September 4, 2002

271 and counting.

I'm ensconced at my desk, waiting for a phone call and consuming one (1) chocolate chip cookie, and a carton of milk. Reminds me of snack time in kindergarten.

My job is a difficult thing to write about. The nature of it demands that I write vaguely. I've read entries in other on line journals in which the author tries to describe their job, or what happened at their job, couched in vague terms and non-details. It's like trying to decipher a code, and it drives me nuts. As such, it drives me nuts to have to *write* that way.

My job is such a large part of my life that I can't *not* write about it. So I Dilbert-ize and describe the situations that anyone who works in an office environment can sympathize with. Which doesn't reveal the details and secrets so closely kept in an R&D environment -- and also exposes a mere tip of a gigantic iceberg of experiences, woes, frustrations, triumphs, interests, and situations that I deal with every day.

I like my job quite a bit, which is saying something since I in no way, shape, or form planned on doing what I'm doing today. The job that I took, intending to keep it until I figured out what I wanted to be when I grew up, sprouted into a full-fledged career. It's certainly not what I pictured myself doing, but now that I'm doing it, I don't know what else I *would* do. So, here I am, and that's fine. My career found me, not the other way around. It's interesting and challenging, and I'm learning something new every day. Money is still being made, so it's all good.

To be as detailed in the lack thereof as I can be, I work in Manufacturing. I assess the current machines and processes that produce our products, and in tandem with trying to make the whole process work *better*, I prepare for changes that may be required in order to produce the new products coming down the road. This may initiate new processes and tools to be incorporated, and I get involved in all the details required.

Gah, I'm frustrating myself.

Anyway, we're getting ready to run a new product. The "test lot" is being processed today (supposedly). I "own" five process steps - the first five - and need to be out on the manufacturing floor in order to observe the machines in action while they're processing and make sure we've covered all of our bases and have anticipated all of the possible issues. Each process step has its own Engineer, who I have to coordinate with to make sure they give me a call when they're getting ready to run.

Hence the sitting and waiting and cookie munching.

I'm going to take a risk here and make a sweeping statement (close your e-mails). Engineers tend to have tunnel vision. Their world is narrowed down to their machine, their process step, their goals and indicators, and their mile-long task list. It takes effort to get them to look around them and realize that what they're doing at their process step will effect the process steps ahead of them, and have to be compatible with the process steps behind them. They get in this groove where they're chasing after a goal they've got set in their sights, and so any input that isn't directly involved in the acquisition of that goal kind of leaks out of their brain. It takes a lot of repetition, many reminders, follow-up phone calls, follow-up e-mails (with return receipt), and more phone calls and e-mails to follow up on the follow-up phone calls and e-mails, to infiltrate their sense of what's important.

I've reminded them twice daily since last Tuesday that I need to be out there when they process the test lot. And yet I suspect it will get processed without me. It was already staged without my knowledge, and it was only due to adroit questioning of the person who is responsible for scheduling when lots get released, that I knew about that at all. I've taken to heading out there randomly just to see what's going on, and see if I can catch them at it.

So my next dilemma is this. The lot was supposed to start last Friday, and now looks like it won't start until tomorrow. If it's still processing (it's actually six lots, one after the other) by next Tuesday, do I cancel my trip to Oregon? One of the intentions of the trip is to talk to certain groups in another division of AcronymCo about the details of this product. The trip was purposefully scheduled for *after* the test lots were to be run, so we'd know exactly what issues exist and could work on them together. And yet the trip can't be pushed out until after we're sure the test lot has been completed, because one of the key people participating in the discussion is from an overseas branch and has to go back at the end of the week.

This timing is delicate and tedious, and is the current source of 95% of my life's frustrations. Couple that with the fact that the Powers That Be can't seem to make up their minds about certain key details about the product (which make us change directions every two days or so), and there you have my life in a nutshell. And that's just over one new product.

My particular group of process steps is currently being hit with a WHOLE LOT of changes as several different new products, with different processing requirements, converge on the area at once. Each of the five process steps have its own unique issues and concerns, which can't be addressed in an across-the-board manner. What this translates into is back-to-back meetings, nearly all day, nearly every day. 26.5 hours of meetings last week, 25.5 this week (and it's a short week at that!), in a 40 hour work week (or in the case of this week, 32 hours). The other half (half!) of the time can't be solely dedicated to getting things done. There's impromptu meetings of the "Let's just grab a seat in the cafeteria and talk about it for a few minutes" variety. There's fire fighting. There's *lunch*, for God's sake. Add to that a moratorium on overtime, and tasks that come out of each and every meeting that need to get done in that week, and a boss who is fond of drive-by task assignment (she pokes her head into my office on her way by and gives me stuff to do), and it all adds up to Laura being a velly velly bizzy gerl. For crying out loud, it seems like it's just the sight of my very face alone that prompts people in the hallway to stop me and say "Oh, by the way, we need you to do this..."

I'd take to hiding, if it weren't for the fact that people know how to find me.

Which is why I haven't been writing much, and when I *have* written, it's scarcely entertaining. Mush. My brain is turning into mush. Trying to cram too many details into it at once, and trying to keep everything separate and organized, is taking an immense amount of effort. I find myself mixing things up and talking about the issues of one product in a meeting that's being held to discuss the issues of an entirely different product. Things change so quickly and so often, and come from so many different directions (each of which claim to be "the one we should be listening to"), that I can't keep straight which is the "old" information and which is the "new" information. And all the while I'm walking around in a state of dread, that I've forgotten or missed something. Take the feeling you have when you're just leaving the house for a vacation, and you suspect you've left the iron on, and multiply it by a thousand.

There's no end in sight. I'm counting the days until my Sabbatical. 271 and counting.

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And then there's the kitten, who is so far removed from AcronymCo as to be from another planet. Gratuitous Oz pictures!

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©Laura Charon 2000 - 2002.