling "you got to hurry up or else you will never catch up" we told the foreman that we were still waiting for the knives in the chipper to be changed out and that we were trying. The foreman then asked if there was anybody else helping us and we both said "no, and we did not have a break yet either". The foreman then told us that he will be right back with more help for us and replacements so that we could have our break & that at lunch time the millwright should have an early lunch and come back to replace me so that I could have my lunch that way there was some one at the station all the time. After awhile the millwright said " I'm leaving to have my lunch but I will take my lock off the chipper just in case the sawyer comes to change the blades and when I come back here then you can have your lunch". The millwright never did come back after his lunch. Just after the millwright left the sawyer came by to change the knives in the chipper. When he got close to me the sawyer ask me if anyone changed the knives yet and I told him "no'. The sawyer said that some one was supposed to have come and changed the knives at coffee time, but oh well he was there now to change them. The sawyer then proceeded to change the knives. Once he was done he told me that I could take my lock off the chipper and fire it up. I told the sawyer that the welding still has not been done and that I was waiting for the millwright to come back to do the welding. The sawyer told me that he would get the millwright to come back and do the welding. Aprox. 20 minutes later the planer foreman came down and told me to take my lock off and start up the chipper, I told him about the millwright not coming back to do the welding and the sawyer that was getting the millwright to come back never came back either. The foreman then promised me that due to everything backing up and even being stopped that he would get a millwright down here to do the welding a.s.a.p. but I need to start up the chipper now. I did not start up the chipper. The foreman left, came back with a millwright. I showed the millwright what needed to be welded, the millwright proceeded to get ready to weld. The foreman then told me to take off my lock and start up the chipper due to the welding was not near the chipper, I asked the millwright if I needed to still lockout the chipper and I was told no. I unlocked, started the chipper and proceeded to my job. The millwright came to me and said that he needed to get more welding rods and will be right back, but he never did come back.