This is a
kick ass node title , but sadly, it is also the brand name of body filler that we use in my
body shop, and therefore, the header of this little
work rant.
NOTICE: Reports have associated repeated and prolonged occupational overexposure to solvents with permanent brain and nervous system damage. Do not breathe vapor or sanding dust.
---taken from the warning label off the back of the can
My office is covered in dust. Dust blown in through opening and closing doors that lead to the paint shop, the body shop, and the lot. I constantly blow my nose and find gray traces, a liquified version, of the dust coming off of every body man and painter's arms. You can see stains of it in the moustaches of men, in their eyebrows, in the greasy wrinkles of their face.
There are masks, but most people don't use them. Only the painters do, those monsterous contraptions that prevent them from talking, with two filters on either side of their cheeks like a pair of enlarged nostrils.
All of this dust comes from Rage, the body filler, or putty, we use when we repair body panels. The name people are most familiar with for this is Bondo, or other derivations thereof. But you can't say Bondo when describing repair to a customer. Despite the fact that most parts of most cars these days are plastic, fiberglass, or any variety of non-metal substances, customers think that their cars are virgins to the application of what is pretty much liquid plastic.
Other than the pungent smell it emenates when it's being prepared, Rage is odorless when it dries; when it is sanded down, it becomes either the stuff that dries as hard as nails on the car or as airborne residue. This residue is the major thorn in my side as far as my job goes.
It's one of the smallest things to find wrong with this business, but it's also one of those things that point to bigger, more important stuff that you may not ever see if it weren't for the small shit that weighs you down and dogs your every waking moment.
I think I'm ready to move on.