Disasters in Concrete

It's scary how fast things can go from calm to complete chaos within the span of half of an hour. This has become very apparent as I spend more time in job as a dispatcher for concrete. I can definitely see why some people would find this job stressful and why it isn't exactly the most desirable position. In fact, a lot of my coworkers wonder if I'm stressed out.

I'm not. I'm just very tired and haven't been sleeping well lately.

And someone keeps drinking up all the coffee in the office.

An example of this is Thursday. Everything is going well, sure some trucks are a bit late, but everything is going fine.

Suddenly we are informed that one of our 4 major plants has run out of a crucial material needed to make concrete.

In the middle of the day.

After a meeting about warning people about running low on supplies.

So now we need to run reroute all trucks and jobs out of the dead plant to our remaining ones. The trucks need time to travel to a working plant, load up, and travel again. This is A LOT of wasted time spent traveling. All the jobs coming out of that plant are delayed by an hour AT BEST. Remember, labourers are not cheap, and with some projects, they need a continuous flow of concrete, otherwise they need to rip everything out and redo it.

Later that same day, a different plant suffers critical computer failure. Concrete is unable to be produced for a different reason now. All trucks and jobs need to be rerouted AGAIN as we try our best to make the best of a bad situation. Slap another half an hour delay. My supervisor is losing his mind beside me as we try our best to deal with the disgruntled customers and our bad situation.

Also I forgot my lunch and had to eat a disgusting instant noodle cup from a vending machine.

Later on my Saturday shift it looks good. Everything is calm and serene. It looks like it'll be a quiet shift. Did you know that we also rent out trucks to companies to pump concrete? It's true. All we have to do is make sure the pump drivers are notified of their respective jobs, details, etc..

Then we get a phone call asking where the pump truck is.

No one told the guy he had a job to go to.

Normally, not such a big deal. Except this was for a major client. Who was working via a permit that limited how much time he could use workers. He would now be idling for at least 3 hours as we scrambled to get the driver onsite.

To make matters worse, this is one of those instances where it is partially my fault as a dispatcher. Even though I'm still a junior and I don't have the scheduling responsibilities yet, it's my job to catch little errors like this and stop them before they happen.

And this error is one of those mistakes that will cost the company tens of thousands of dollars, and quite possibly the client. It's these kinds of mistakes that can cost people their jobs.

I think I'm safe though. Still not looking forward to the "meeting" with my supervisor.

Oh. And then we had the day where I walk into the office. I notice that there are an abnormal number of trucks outside the main plant and my supervisor looks more distressed than usual. I ask why.

"Well Damian, it be because we currently have 9 trucks that are down to due mechanical errors".

Losing even one truck during peak season can result in people getting concrete half an hour late. Imagine what 9 trucks would do to us first thing in the morning. Imagine how that affects the rest of the schedule for the day.

"Oh and the reason why there are so many trucks out front is because the main plant has shut down. We had a major blockage with a special mix of concrete for a client."

Great, we now need to reroute trucks again. Find and use a plant that has the materials to make the special concrete, and apologize to customers for late deliveries. By noon, the main plant is back online and we have lost a dozen trucks in total (though some have been repaired and are back on the road by this point).

Oh, and for anyone curious, this all happened in the time since I made a post about my job. And these big events are littered with small events such as computer crashes, truck drivers getting lost, concrete being rejected by clients, etc. etc..

A lot can happen in a week.

Don't worry. I mean it when I don't get stressed easily. I'm taking most of these events as best I can, making the best of a bad situation. My lack of stress could be because I'm not as experienced or laden with as many responsibilities as everyone else yet, but I like to imagine I have a better tolerance for stressful situations.

In the meantime, it's another day of work tomorrow. I hope it rains. So many people cancel their concrete orders when it rains. Maybe it won't be a hectic day for once.

Full-Time Work

It's about time I finally gave some details about my new job. I'm paid more than double minimum wage, get bonuses and benefits, which is pretty great considering that I managed to get a job at all just coming out of University. It's a fairly cushy desk job where I sit in front of a computer and do stuff.

What kind of stuff you ask? Concrete. I know what you're thinking. How does a Psychologist get a job relating to concrete of all things? I don't know either, but the pay is good enough that I'm not going to think too hard about it.

Also, I sit inside all day too, so I'm pretty pleased about that.

The first week mostly consisted of training. I learned a lot more about concrete than I ever expected to. It's surprisingly a lot more complicated than I would have ever thought. For starters, it has a set lifespan but we have ways of accelerating or slowing down how fast it sets. There are tons of things we can put in it to change the strength or properties of concrete because a foundation for bridge isn't going to have the same stuff in it as someone's driveway.

Oh, and if there's anything I learned, it's that mistakes are expensive. The cheapest mistake will cost at least $2000. And it's not hard to make a mistake. Maybe a driver takes the wrong concrete, drives off, and now everyone behind him is going to get the wrong stuff. Or someone forgets to clean his drum out properly and the next person to get concrete ends up with a pink driveway. Or maybe a Thursday order gets sent out for Wednesday instead.

To put this in perspective, at my old jobs, the most expensive mistake I could make would cost $10.

And let's not start mentioning the mistakes that can cost over 100k.

So what is my job exactly? My job is to take orders for concrete. So a guy will want X amounts of Y type of concrete at Z location, and I'll punch in all the details into a computer and away we go. Easy as that. Maybe a guy wants his Monday concrete moved up to later in the day, or next week. No problem I check to make sure things are alright, and off it goes.

But this is kind of boring, and if I do well, I'll get moved to dispatch. What does this mean? Now I am in control of sending trucks of concrete all over the city. I have to see what trucks are available, who wants what, and when to send it.

Sounds easy. Until drivers start getting lost and I have to give them directions, or if someone decides to cancel their order of concrete, or if trucks break down in the middle of nowehere with a full-load of concrete, or someone calls asking where their concrete is because it's over an hour late.

And then you have the new guy trying to make sense of it all.

But the people are nice, friendly, and they seem to like that I'm doing my best to try and learn as much as possible and ask as many questions as I can. I might leave for a week in a bit to do some training in another city because of how understaffed we are. Not a problem for me as long as I have internet.

Oh, and before I end this post, here's something I learned if you plan to one day build your own house. ALWAYS hire a tester or some form of quality control on site. See, most construction workers/labourers are lazy and don't really care about the project unless it's for the city (because of the constant quality checks).

This results in the labourers weakening the concrete to make it easier to work with, or pouring less concrete to make things faster for themselves. Great, now your basement is going to crack more easily or maybe the walls are going to keep flaking, resulting in a dusty house.

If you're going to spend several hundred thousand dollars on a new home, spend a few extra thousand dollars, get someone to make sure that your house is built up to snuff.