Sorry I haven't been posting much. Work has been... well not much work at all which is really dragging me down. When I have nothing to do, the day drags by, and I'm utterly exhausted when I get home. Hopefully I'm nearing the end of this phase of my new job.
To make a long story short, the project allows 80 hours of training for a new hire. I've charged somewhere around 300 hours to training (well I would have except somebody was like WTF?! and so now I've been charging to some random account). This is not because I'm stupid and need so much longer to learn everything, it's because my lead hasn't made sure to get me the training I actually needed to do the job they hired me for. Now I could have done some of the work my position requires, just not finished it or signed anything, but my lead refused to give me anything to work on 'til I finished my qualification. So my last few weeks have pretty much been sitting at my desk trying to look like I'm doing something productive, but in reality doing nothing work related. And then I've had this huge guilt hanging over me 'cause I'm not working for my pay. Never mind that it's not my fault, I've pestered my lead every day since I found out who he was.
Anyway, last Thursday I finally got the class I needed. I was looking forward to getting to work this week, except we supposedly ran out of time so I couldn't take the written test 'til Monday. We had like 15 minutes left in the day, and it's a 10 question, multiple-choice test *eyeroll* Monday rolled around and I got an e-mail saying that we were going to get a refresher and take the test at 9. So I got to sit around and twiddle my thumbs for another three hours. Then I sat through 45 minutes of "refresher" where some old dude just did not GET it. It was so freaking annoying. They finally gave me the stupid test and it took me a whopping 3 minutes to finish, and I got 100% on it. When I got back to my area I told my lead I passed and when could we do the practical? He responded "Um, well, we'll get it scheduled. Just be patient."
By the end of the day Monday the practical had been scheduled for 9am Tuesday. Another completely wasted day. Tuesday morning I was getting excited again. I felt confident in doing the practical, my partner and I had practiced already. By 8am we already had more than twice the number of people going than I expected. There was one other guy taking the test in addition to my partner and me. Then there was an extra guy to be the partner of the third guy. Then we had two leads, one to observe each "team" and then the Safety guy, and then the QC guy. By 8:30 we were up to 10 people, adding the Civil design lead, and the guy who teaches the classroom portion of the training. I don't normally have test anxiety, but I also don't normally have so many people staring at me while taking a test.
Before going out in the plant for any reason we have to do a pre-job brief and fill out a STARRT card (don't ask me what it stands for, I can't remember). Last week I had rearranged the STARRT card 'cause half of it you really shouldn't fill out 'til you're at your job location and do your "two minute drill" but the questions were all mixed up in no order. So I put the ones you could answer at your desk on the top half with a big "Pre-Job Brief" heading, and put the other ones on the bottom half with a "Two-Minute Drill (to be completed in the field)" Anyway, the safety guy said I could use the one I made up even though he wasn't going to revise the other one 'til later 'cause I didn't add or remove any information. So I filled it out and did the pre-job brief for the group. If you know me, you'll know that when I'm nervous I babble... a lot. So before I had everybody sign the STARRT card I told them what I just told you because I figured somebody would question it because it looks different than the one we normally use. Well the safety guy later told me that one should never volunteer information in front of QC and that he would probably get in trouble for my blunder. I yet again felt like a total heel.
Finally we got everybody suited up, signed on the STARRT card, signed out on the accountability board, and ready to head out into the plant. Before we got 10 feet we had to stop again. We had lost half our group going through the doors, and we had to call the Control Room to tell them where we were going. My partner kept trying to call before our whole group was there, most importantly the two people who were actually grading us. He's a nice guy, but good grief is he spacey! Once everybody gathered and the CR was notified of our excursion we headed off. Five minutes later we were at the test location (weren't expecting that were ya?). Once everybody was gathered there we did our two-minute drill and commenced the actual job portion of our test.
Now I'm going to back up a bit so you know what I'm talking about. My job starts when one of the design folks says (I'm paraphrasing) "the drawing says this is here, go look at it and tell me what it looks like." They ask me this on a document called a Walkdown Request. I then go out, look at whatever it is, take pictures and notes, and then write up a Walkdown Package, which includes the request in the front (so it tells the whole "story"). The practical test is basically taking an old request and pretending it's real and going to do it. Anyway, back to the action!
