Most photographed SO team shirt?

[Uncle Fester]

This past week was the huge 50th anniversary celebration at AmWay in Ada, MI (just outside Grand Rapids). Despite the usual jokes about AmWay (heck, i make them too), it's a gigantic corporation, and it's a mile-plus from one end of the manufacturing plant to the other. Amounts on how much was spent this past week vary, but the lowest was $20,000,000 (yup, MILLION); fireworks, full-paid plane fare and hotel for thousands of guests, clean-up for open houses, etc.

I had to be one of the "model workers" Friday, the day of the international open house. they must not know me very well! anyway, from past experience, I knew what it would be like, so i wore my team shirt, and I wasn't disappointed. people came by, impeccably and expensively dressed, in groups of 10 to 20. Saw one guy from Thailand who had a 70's Elvis haircut. They took pictures of everything! See, most were dirt poor before becoming millionaires, and this place was nothing less than a trip to some kind of Holy Land. So, all day it was fix the pump wheel, pose for pictures, fix the pump wheel, pose, fix, pose, fix, pose, and occasionally cuss at the stupid pump wheel.

During the day, I asked as many people I could where they were from (about 1/3 of them), and wrote them down. So, me and my team shirt (GO SAWGS!) were photographed from UK, France, Germany, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Czech & Slovak republics, Turkey, Spain, Portugal, Austria, India, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Japan, Thailand, Brazil, Argentina, China, Thailand, and Indonesia. About half way through the day, I found out why they found me so interesting-- the white lettering and SO logo were embroidered in highly fluorescent white thread, and i was standing next to a UV sanitizer column-- it looked like it was lit up from behind. They also confused the SO globe with the AmWay globe. Several offered to buy the shirt right off my back! But, we were warned not to sell or trade our working equipment (it's actually a serious problem at these high-level open houses; they want anything with the company logo on it, and will pay big bucks.

Idea: why not a thread or webpage to show off team shirts photographed at faraway places? Greta Wall of China, Kremlin Wall etc.

[croman74]

We had some Amway buses drive through our neighborhood. They each had a big 50th anniversary sign on it. There was also a huge fireworks show (i didn't see it, just heard it on the news). Amway is also doing 4th of July fireworks, but they said that the 50th Anniversary fireworks were way bigger than the 4th of July ones.

[smartkid222]

thats a great story, but i really dont' get it.
1. whats amway?
2. Whats a pump wheel
3. If everyone was dressed up formaly, why were you in a sci oly T-shirt?

I"m sorry i don't get it. lol it takes me a while sometimes.

[croman74]

Amway's a giant company based in Grand Rapids.

[Uncle Fester]

Never heard of AmWay? You lucky dog, you! It's the single biggest direct-sales company in the world. You know, sell stuff to people, and then get them to sell stuff too. . . it has some twists to the scheme to keep from being a "pyramid scheme". Market's pretty well saturated in the US and Canada, but is thriving overseas. I'm not a sales type, so it's not for me; besides, these people got rich because they sold, sold, sold, sold. They have quite a reputation for being incredibly gung-ho. In fact, a few years ago, a woman broke her murderer husband out of jail, killing two guards in the process, and they holed up in a cheap motel somewhere in the Appalachians. They told the motel owner that they were going to an AmWay convention. Manager thought they looked somewhat like the two (from TV stories), but thought it was a coincidence. Tipoff was when the manager realized that the two were pretty nonchalant about AmWay, and then called the police.

A lot of people here have criticized the money spent, but forget that AmWay and its founders built a cancer hospital, children's hospital, sports arena, and started minor-league-level baseball, arena football, and hockey teams in the area. The latest thing is a six-figure art prize for developing artists. There's a LOT in the area with the AmWay, DeVos and VanAndel names on it.

The VIPs were VISITORS. Very wealthy visitors. I was an EMPLOYEE. I work for a living, since SO doesn't pay me much. We follow food-based GMP's (federal law "Good Manufacturing Procedures"), even though we make soap, shampoo and lotions, so depending on the job that day, I wear white long sleeves or a lab coat, white pants, latex or traction-cloth gloves, a hairnet (those of you who know my hair status can start laughing now), and a beard guard if I didn't shave that morning.

Pump Wheel: assembly line stuff. People (2 or 3) insert those pump spouts into bottles of soap, shampoo, or whatever. The pump wheel, about 2 1/2 feet in diameter, grabs each bottle, one right after another, and as the bottle and pump wheel turn, a very traction-y motorized roller wheel spins the pump caps two turns until they're tight and at a certain torque. Each slot (24) in the pump wheel Wheel has an arm that sweeps up the approaching bottle so there's no need for the pump wheel to stop and start. At the exit end, someone with a rubber hammer whacks the pumps that are cross-threaded or didn't tighten. That person tend to complain when the pump wheel acts up, since the bottles can go though at a rate of up to 4 per second. Some days it runs without needing any attention at all, and some days it's as reliable as a Mission Possible device.

[croman74]

Almost everything in Grand Rapids is Van Andel or Devos or Amway. Amway Hotel, Van Andel Arena, Devos Hall, etc. Devos and Van Andel basically own Grand Rapids.