Saturday, October 18, 2008

Work Stuff and Stuff

It's been a rough work week this week and even though I don't usually bring my
work home with me, this week the stress kind of followed me home on Wednesday.
For those of you who may not know, I am the line co-ordinator of a production line. We manufacture weapon sighting systems for the military. The product on our line is called a BoreSight and a soldier will attach it to his weapon to 'sight it in'. We use infrared lasers to do this and they have been around for quite some time and are very popular with the soldiers.
Our line has 7 production personnel and a Supervisor and we meet our schedule of approximately 800 units a month, usually by the skin of our teeth and some overtime. Last Tuesday we were told that Jasmina, who was on loan to us for awhile, was being called back to her department because they are ramping up production. A couple of hours later, Leah, who has only managed to work a 40 hour week maybe 3 times since March, was going to be out for the rest of the week (reason-personal so unknown to me).
(My personal opinion is to let her go permanently and hire someone who WANTS to be there, but as far as I know, she will be back eventually.)
Then Naza, who is 4-5 months pregnant, is having a rough pregnancy and has to go on bed rest for probably the remainder of her pregnancy. So...that leaves us 3 people down and we are almost at the end of our shipping month. I don't normally get stressed out but Tuesday was one of those days. I couldn't get home fast enough by days end.
Wednesday was a 'sell off' day which means I get to sit with a government inspector who comes to our facility and picks a random sample of finished product and I have to go through the testing procedure with him. He's a nice guy and we usually chit chat about his grandkids and the books we are reading while I run through the tests. If he likes them, he accepts them and they move onto shipping. We haven't had a failure during the 'sell off' since I have been there and I am the person who tests the units in the first place so I know they are all good. Since we have such a good record, the inspector told Tim, the Quality Assurance guy, to sit with me and he could sign them off in his place. Easy enough...Tim and I are friends and he knows he can trust that the product is top notch. Tim was so confident, that he allowed me to get started while he was busy elsewhere. I actually finished the post testing well before Tim even got out there and I made the huge mistake of calling an inspector to stamp off the units. That is the normal procedure but I forgot to have Tim sign the paperwork before calling an inspector and they questioned whether or not he was even present during the testing. (Which he was not) I was in over achievement mode and I skipped a huge step, that could have gotten Tim and my whole line in BIG trouble. I sweated it all day, waiting for the email or phone call beckoning me to my Managers office for a tongue lashing. I laid low all day but it was on my mind the whole afternoon. I went home Wednesday night mentally exhausted.
Thursday morning I went into work and left a message on Tim's voice mail to page me when he got in. He called me around 8am and I went into his office to talk. I apologized for getting him into trouble and he said that I didn't, nothing came of it and I shouldn't have been worrying about it at all. He is quite sure they cannot do without him anyway. (LOL Just like a man). I felt the stress leave me at that moment. I really did think he would be in some major trouble for my blunder and I wouldn't have been able to live with myself if he had lost his job because of something I did.
Thursday night I was able to sleep and boy was I tired. George said he has never heard me snore as much as I did that night. I managed to get a great night's rest though and felt pretty chipper on Friday morning.

Last night George and I went to see Beverly Hills Chihuahua at Smitty's Cinemas. What a cute movie. I really have to say I thoroughly enjoyed it. Chloe, the main chihuahua, looks exactly like my Huntababes. I definitely will get it for Sara when it comes out on DVD. She will love it for sure.
Smitty's is a cool place with tables in the theater and they have a full restaurant there. We had dinner while we watched the movie and it was a new experience for me. Very relaxing, comfortable and it kind of felt like you were watching the movie on a big screen from the comfort of your own home.

George is now out with Jon picking up the new kitchen table and chairs we bought. Donna came to get some more of her things the other day and she took the kitchen set because it originally belonged to her parents. I hope she comes back soon to get her corner hutch and all her Precious Moment figurines. I have big plans for that space.

OK time to get the bathroom cleaned. I hope you are all having a great weekend!

6 comments:

AliceKay said...

I'm glad Tim didn't get into trouble. That would have weighed heavily on your mind if he had.

Smitty's sounds like a really neat place. We don't have anything like that around here. That movie looked really cute in the previews. I'm sure Sara will love it.

LadyStyx said...

Havent seen a theatre like that in Virginia yet, but we had one nearby when we lived in Texas. The Studio Movie Grill didnt exactly have a full restaurant there, but it was close enough...and a bar ~grinz~. I liked it because you didnt feel like you were practically in your neighbor's lap, which is a big plus for us fuller sized women.

Glad you and Tim didnt get in trouble. I would have been worried too.

Deanna said...

Itis a shame you went through such stress. Glad it all turned out ok. We don't have anything like Smitty's around here. Sounds like a pretty cool place.

Intense Guy said...

*Hugs*

Sorry you had such a tough week - its a shame that doing a great job could get you into trouble and its so hard to get some good help (with all the unemployed and underemployed people in this country).

The movie place sounds like the perfect place to unwind.

ChicagoLady said...

Still short-handed on the line? I'm a fast learner! LOL

I'm not sure if we have any theatres like that around here. I guess you have to be a Chihuahua lover to enjoy that movie.

I'm glad everything turned out well at work. I wouldn't want either you or Tim to get in trouble for you being "in over-achievement mode".

Toriz said...

I'm glad nothing came of that little blunder at work and that you were able to sleep so well once the worry was gone.

Hope the short staffing doesn't cause too many problems for those of you left.