tisk tisk

Four thirty? *tsk* ugh John, you did it again - stayed up till some ungodly hour and now your day tomorrow will be all messed up, and the time's gone, and you're just so irresponsible.

HAH.

Not tonight.

I'm on night shift, baby!
Yeppersindeed. I'm on temporary assignment as quasi hot end supervisor for A crew. My boss brought up the idea, for me to solidly learn the basics of the process without paperwork distractions, and to get to know the shift schedule first hand.
We started on nights last Monday, working 6pm to 6am. Monday night, Tuesday night, then Wednesday and Thursday off, except we had offsite training 8am - 2pm Thursday, so that sorta killed one of the days off. Now I'm wrapping up the 3-day weekend, which is pretty much the longest stretch on the schedule. Monday and Tuesday are off, then we're in Wednesday and Thursday nights, and off for a 3-day weekend.

Most people gag when I tell them the night shift hours. Six to six, pm to am, sounds hellacious, but so far I'm a big fan. First-off, to make the switch to that schedule, you have to stay up as late as possible the night before, then sleep as late as possible the day you go on, so you can get up and go right in to work at 6. Stay up and sleep in? Aww, do I have to? Secondly, anything at night is fundamentally cooler. Which is more memorable - driving a big run-down dump truck across concrete pads by piles of broken glass in grey daylight at 11:30am, or driving through the shadows and stark lights at 3am with a translucent black void overhead and the rest of the world asleep and quiet? Thirdly, I have to agree with what everyone's been saying: it's more peaceful on night turn. None of the daylight people are here changing things, looking things over, and creating more action. Not that any of that is bad, but there doth be a pleasant peace in their absence.

What have I been doing? A few days were spent basically as a tin bath operator, which was highly needed to get me familiar with that key key area of the process. I'm not proficient, by a long shot, but I at least know what's going on now. Then Dale, the process tech / effective hot end supervisor, was off Saturday, so the game was all on me. I made sure I understood the thickness and size changes coming up, and spent a lot of time hauling cullent (in the dump truck under inky black void). It was also totally on me to know, to KNOW, that the process wasn't falling apart, heading for disaster, head out of spec, or any other deleterious and undesirable direction. It's easy to sit back and figure everything's running like it should, but I always think, what if my boss came in and prowled over the whole process? What would he find? What if he asks me what something is doing? Could I say from first-hand knowledge, or would it be some mushy "I think it's OK." You gotta be there, and you gotta know. And I was and I did, and I do right now, and it's sweet. God has been answering prayers for better comprehension and retention of process info, which has been driving me crazy lately.

Hopefully that was meaningful. I always wonder what people actually DOOOO at their jobs, so that's what I do. That, plus spend about a third of my time hanging around at the tin bath control room, chatting, writing the hourly numbers, asking questions, giving breaks, going out on headsets if things get squirrely.. whatever's needed. I really like the people on this crew, so those hang out times are nice.

So yes, I am up at 4:30, and I'll be up for another couple hours. The Vault I drank at 1:30 is still coursing through my veins, staving off the ravenous tiredness that I know is actually there. Getting up after 2 hours and going to church this morning (last morning, that is) was ROUGH. Rough in a way that basically powned me.

So far we're packin' about 92.5%. 2.5 over target! w00t for that. Hopefully Earl and Bob and the guys will find the place in good order when they come in in a couple hours. My goal is that they will have no fodder for complaint as they sip their coffees this morning. We'll see.

--JPB
A-Crew hot end supervisor