Another Business Trip

It looks as if I'll be spending at least Tuesday next week on the road (maybe Wednesday as well). As part of our trip to Atlanta last month, GE asked us (more like me) to provide them with a documented procedure for controlling our sub-tier suppliers. This particular supplier is in Minnesota just north of Minneapolis. So that means road trip. Air fare for a round trip would have been almost $1800, so I get to drive instead. That means a 6.5 hour drive one way. Hopefully I'll be able to stay awake and make it back the same day, but I'm not holding my breath.

Sleep is Over Rated

As I have said, I have been very busy at work. Getting the people I work with to buy into the manufacturing world of the 1990s is like pulling teeth. The "we've been doing this for 30 years without any problems" attitude is finally starting to crack. I just hope that it isn't too late.

I was notified today that the audit I was expecting from GE is finally about to be scheduled. We have to get back to them with some info regarding paying for it and then they'll be contacting us. Well, i think I am pretty set for it, though I can't guarantee it. The sad thin is that if my "bosses" had listened to me three years ago when I started pointing out all this to them, we would have never gotten to this point. That is the hard thing about working for a small, family owned company. they have their one way of doing things and aren't open to/receptive of change very easily.

So I have been getting about 4 hours of sleep a night for the last week or so. I feel like I am in college again. Hopefully when this is all over, I'll be able to sleep for a day.

Long Hours

I have been putting in long hours at work lately trying to get caught up in some deficient areas. Because of some high profile errors with some important customers of OUR biggest customer, we have been held to task to make some serious improvements to our quality systems. The upper management here is now beginning to wake up to the fact that it isn’t 1979 anymore (and not just in terms of clothes and hair styles). Since I took over as the QA manager almost 4 years ago, I have been saying how we needed to do some different things in order to prevent nonconforming product from going out the door. But I was told that wasn’t a priority, or it wasn’t important because we have been doing this for 25 years without any problems. Everyone here was focused on how much money it would cost, and since it wasn’t considered “value added” work, why do we need to do it? I guess they are finding out now why.

So now I am being tasked with fixing everything over the course of the next 3-4 weeks, and I actually have some things due at the end of this week. God I hate the people I work for, but I have to at least be thankful that I have a job right now and I am going to do what I can to keep it.

Busy Week So Far

This has been a pretty slow week for everyone but me. Beginning Monday I am going through daily meetings at work to try and salvage our business with GE. Unfortunately, the people I work with don't have the same foresight as I do. While I am trying to focus on satisfying and correcting the concerns that were relayed to us in our meeting last Friday in Atlanta, everyone else is focusing on other, more minor issues thinking that will solve their problems. I told Kris that it is a lot like a drug addict not being able to get better until they admit there is a problem. No one here wants to admit that there is a problem. They are focused on doing the same old stuff and just trying to smooth talk their way out of things. Well the business world is changing, or rather has changed, and you just can't do work with a multi-billion dollar company with a handshake and a nod anymore. You need to provide objective evidence of what you are doing. There, I feel a little better after venting now.

I finally got the girls' Reflections projects submitted. Looks like they win again by default. We had 6 total entries for the school, and only one category/age group had competition, so everyone who entered gets an award. I need to redo Sarah's project however, since Walgreens made the picture too dark. I know when we edited it, it wasn't that dark. As soon as I have them done I'll post the pictures here.

We (Kris and I) had lunch with Sarah and Ali yesterday at school for the annual student-parent lunch week. We had tacos, mmmm. But man, talk about grease! I wasn't feeling the best for the rest of the day, and either was Kris. When I got home, Mallory had come over to help Sarah with a project for school, so I had to help record a mock "news interview" she was doing with a character from one of her books.

That's all for now, since we have a big winter storm on the way and the prediction is for 10"-12", so I have to go make sure we're all ready for it before leaving for work (gas for the snowblower, enough salt, etc.)