New Training / July Shutdown?
Three weeks and no journal entry? I can't remember the last time I've gone this long without saying something. No matter. Unfortunately, it's not like there's been anything going on, really. When I'm not working, I'm up all night killing time and trying desperately to enjoy my free time while still getting things done. Because I'm awake at night and there's nowhere to go, nothing to do and no one to hang out with, I never seem to completely decompress during my weekends even though they're either three or four days long. I feel cutoff from the rest of the human race, sometimes.
The main bulk of my stress lately comes from all the new training I'm doing at work. A few weeks ago, I certified on a simple tool that no one else on my shift operates. The day I certified, I was told that I'd begin training on half a dozen other machines starting immediately. This is all on top of my normal workload plus all the IT stuff I'm responsible for. I probably won't be done with all this training nonsense until the end of June. All this training is all about coverage. Now that summer is approaching, a lot of people are taking blocks of time off for family vacations, so they want to make sure every gizmo in the joint has someone who can run it on every shift. That's understandable, but wow, are they pushing a lot of training all at once! Hopefully training shouldn't be too big a deal. If I can just muscle through this month and learn quickly, I can go back to my normal duties and do the things I've been neglecting, like IT side projects. I feel bad that I've been unavailable for the IT stuff because I know that's my ticket out of the fab. That is, if I decide to stay with this company long enough for them to offer me anything. After all, I've only been a permanent employee for three weeks. Gotta go with the flow.
For months, there's been talk of a shutdown at the fab. Every year or two, they have to close the building down so inspectors can check the structure. I've been told in the past, they'd shut down for weeks at a time. I was looking forward to taking the time off to visit Jaci in South Dakota and getting away from it all. However, this year, they keep pushing back any announced shutdown date and scaling it back from the original two-week estimate. The rumor now is that the shutdown is only going to be 48 hours long at the beginning of July and it will fall on the other shifts; not ours. I know hardly any business gives their employees a forced vacation every year and that it's foley to get my hopes up about getting one let alone make plans for one, but if the rumors are true, it seems unfair to give every moment of the shutdown to the other shifts. Sigh. C'est la vie, mes amis.
The main bulk of my stress lately comes from all the new training I'm doing at work. A few weeks ago, I certified on a simple tool that no one else on my shift operates. The day I certified, I was told that I'd begin training on half a dozen other machines starting immediately. This is all on top of my normal workload plus all the IT stuff I'm responsible for. I probably won't be done with all this training nonsense until the end of June. All this training is all about coverage. Now that summer is approaching, a lot of people are taking blocks of time off for family vacations, so they want to make sure every gizmo in the joint has someone who can run it on every shift. That's understandable, but wow, are they pushing a lot of training all at once! Hopefully training shouldn't be too big a deal. If I can just muscle through this month and learn quickly, I can go back to my normal duties and do the things I've been neglecting, like IT side projects. I feel bad that I've been unavailable for the IT stuff because I know that's my ticket out of the fab. That is, if I decide to stay with this company long enough for them to offer me anything. After all, I've only been a permanent employee for three weeks. Gotta go with the flow.
For months, there's been talk of a shutdown at the fab. Every year or two, they have to close the building down so inspectors can check the structure. I've been told in the past, they'd shut down for weeks at a time. I was looking forward to taking the time off to visit Jaci in South Dakota and getting away from it all. However, this year, they keep pushing back any announced shutdown date and scaling it back from the original two-week estimate. The rumor now is that the shutdown is only going to be 48 hours long at the beginning of July and it will fall on the other shifts; not ours. I know hardly any business gives their employees a forced vacation every year and that it's foley to get my hopes up about getting one let alone make plans for one, but if the rumors are true, it seems unfair to give every moment of the shutdown to the other shifts. Sigh. C'est la vie, mes amis.