Back from the dead!
I haven't posted since the beginning of summer, so I guess that's in order. I kinda feel bad for how lonely my lj has been recently, and really, it's all Twitter's fault. All the things I normally wrote about I can now just pop onto twitter and get off my chest in one minute. The one thing twitter can't provide is cohesiveness, but I guess I don't really mind?
Anyway (Haha, I'm pretty sure I use that word in just about every single post I make. I noticed because I can't even remember the last time I typed it). So summer happened. My internship was actually really awesome. I worked for an AMAZING company. Besides our own work in the R&D Lab, our boss made sure we got to see a lot of the rest of the plant and talk to a lot of different people. So I have a really good idea of the range of things that go on in a chemical plant and the range of jobs engineers can get into. The product manager for the stuff we were working on, even, is an engineer, and she now does advertising and marketing. That's really cool. We also learned a lot about health and safety issues. They really take that shit seriously, in a way a lot of other companies don't. And they have one of the best relationships with the EPA in all of the Northwest. They have been steadily lowering their emissions for the last years, voluntarily. The water they "dump" in the Columbia is cleaner than the water from the city's treatment plant, AND cleaner than the water they pulled out of the Columbia to begin with. So the EPA is actually their buddy, whereas for most companies it is "that evil government agency hell-bent on destroying us". It's really a breath of fresh air to hear about a company actually TRYING to lower their emissions, rather than fighting the laws tooth-and-nail. Some number of decades back, when the Columbia flooded into a swamp behind their land and then receded, trapping carp in the swamp, the managers went out with nets to catch the carp and throw them back into the river. They had no need to do that at all. It was just the right thing.
Another thing was the way they treat their employees. Granted, they are a smaller company, so it's easier. But still. There was never any sense of the engineers or managers thinking themselves smarter or better than the operators (most of whom don't have a high school degree). We frequently asked the operators questions and looked to them for advice because they actually know the procedures better than a lot of the engineers, as they are the ones running and troubleshooting them on a day-to-day basis. At most of they company meetings everyone in the plant is invited. We had a presentation and free lunch once where we celebrated going a year with no safety-related injuries, and even the contractors working on some of the buildings and the cleaning and laundry crews, who are not a part of the company, were invited. They even went to so far as to find out the names of the people who would be on the site that day and email them an invitation. That is so amazing to me. It made me proud to know I was working for a company that treats all their employees and everyone else their company deals with as decent human beings, instead of just cogs in the machine. Amazing.
I could really go on and on. SUCH am amazing company. And I will probably be working there again, I'm very excited. My supervisor, by the way? She plays video games. MMOs, even. How awesome is that? The only thing I don't like about the company is the location. It's fine for a summer, but I suppose there is a possibility of them eventually offering my a full-time job after school, but I wouldn't want to live in Kalama all my life. I've toyed with the possibility of living in downtown portland, which would shorten the commute a little bit, but it would still be over an hour drive up and back every day. But anyway. At this point that concern is a long way off.
So initially I made this post to talk about school, but then I ended up rambling about work. Well. Think I will just post this now, and maybe I'll talk about school later today.
Anyway (Haha, I'm pretty sure I use that word in just about every single post I make. I noticed because I can't even remember the last time I typed it). So summer happened. My internship was actually really awesome. I worked for an AMAZING company. Besides our own work in the R&D Lab, our boss made sure we got to see a lot of the rest of the plant and talk to a lot of different people. So I have a really good idea of the range of things that go on in a chemical plant and the range of jobs engineers can get into. The product manager for the stuff we were working on, even, is an engineer, and she now does advertising and marketing. That's really cool. We also learned a lot about health and safety issues. They really take that shit seriously, in a way a lot of other companies don't. And they have one of the best relationships with the EPA in all of the Northwest. They have been steadily lowering their emissions for the last years, voluntarily. The water they "dump" in the Columbia is cleaner than the water from the city's treatment plant, AND cleaner than the water they pulled out of the Columbia to begin with. So the EPA is actually their buddy, whereas for most companies it is "that evil government agency hell-bent on destroying us". It's really a breath of fresh air to hear about a company actually TRYING to lower their emissions, rather than fighting the laws tooth-and-nail. Some number of decades back, when the Columbia flooded into a swamp behind their land and then receded, trapping carp in the swamp, the managers went out with nets to catch the carp and throw them back into the river. They had no need to do that at all. It was just the right thing.
Another thing was the way they treat their employees. Granted, they are a smaller company, so it's easier. But still. There was never any sense of the engineers or managers thinking themselves smarter or better than the operators (most of whom don't have a high school degree). We frequently asked the operators questions and looked to them for advice because they actually know the procedures better than a lot of the engineers, as they are the ones running and troubleshooting them on a day-to-day basis. At most of they company meetings everyone in the plant is invited. We had a presentation and free lunch once where we celebrated going a year with no safety-related injuries, and even the contractors working on some of the buildings and the cleaning and laundry crews, who are not a part of the company, were invited. They even went to so far as to find out the names of the people who would be on the site that day and email them an invitation. That is so amazing to me. It made me proud to know I was working for a company that treats all their employees and everyone else their company deals with as decent human beings, instead of just cogs in the machine. Amazing.
I could really go on and on. SUCH am amazing company. And I will probably be working there again, I'm very excited. My supervisor, by the way? She plays video games. MMOs, even. How awesome is that? The only thing I don't like about the company is the location. It's fine for a summer, but I suppose there is a possibility of them eventually offering my a full-time job after school, but I wouldn't want to live in Kalama all my life. I've toyed with the possibility of living in downtown portland, which would shorten the commute a little bit, but it would still be over an hour drive up and back every day. But anyway. At this point that concern is a long way off.
So initially I made this post to talk about school, but then I ended up rambling about work. Well. Think I will just post this now, and maybe I'll talk about school later today.