A cold day at the dairy

About ten years ago I worked at a dairy and ice cream distrubutor that was lets just say... weird. I wrote about it here .

I had just quit a long time employer and was still friends with most of the folks I worked with for so many years.

We got together and ended up drinking a little too much and I didn't get to bed until 3:00am.

I had to wake up at 6:00 AM to get to work by 6:45. I was still a temporary employee but had worked my way from data entry, to accounting, pricing and inventory control.

Today was ice cream inventory day.

I was not in the best shape when I pulled into work. After several shots of cinnamon shnops my stomach was reeling and my head felt like it was being skull fucked by a rhinoceros.

I made my way up to the loading dock with my clip board, calculator and ballpoint pen.

My normal attire for this job was dress slacks, dress shirt and leather soled shoes.

I met with the dock workers who normally handled the ice cream and asked if they were ready to get to counting. It was July in South Texas and they were all wearing parkas, ski pants, fur lined Everest boots with gigantic arctic gloves.

I asked if I needed that stuff to do inventory. They shrugged their shoulders. "We dunno ese' "I looked on the rack and all the cold weather gear was size medium and small. That was a definite no go for me. I was about 6'5 230 pounds and broad shouldered.

I basically said fuck it. Lets get this done.

We walked into the giant freezer. It was like a huge bank vault. The cold didn't seem that bad. I was overheated and hung over..it actually felt pretty good.

There were giant fans blowing supercooled air through the place and I was surrounded by pallets and pallets of any every kind of ice cream you can imagine. Breyers, Dreyers, blue bell, vienetta, chocolate, strawberry, bubble gum crunch...etc...

We started counting, the dock guys directed me to each brand and I started writing the counts on my paper work. All of the sudden my calculator went dead. The numbers had frozen on the screen and wouldn't clear. The liquid crystal display had frozen solid.. Fuck! I went ahead and did the numbers in my head, it took a little longer but I could make due.

Then my pen stopped writing. The ink had frozen....DAMNIT! I really didn't need this shit.

There I was standing in there with just my regular street clothes on with no gloves hat or boots and I glanced up at the wall and saw the thermometer read minus 45 degrees below zero and there was a giant fan blowing on me. which probably made it 60 or 70 below with the wind chill.

I really didn't feel all that cold. One of the guys handed me a pencil and we got back to work.

The guys in the parkas kept going out side and standing in front of a heater every 20 min and they would send a new batch of guys to come in and help me.

Finally after about 2 hours we were finished. I had a little bit of a runny nose and felt kind of chilled. It felt good to get out into the summer heat.

The production manager had just arrived at work and asked how the inventory was going. I handed him the clip board and told him I was done. He was incredulous. How could you be done? This was an all day job!" How long were you in that freezer? Where is your parka?

I told him about 2 hours and that none of the parkas fit. The manager shook his head and said they had a strict rule that for every 20 min in the freezer you had to spend 10 minutes outside warming in front of a space heater.

I shrugged my shoulders and told him that nobody had informed me. I was fine, a little cold but everything seemed to be in working order.

As I climbed down off the dock to go back to the office I heard the dock guys laughing...."crazy gringo!"

I guess it may be true what they say: what you don't know won't hurt you...