10 Ways to Stay Cool When Working in a Factory

For your reading enjoyment, here are Ten Ways to Stay Cool When Working in a Factory. Actually this list may be better titled "Ten Ways to Not Faint of Heatstroke at Work."

You think I'm kidding. lol

1 - Ice Water - Be prepared with frozen bottles of water. They melt fast. I took 3 of them today and also one bottle of plain cold water. And two cans of Diet Coke. And I drank a frozen Coke on the way in.






2 - Dress properly for the weather. Wear long shorts or capris. (Knees must be covered when standing up.) Wear a thin shirt and roll up your sleeves. Roll up your pant legs too, especially if your uniform requires long pants. Even my boss had his pant legs rolled up today. (Those are not MY legs.)





3 - Wear something cold and wet on your head. Use a bandana if you brought one. Or go grab an appropriately sized rag and use that instead. You can put ice cubes in it and they will melt on you. Even if your do-rag is not wet, it will keep your hair from blowing all over from the.....




4 - Giant fans. Blowing right at your head. Oh yeah, baby.








5 - Instead of a rag on your head, you may prefer, as do I, a rag around your neck. The ice cubes still work this way; in fact, they work better. It gets your shirt all wet, and that is a bonus. (That's not me. I don't know who it is, some random person on flickr or somewhere.)






6 - Usually we get two 10 minute breaks during our shift (in addition to our 30 minute lunch). On hot days, our breaks are FIFTEEN minutes long instead.

7 - We get to sit in the air-conditioned lunchroom during break.




8 - Today there was a huge jug of Gatorade available for us. I passed on that. Not a big fan of Gatorade really.





9 - We also get free popsicles during the summer. This is the first week we've had them available. I ate a blue one and a red one. Chilly!






10 - When all else fails, drench yourself at the sink. Or pour a bottle of water on yourself.






So, there you have it. My survival plan for summer in a factory. Hopefully you won't need this information, but as the Scouts say, "Be Prepared!"