New style X-Mas list

For nearly two decades, I have chosen to use my December column in a sort of whimsical manner.  I’ve call it my Christmas Wish List.  I have “asked Santa” to grant us new products, devices or equipment that would fill a need that I find in the industry.  Memorable asks have been a handheld button sewer for shirt laundries that can’t justify the cost of a sewing machine; a shirt press that makes its own hangers, one at a time; a device that stretches the front of a shirt in the event that the buttonhole band shrinks and there are dozens and dozens more.  It’s meant to be fun, but also with hopes that a manufacturer or two is inspired.  That has happened a couple of times and I’m flattered.

This is my 26^th year writing for this publication.  I appreciate this industry and everyone in it.  The industry has been very good to me.  In that spirit, I don’t want to be asking Santa or anyone else for anything.  This is the season of giving.  Not for getting and not for asking for stuff.   So, I would like to give to you this month and next month.

Over the 46 years that I have worked, managed, consulted and directed in this industry, I have picked up quite a few tidbits of wisdom, gold nuggets of “oh I wish I knew that 10 years ago!” and a few, “Well I’ll be a son-of-a-gun.”  Luckily, I have a great memory, so I haven’t forgotten these treasures yet.

Let’s get started.  This is going to be fun.

• You might have one of these laser trap testers.  They are very practical and a must-have tool in any laundry.  Your washperson should have one in their pocket.  I have always found these to be inaccurate when used to measure steam trap temperature.  The tool itself is extraordinarily accurate, but when measuring the temperature of a pipe, you must have it aligned just right, or the reading will be wrong.  When measuring for a steam trap leak, you are looking for a temperature drop of 70 degrees from the hot side of the trap. That would mean that the trap is working properly.  So obviously, an accurate reading is vital.  Ok, so why should your wash person keep one in their back pocket?  Because there is no better way to assure that you are washing at the correct temperature.  You can’t beat this device.  Shine the laser through the door glass and get your water temp.  I know that your washer can digitally display the water temperature, but for some reason, these are often radically wrong.  I have seen one off by 45 degrees.  It was in Anchorage.  I touched the door glass, and it was cold.  The manager insisted that he had hot water and “proved it” by displaying the digital readout which flashed 115 degrees.  I told him to touch the glass.  The lesson is that water temperature is too important to treat casually.  Water temperature is (almost) everything.   Always remember that you need four things to wash fabric:  Time. Temperature. Chemical action. Mechanical action. (Stay tuned next month for more about this, plus more tips).  If your water is the wrong temperature, the chemicals will not work.  But you presume that you’re all set.  You have the supplies rep tending to things, you have the chemicals, and you need 120-degree water and that exactly what you have.  Your shirts get “fairly clean”, and your supplies rep can’t offer remedies because you (and he) are doing everything right.  (He may even be relying on that on-board water temp read out)  If he just adds additional chemicals, he may lose you as a customer by pricing himself out of the market.  So, in real life, here is what’s happening.  First thing in the morning, your 60-pound washer is filled with dry shirts waiting to be washed.  Your ample water heater is set at 120 degrees.  We don’t know the recovery time.  Yet.   When the washer calls for hot water, the fluid travels through a maze of pipes, pushing perhaps gallons of cold (or cooler) water before it that terminate into the cold stainless-steel washer and onto cool shirts.  Once the drum fills with, say 12 gallons of water, what is the temperature?  I’ll tell you what it is not.  The laser trap tester will tell you what it is.  If your chemical (like some enzymes) only become effective at 120 degrees… well, that’s why your shirts are getting clean.  Use the device to fine-tune your programming and your water heater setting.  You could be “washing” in 95 degree water.  There is a cornucopia of variables such as steam injection, recovery time and how cold the city water is.  But you need to know how hot the water is in your washer is and the only way is with a laser trap tester.

• While we have the ability to measure your water temperature, starch at 100 degrees and 5.5 pH.  And, your rinses should get progressively cooler by around 20 degrees.  So, if you are washing at 130, 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd rinse temperatures would be 110, 90, cold, respectively.  This prevents thermal shock in polyester.  (You know, those wrinkles that  don’t come out no matter how hard you try.)

