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.

Moving Up

I think I've finally gotten into the groove of working at my new job. Wake up. Turn off the alarm. Sleep for another 10 minute. Get up. Get ready. Get stuck in traffic. Be a few minutes late (but no one cares). Sit down in front of a computer. Talk on the phone all day long and help people. Head to the gym. Go home. Internet. Pass out.

It's nice to have a routine. Well, a routine in which I get paid to be tired and deal with (occasionally) stupid people.

All the time.

For those unaware, I'm currently working at my new job at a concrete company. For the month of August I was pretty much being taught as much as I could learn about concrete, and then how to sit in front of a computer how to respond to the many clients who wanted concrete orders or modifications to their orders.

I was told I was learning extremely quickly. Maybe it was just because the last order person was a complete ditz who couldn't figure out the program but I picked it up within a week. Last week they unleashed me on the phones by myself and I've been fine every since.

Which is scary, because a single error can result in massive costs on our end. In fact, the other day, someone checking over an order I made brought to my attention that I had entered in a wrong concrete mix due to a 3 character difference. And had that order gone through, it would have cost the company easily $25,000.

Oops.

So part of our training is to double check orders, and re-double check orders to make sure everything goes right. Nearly all the mistakes I make are simply due to being new and they're pretty much all caught or not costly. My coworkers are pretty nice about it, teaching and showing me how to do things properly without making me feel like an idiot.

And so for about 2 weeks I did this. Time goes by surprisingly fast, shifts disappearing quickly. I rarely have an idle moment and I don't mind. This job keeps me awake and conscious and that's not a bad thing at all.

But on the side, I was also being trained for dispatch. Meaning I would now be in charge of sending out trucks in the city, directing drivers, etc. etc.. It's more fast-paced plus I believe I get paid more to do so.

Being paid even more to sit in front of a computer? Awesome.

But the training for being a dispatcher slowly disappeared. And I resigned to sticking with being in Orders. But I was ok with it. It kept my mind active, I was still being paid well, and there's something rewarding about helping people all day. Especially when most are appreciative.

And then yesterday,  my supervisor suddenly pulls me away from my desk. Usually when he does this it's because he caught a mistake I made. Except this time I'm greeted with, "Damian, you're completely comfortable with orders now. Starting now, we're training you for dispatch."

Turns out, dispatchers do EVERYTHING on top of sending out trucks. No point of training me for it if I wasn't comfortable with orders yet. But it clear that I am proceeding far ahead of schedule. Especially since we hired someone new and I can compare my rate of progress to her.

Feels good man.

Well, we would have started. If my systems account didn't suddenly decide to die on me. So we start next week. My official dispatcher training will require me to work longer and later hours. But I get overtime so I'm not complaining.

But this means that I can no longer work at my fast food job during the evenings. I'm now occasionally working on the weekends and this will continue until my full-time job starts allocating me to weekend shifts as well.

As much as I'll miss the cheap food, I think it's time I finally move on. Plus, I make more doing 1 hour of OT than I would doing 3 hours fast food.