My partner start doing our Walkdown by verifying we are, in fact, looking at the right "thing." I start out observing and photographing and he takes notes. We're supposed to use what's called "three-way communication" where the first person says something, the other records it and repeats it back, and the first person *verbally* confirms they have it correct. So I would state an observation and take a picture, and he would write it down, read it back, and I would state "correct" or restate it 'cause he missed something. This was all going well until I got myself in a lovely tight spot and one of the observers decides that my partner and I need to switch. My partner, sweet old guy that he is, doesn't wait for me to get out of said tight spot, he comes in and tries to shimmy past me. Now I am not a small person, and he is less small than me, and this was a corner behind some equipment with pipes and shit going every which way. Needless to say there was may more body parts touching than I was entirely comfortable with. We finally got all switched around and I got situated with the notes and we started going again. At this point we were supposed to do something called Independent Verification where the other person observes the same things to see if they agree with the first person's observations. My partner kind of missed that part and started where I had left off. *sigh* I was trying not to call him on it and make him look stupid during the test, but he's kind of dense. Anyway, he'd observe something and tell me, I wrote it down and repeated it back, and then he stared blankly at me. So I repeated it again, and he stared at me some more. Finally I was like "you're supposed to say if I got it right or not!" He said "oh yeah, that's fine" and promptly forgot to do it for the next item. I gave up, just wanting to get the train wreck over with.
To make a long story slightly less long, we all got back to the office in roughly the same condition that we left. I was significantly more dirty (I can't squat, so I knelt/crawled to inspect stuff on the ground) but I dress expecting to get dirty, thus I don't care. Anyway, that was when the safety guy told me he was likely going to at least get scolded for my blub about the STARRT card. He also informed me that while I was crawling around on the floor I was doing an impression of a plumber (my words, not his). I knew this of course, but didn't really care as it's a construction site and I don't care what I look like. Also, I figure that people shouldn't be looking at my ass, and if they do they deserve whatever they see. He told me I should wear a coat, which is ridiculous 'cause I was almost too hot in my lightweight long sleeve shirt. And I really don't want MORE bulk when I'm crawling in tight spaces. He also said I should ask the tool room for some foam to kneel on so I don't hurt myself. So very helpful *dripping with sarcasm*
After lunch my partner and I started on our write-up. Mainly I did it and he grunted and/or critiqued my work. Which was fine with me 'cause watching somebody else do computer stuff drives me freaking BONKERS. Anyway, we got our package put together fairly well, or so we thought. *sigh* I should have known better. I don't remember if it was Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday morning, I think it was Wednesday, when we got it back, but it had sticky notes and red ink ALL over it. I wanted to cry, mostly from frustration. The feeling only increased when we sat down to go over all the comments. A large chunk of the comments were on the request portion of the package! The portion that we didn't write. The portion that was supposedly done by somebody fully trained, and has been used as the test package for years!!! It's amazing I have all my hair still!
Anyway, my lead said to just take care of the other comments and leave the request how it was. So I tell my partner (via IM) that I'd be ready right after I brushed my teeth. I did so, got back to my desk, and started working on incorporating the comments, expecting he'd wander over in a few minutes. I got in the zone of organizing data and pictures and didn't notice that my partner never came by my desk until I was done and it was over an hour later. I shrugged, printed it out, and dropped it off on his desk telling him to look over it and turn it in. A couple hours later, near the end of the day, I messaged him and asked if he'd turned our package in yet. He said no, so I (jokingly) asked if he had something more important to do. Then he told me he was having a bad day, his dog had been hit by a car that morning and needed a $4,000 surgery or to have his leg amputated. I felt like a freaking heel! Wednesday ended with us turning the package in just before COB.
This morning, after our package had been reviewed again, we sat down with the only other Civil guy in the group. He opens the package and flips to the first page of the request, which is covered in comments, and was like "what is this??" As we try to explain what happened he's flipping through the rest of it. After a couple minutes he closes the binder disgustedly and declares that he's not even going to begin to go through our work until the request is corrected because it's ridiculous to expect us to create a good package starting from something that has so many errors in it. He tells us that he'll rewrite the request, correctly, then go over how it *should* look with us, then we can reassemble our package to go with the corrected request. The whole time he's grumbling about how this package could have been used for years with all these errors...
Once the request was corrected it was a LOT easier to put the package back together. He only had a few minor comments once I got it all put back together. My partner was in training all afternoon so I took care of the last comments myself. I got it all ready and took it to my partner's desk. Since he was back from training I showed him what we had changed (format mostly, not much content changed). Of course I noticed a couple things I missed, but didn't have time to fix them before it was time to go home. Since it's a long weekend, I hurriedly made some notes to myself that I will hopefully be able to decipher on Tuesday morning. Then I should be able to turn it in and I really, Really, REALLY hope it gets approved and I can actually start my new job! But for now, I need to finish cleaning and getting ready to drive up to visit one of my girlfriends for pedicures (among other things)!
