My Most Embarrassing Moment at Work

Plastics News is accumulating a list of such accomplishment, but most of the items there so far are quite short. This story needs more of a setup.

My first job after school was at the Hercules film plant in Terre Haute. There was a group of about 4 of us that were part of the R & D group, and we reported to the R & D headquarters in Wilmington, but Hercules was trying to make sure that their R & D people had some experience with manufacturing so they located us at the plant. My supervisor and I were the only Ph.D.'s at the site that employed several hundred people.

One day the tenter plant was having a problem, and my supervisor and I walked into the oven to look at something (I don't recall the details of exactly what) and the door closed behind us. We pushed against it and kicked the door to no avail; we were locked in the oven. We started banging on the door and in about 10 seconds, one of the wisecracking engineers opened the door and snidely said "How many Ph. D.'s does it take to lock themselves in an oven?"

I've since suspected that the engineer may have been behind the door closing and being "locked". Regardless, I've yet to come close to anything else like that in the last 20 years. Give the Plastic News site a look and please post your stories there as I certainly don't want to be the only one with a story.