Teach Soap

I tutor postgrads for the GMAT and GRE exams. Last week I was chatting to one of them - these are supposed to be really intelligent people, right? Let's call him, Gabriel.
Me: So what is it that you do, exactly?
Gabriel relates to me his story of running a production line that makes engine blocks. A lot of metal turning goes on. Somehow or other the subject gets on to cooling the cutting machines. Now, in my schooldays I did technical drawing, so I have used a lathe and a milling machine, etc.
Me: Ah, you must be using a lot of 'solly' oil. (soluble oil)
Gabriel: Yes. It got too expensive so now we're recycling it, even the stuff that spills on the floor.
Me: Really? (Thinks for a moment) Have you been getting many people with skin problems? Breakouts, boils, pimples, rashes. . . ?
Gabriel: How did you know that?
Me: Are you putting a preservative into the oil? It is an oil in water emulsion, a vegetable oil. You ARE using a broad spectrum preservative. Aren't you???
Gabriel: I will have to talk to management. It just comes in drums . . .
Me: Take a sample to a lab and have it cultured and counted, see what they say.

I am pretty certain that the (warm) vegetable oil/water mixture must be an absolute soup of bacteria and fungi if it is being recycled and no preservatives. What do you think?

Ewwww! Who knows what kind of a bacterial soup is in that. I find extremely smart people are only focused on the things they know well. I know a computer guy that's excellent in fixing computers, but he couldn't write up a business proposal for his business if that was the last thing he had to do.

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

I'm not even sure if there is any vegetable oil after several recylings. There are probably trans fatty acids, peroxides, some lost glycerine but no real oil from a chemical point of view, and you're quite sure. I wonder how they didn't realize the changes from the pungent odour.

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Genius is 1 % inspiration and 99 % perspiration

money, THE Bottom line, will drive so many processes! Employee and consumer safety are not always number one....

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Susie
Sometimes A Mistake is so much fun, You just have to do it again!