A Quiet-ish Recovery
July 15, 2015 2:26 pm Leave your thoughts
Hello loyal followers of the blog,
This week was a quiet one. I’ve been out of commission since last week recovering from surgery. With new work restrictions limiting my lifting and movement, I’ve been supporting my department from the safety of the lab. So no, you won’t see pictures of me putting out forest fires or saving endangered squirrels. I could, however, show you pictures of my incisions, but they’re not that cool.
Right now, I’m sitting at the computer writing this with my earplugs in because our shift technician still doesn’t know how to hammer quietly. My co-worker Darcy is out and about on the plant floor and Jim is writing a really long email. I wonder if it’s a response to the Ukrainian phishing email he received a while back.
There’s a lot of commotion in the plant today as the weather is starting to change. Some of our raw material is stored outside, and needs to be brought into a covered area and kept dry. Everyone is on high alert because of the amount of traffic and coffee. The veneer we use must be kept dry in order for our microwave process to work efficiently. Moisture in our product leads to lower structural properties and the possibility of irreversible dimensional change – a quality nightmare.
There’s also been a lot of testing which I couldn’t help with today, but I don’t miss out because the testing machine is right behind me. The Quality Assurance team has been coming up with process improvement projects that aim to improve product quality and require testing to quantify these changes. I’m happy to have been able to provide tech and statistical support to the projects despite being incapacitated. People around the office have been understanding about my situation and there is no shortage of terrible jokes. As my term carries on, interning at the plant continues to be a very fresh and engaging experience. I’m going to be involved in more of these projects soon and I hope the remainder of my time here at Vancouver Parallam will be just as enjoyable working from my computer fort. That’s about it from me this week.
Enjoy the week in good health!