Friday, June 02, 2006

ka-BOOM

work has exploded. no, not literally, although given the chemicals used in this place it wouldn't surprise me if it does one day. i can only hope it happens on a weekend.

auditors (mostly outside) have been/will be crawling all over the place last week and next week. i'm not always needed for the entire audit, but it's a disconcerting feeling to know that probably 50% of my work is under the microscope while i'm not there to explain it. when they're looking at the other 50%, i'm sometimes lucky enough to be there to defend it. not that i should have to defend anything - these are system audits, it's just that i wrote the freaking quality system, so you'll excuse me if i get a little jumpy.

we've had an impressively large hemmorhoidal organizational change over the last few months. over the last two weeks i've been trying to get some kind of a handle on it, revising documents, updating records, you know, all that crap no one else wants to do.

it's the revisions that are driving me mad. you start with one document, notice a reference buried somewhere and think, "oh shit, i have to update that one, too. might as well go ahead and do it now. because the guy who has to approve it is gonna be on vacation the next two days. oh shit, look at that, there's another reference, and this one's for a corrective action - did i close that one out yet? is it overdue for a follow-up? you know, screw the newsletter, i spent an hour writing up crap for it and i'm skipping out on the meeting, much as i hate to leave RB with the HR demon from hell looming over her shoulder. oh, you have a problem with the QC database? geez i'm really sorry but i couldn't care less at the moment. ok, ok, i'll fix it, just give me a second, two more certs just came in on the fax and i've gotta get those out by lunchtime. oh hey brian, can you just leave those complaint boxes next to my desk, i'll dig into them in a little while. i mean, hell, we already shipped the stuff, what's the hurry, right? yeah, thanks, i usually love to talk about picking strawberries but really can you just pull that printout off and hand it to me - and hey, this one goes in the recycling bin."

if my friends stop by to chat with me, i put them to work. if people i don't like stop by to chat with me, i ignore them. and at the end of the day my overworked eyes aren't sure if they want to bug out or sink back into my skull. (yeah and my eyes are going bad, too - i finally made an appointment with an optometrist for glasses - which they rescheduled the next day, which isn't good because i'm taking a day off to get all my medical stuff taken care of at once. so i have to reschedule that today, too.)

below is a real-life change history that i got to write up this morning:

Throughout document, replaced “Maintenance Manager” with “Maintenance Lead.” 4.1: Revised to remove specific contractor references. 4.3: Revised to delete AC units that have been removed from the plant. 6.1, 1st sentence: Replaced “in 1951” with “one in 1951 and the other in 2006.” Moved previously numbered section 7, Elevator, to section 12.0. Deleted requirements for internal maintenance and replaced with reference to outside contractors due to state regulations. Moved Forklift Maintenance to section 7 and referenced the Forklift Inspection and Maintenance work instruction (WI-1530-014.) Re-numbered the rest of the document. Section 14.0 (References): Deleted “QFM-09-064 Weekly Forklift Maintenance,” “QFM-09-072 Semi-Annual Elevator Maintenance,” and “QFM-09-109 Quarterly Forklift Maintenance.” Added “WI-1530-014 Forklift Inspection and Maintenance.” Deleted previous change history. Promptly lost my fucking mind.

no, virginia, the last sentence did not make it into the final version. but i was so, so tempted...

Did I mention the cube crapped out on me the day before yesterday? yes, folks, my number-one coping tool, the blocker-outter of the inane, shrill chatter in my area is temporarily defunct. i can't think of a worse time for it to need warranty work. but at least i have a warranty, right?

So anyway work has been insane. dealing with a potty-training two-year-old is almost easy by comparison. almost.

1 comment:

andi said...

Hey K - that's pretty funny. As a matter of fact I was thinking along the same lines about comparing potty-training Duckie to work. Insane, either way.