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Every once in a while, a post shows up in the MACHINIST group that requires absolutely no explanation.
This was one of those posts.
Gary Austin shared a photo of a chicken casually hanging out inside a CNC lathe with the caption:
“Bring your chicken to work day.”
“So we all rip on each other in the shop right? Whats your FAVORITE saying for FNG’s who act like they know what they’re doing but clearly don’t?
Mines ‘I have chips embedded in the soles of my boots with more experience than you.’”
Naturally, machinists had thoughts.
And apparently shop chickens are far more common than I realized.
The post has already reached 319,000+ people, with roughly 2,000 reactions, 188 comments and 151 shares.
More importantly, it gave everyone an excuse to make chicken-related machining jokes for a few days.
Here are some of the best.
The machinists immediately got to work.
Dave Stone:
“Pecking cycle?”
Which prompted the only correct response from Joe Huckabee:
“G83!”
Excellent.
Braden Weiss:
“The first ‘C’ in CNC stands for chicken.”
Followed closely by:
Tan Yu Teik:
“Computer Numerical Chickens”
And Jeb Kelly completing the trilogy:
“Chicken Numerical Control”
We may need to update the textbooks.
Then there was this:
Shane Des Rochers:
“CAD! Chicken Assisted Design!”
Apparently the birds are moving into engineering now too.
Marcus Hynek:
“His code is chicken scratch, better keep him on the manuals for now”
Fair.
Jeremy Stiffler:
“Can he make offsets?”
Important question before we discuss pay.
A few people were more concerned about productivity.
Nathan White:
“Best worker I’ve ever seen, no phone”
Jeff Helton:
“They probably out perform some employees!”
And John Kemp took it one step further:
“In some shops, that chicken can produce more then half the employees 😂😂😂”
There it is.
We knew somebody was eventually going to say it.
Of course, someone also noticed the obvious safety violation.
Ricky Renouf:
“No Safety glasses 🤓”
OSHA is typing…
Then Tom Suey Lemcke dropped this:
“Sorry, boss. Can’t run my machine. I’m cockblocked.”
I’m not improving that one.
Possibly my favorite actual machining observation:
Aidan Killeen:
“Sometimes a lathe is just a big metal chicken that makes small metal eggs”
Think about it long enough and it starts making sense.
Which is concerning.
And Troy S. Marcil may have finally explained why the chicken was there in the first place:
“When you have Offended the Machine Gods and there is nothing left but to get a live Chicken and perform the ceremony”
Every shop eventually reaches this point.
Usually sometime after scrapping the third part.
The funniest part, though, was realizing this apparently isn’t that unusual.
Several people started posting pictures of their own shop chickens.
Others had shop goats.
One guy told a story about a chicken hitching a ride to work and eventually becoming the reason his family now owns roughly 50 chickens.
Another retired master machinist chimed in:
“I’m a retired master machinist and raise chickens now, I approve this post.”
Perfect career progression.
So apparently Bring Your Chicken to Work Day has more support than expected.
Just remember:
Check your offsets.
Check your tools.
Check for eggs.
Then hit Cycle Start.
