InfiniteTides

My brief time on first shift has allowed me a glimpse into a chaotic Bizzaro world which I thought I understood.  I’ve seen people running all over the place, constantly in (wasted) motion, trying to please too many masters, and accomplishing very little because of it.

One reason scheduling seems to be such a mess is that they have someone who is too eager to please the CSR’s, but who has no real authority to make her own decisions about priorities.  Basically, the scheduler doesn’t seem to have the big picture in mind as she goes about her daily duties.  She can’t possibly schedule with maximum efficiency.  Not to mention the fact that they have her doing too much, spreading her too thin.  There’s no good reason for her to be pulling the job files for jobs she’s scheduling, trucking them to the rooms in which they will run, AND scheduling when and where jobs will run.  The scheduler should be the hub, not a spoke, not someone charged with keeping the tire inflated.  If you could hear how often the scheduler’s phone(s) are ringing, beeping, and direct-connecting her, you would understand why she is the hub and should remain in a central location.  Other people can pull files.  Hell, die setters are constantly trotting through her office any way, not to mention the fact that supervisors really aren’t all that busy that they couldn’t be more involved as spokes for the hub.  I think our pressroom scheduling is a mess the way they do it on first shift, and it makes me even happier to be going back to third.

The level of support on first shift can be rather good.  Some people are helpful, and some are not.  The engineers who only work first shift always seem reluctant to get involved or make decisions.  I’m not talking about our quality engineers.  They are quite good, but our other engineers are rubbish.  For the most part, they seem to be people who don’t like to get their hands dirty or go out on the floor to investigate things.  It’s long been my experience that when faced with an issue like, the tooling can’t produce the part to our customer’s print specifications, the typical response from an engineer is something like, “they’re (the customer) gonna hafta use what we send them, I guess.”  I’ve never heard an engineer (without direct prompting) offer to call and consult a customer about a problem we’ve discovered with their tooling, especially after we’ve told the customer that we were ready to run production on those tools.  Engineers always seem ready to wash their hands of the problems and run back to their upstairs offices.  Another reason I prefer being on an off shift.  I don’t have to deal with the engineers very often.

Because the operators (and die setters) on first shift tend to have the most experience and have been with the company the longest, they tend also to ask the fewest questions.  I’ve seen a good number of things done wrong, because the operators presume that they know what they are doing, and no one can tell them a better way to do anything.  First shift operators tend to be know-it-alls who are very much stuck in their ways of inefficiency.  They tend to be less open-minded.  They tend to act as though the company owes them something for their length of service too.  It’s no wonder that so few employees of the month have come from production people on first shift.  They don’t impress me in the least, and their production numbers seem to back that up.

Communication on first shift is probably the best thing it’s got going for it.  So what do first shifters do with their great communication?  They horde it, and I think I know why.  Very few people on first shift can write an intelligible email explaining anything complex or nuanced.  So if they can’t explain something verbally, either face-to-face or over the phone, they can’t be bothered to send an email that will just be misunderstood any way.

There are some people on first with whom I enjoy working.  Dan is alright.  He does a good job as quality engineer.  Stacy is okay, I guess.  At least she isn’t super-annoying to me.  I’ve even found Cheri more personable than expected.  That said, I’ll be quite relieved to be back on third shift.

I suppose I should just be happy knowing that certain people who would have annoyed me were off all week.  I suppose I should be happy that I was only forced to endure one week of first shift.  I suppose I should be happy that I was able to walk to work every day this week.  I suppose I should be happy that I’m not laid off.  I am happy for all of those reasons, but most of all because it’s Friday.  The weekend is nearly here, and my sleep schedule is about to become unfuct.  :)