Take this job and shove it.

Well, yesterday was interesting.

Apparently there was some chemical spill or leak in the plating division at the factory where my mom works. Everyone in that area and my mom's area ended up inhaling all these toxic fumes. Ambulances, police, fire trucks, and a HazMat team surrounded the building following an evacuation. Firefighters using some air detector thingy pronounced the building safe to enter, and everyone was sent back to work. Except all those people from the plating division were pretty sick, and so were my mom and another woman, Lynn, who had been working in the area closest to plating.

The five people from plating were rushed to one hospital, and my mom and Lynn were sent to another one. They were forced to take decontamination showers in a cold garage with like 10 people around them. Then had tons of meds shoved down their throats.

I left work to go get Mom at the hospital. Manda and Jersey were with me. We stopped and got Mom a set of clothes because the ones she had been wearing were hosed down. Mom was really shaky from all the medicine. I'm talking shivering uncontrollably. So was Lynn. Her daughter had come to pick her up, too. We both drove back to Chetek and to the factory. Lynn's daughter Liz and I went in to pick up our mothers' belongings. Nobody asked how they were doing.

On our way through the factory, our tour guide, who turned out to be head of Human Resources, stopped to have a chat with some foreman about products. We stood there for like 5 minutes before I interrupted, "Hello?? Sick mothers in the car??" The employees all stared at us as we picked up our moms' things. Only one woman came up and expressed concern about my mom's welfare.

Also, the pharmacy made us wait an hour to pick up the prescription, even though the doctor had faxed in the order before we even left the hospital.

My mom called work later last night to let them know that she was excused from work for Thursday (doctor's orders) and would be back on Friday. The person she spoke to said, "Oh. Is that it?"

What a wonderful place to work, huh?

Mom is feeling better today, but she found out a couple of the women who had been in worse shape yesterday still weren't doing too well. One was running a fever of 102*, and the other was vomiting a lot. I hope the meds work for them.

Oh, one more thing. The factory tried to make it sound like the chemicals inhaled were no big deal, but my mom's doctor told her in no uncertain terms that that was bullshit. He was very upset about how they had tried to minimize the circumstances.

I guess the bottom line is all about protecting themselves instead of their employees.