• Speaking of thermal shock, about 25 years ago, a customer approached me with a really cheap shirt; short sleeve, polyester, almost tissue paper.  He said that it was his favorite shirt (!) and his wife left it in the bottom of the dryer.  It was wrinkled.  I thought that I’d just wash and press it, and it would be fine, but no matter what I did, there were still wrinkles.  I knew it was thermal shock.  I thought to myself “Maybe I can cause thermal shock?”  The shirt, as you know if you can picture the shirt when I described it, holds very little moisture.  I put it in the freezer overnight and then I pressed it quickly the next morning from frozen.  Worked like a charm, no wrinkles!

• Some things are just weird.  We aren’t on the metric system, but we buy Coke by the liter, and liquor too.  The Brits have their own system for everything, (Sterling, Imperial gallons) but they use pints for beer.  Only.  And we buy buttons by LINE!  What the heck is a line?  Well firstly, it’s lignes, not lines.  (But lignes is French for line, so it’s still line) Shirt buttons are often 18L (the L means… yep) and the little sleeve buttons and the collar tip buttons are typically 14L.  Who knows why we don’t buy them by the millimeter or the zillionth of an inch?  Buttons are measured in lignes. 40 lignes equal 1 inch. (2.54 centimeters).  In case you care, to calculate button size in ligne, simply divide the diameter of the button (in millimeters) by 0.635.

• Back in my plant days, I was on the phone with a Worker’s Comp insurance company.  We were a new company, and they were trying to nail down our comp rate.  I had built a 20,000 square foot facility doing wholesale shirts only. I’m going to paraphrase a bit here, in effect he said, “…are you cleaning items using only water…?”  I told him yes.  This scenario would have resulted in a very high worker’s comp rate.  His response was interesting:  “That’s not what I want to hear.”  It’s hard to believe that he was that candid.  I stammered a moment and then said, “Oh, we clean feather pillows in a special machine using ultraviolet light.”  “That’s what I want to hear!”  My comp rate immediately plummeted and turned out to be less than one-tenth of what it would have been had we not been doing pillows.

• This same plant really turned into something big.  Within a couple of years, we were doing 17 ½ tons of shirts per week.  You won’t run into too many of us that refer to the number shirts they processed in terms of tons.  We operated 18 hours per day, 350-450 shirts per hour.  Insanity.  Keeping the wheels turning was critical.  If you have one person pressing collars and cuffs, the next person pressing sleeves and then the body presser, the touch-up person, the inspector, the assembler, etc… you can’t have any one of those people walk off the production line.  The chain collapses if one person simply walks away.  Well, that would happen.  All of a sudden, Unit 2 screeches to a halt because Big Bill is nowhere to be found.  Soon it is discovered that he is in the men’s room.  I cover his station and do collar and cuffs while he is on the phone in the restroom or whatever.  You see, I would press for a couple of reasons.  First, it is important that I show the staff that I am sincerely in need of productivity.  It’s not just lip service.  Secondly, it is an opportunity to show everyone that I don’t consider their job to be beneath me.  So Big Bill comes back from the “rest”room, undoubtedly shocked to see the boss pressing and I say “Bill, you can’t just walk off the production line.  Isn’t that what breaks are for?  If it’s an emergency, ask me to cover for you!”  Big Bill says “I gotta ask for permission to go to the bathroom?!”  We were both angry, but I knew that I could not have employees walking off the production line willy-nilly.  That would be chaos.  My plan was the correct one.  I’m thinking that no one will ask me for a bathroom break regularly because I will obviously be aware.  Some may not want to bother me.  I wasn’t prepared for what actually happened.

My secretary and I shared an office.  She had the gate-keeper position.  I was on the phone, probably with a customer, but definitely not on a conversation that was close to its end.  Big Bill appeared at the office door.  He evidently had a few words with my secretary, telling her that he needed to speak with me.  He stood there for many minutes.  Two. Three.  Four.  Five.  Six.  I am fuming.  Seven.  Puffs of steam are coming out of my ears.  I reluctantly put my call on hold.  “Bill!  What are you doing?!  What do you want?”  “Don, can you cover for me?  I gotta go to the bathroom.”   Yes, his entire production line was essentially shut down while he watched me talk on the phone.  If looks could kill!

I’m having fun with this.  I have some more Holiday “Easter Eggs” for you next month.  See you in January!