1984 - 2012: Dedicating 28 years to BEING SO GROOVY!
Yeehaw! It's my birthday today! I just got done eating a freaking awesome cake with my parents, and it's all I can ask for. Don't need no flashy presents or gifts, gadgets or anything, just a job I can go to, make money and come back home, just like any other day. Actually, there will be a new gadget coming to us pretty soon, courtesy of Sprint. You see, ever since we moved here the cell phone service has been horrible at best and flat-out dead at worst. It doesn't matter which carrier it was, it always sucked. We've tried everything from being in certain areas of the house on the upper floor and standing in weird positions just for the phone antenna to maintain just that one bar of service, to using T-Mobile's UMA-based HotSpot service which wasn't exactly that good. Fast-forward three years, we're back with Sprint and will soon be getting their Airave device. It's like a miniature cellular tower, except instead of having the phone connect directly with the wireless router using its encryption key, the Airave is wired to the router and utilizes a true cell phone signal for our phones. And what's best: up to 5,000 FEET! But I'll be more realistic here and take into account all the walls slowing down the signal and say about 2,000 feet, but it's still a hell of a lot better than TM's HotSpot. I mean, we'll actually be able to talk outside for once with at least three freaking bars of signal! So yeah, thank you Sprint for the free gift.
I can't believe I just thanked a phone company for a birthday gift....
Strange, I'm almost into my 30s and yet it feels like I'm older than that. Well, that's an easy explanation: management over at the plant actually WANTS to work us seven days a week. That's good for me though, because I actually want to work twelve hour shifts, at least for the time being; I'm only human and cannot work long hours forever. Despite being so damn tired, I'm actually looking forward to working twelve hours today, because the pay rate is double-time on Sundays. So, yay, extra birthday money!!
Come Monday, we're going to have a new supervisor over in the Support area where I work. He seems alright, supposedly. Looks kind of new in the arena of management, but if he's not an arse he should do okay. Our old supervisor is going to transfer to the assembly lines. Until I work under him with enough time, there's not really much else to say about him except that hopefully he's not much of......well, an arse. At least I'm not going to be the parts stocker for the department for a while. That position nearly drove me nuts and tired me out like a Firestone, so the current sup put me back on a rod welding machine. On one hand, there's no need to run around taking care of all the operator's parts and supplies at their machine stations. However, the other hand is that I need to take care of *my* own production numbers and liabilities. Despite extensive personal experience with all seven machines in the department, the only thing that slows me down considerably are product changeovers. I'm extremely meticulous with detail and that includes quality. I'm more focused on higher quality, but it's more due to not trusting the electrode fixtures than anything else because the company does very poor maintenance and upkeep with the machines despite efforts from the maintenance techs. Because of this, my downtime during changeovers is unusually high so it's pretty certain that somebody is going to call me on it sooner or later. Hopefully (much) later.
Other than that, it's just going to be another usual tired day at work. Now it's a matter of what to get my parents for their b-days.
I can't believe I just thanked a phone company for a birthday gift....
Strange, I'm almost into my 30s and yet it feels like I'm older than that. Well, that's an easy explanation: management over at the plant actually WANTS to work us seven days a week. That's good for me though, because I actually want to work twelve hour shifts, at least for the time being; I'm only human and cannot work long hours forever. Despite being so damn tired, I'm actually looking forward to working twelve hours today, because the pay rate is double-time on Sundays. So, yay, extra birthday money!!
Come Monday, we're going to have a new supervisor over in the Support area where I work. He seems alright, supposedly. Looks kind of new in the arena of management, but if he's not an arse he should do okay. Our old supervisor is going to transfer to the assembly lines. Until I work under him with enough time, there's not really much else to say about him except that hopefully he's not much of......well, an arse. At least I'm not going to be the parts stocker for the department for a while. That position nearly drove me nuts and tired me out like a Firestone, so the current sup put me back on a rod welding machine. On one hand, there's no need to run around taking care of all the operator's parts and supplies at their machine stations. However, the other hand is that I need to take care of *my* own production numbers and liabilities. Despite extensive personal experience with all seven machines in the department, the only thing that slows me down considerably are product changeovers. I'm extremely meticulous with detail and that includes quality. I'm more focused on higher quality, but it's more due to not trusting the electrode fixtures than anything else because the company does very poor maintenance and upkeep with the machines despite efforts from the maintenance techs. Because of this, my downtime during changeovers is unusually high so it's pretty certain that somebody is going to call me on it sooner or later. Hopefully (much) later.
Other than that, it's just going to be another usual tired day at work. Now it's a matter of what to get my parents for their b-days.