Been Working Again

Well, I've been working again for about a month and a half now. I am grateful for that fact and doing my best as I ply the trade of my employer.

It's not really my usual line of work, but I suppose it is related to the same field to a minuscule degree. I normally work as an electronic bench technician troubleshooting down to component level. The position I am working on this job is that of a field service technician. The bench technician work is definitely more pressured, challenging and requiring of skills in the field of electronics using scopes, meters, waveform monitors and actual schematics, while the field service position is relatively easy. Actually it's more like child's play, about repeating procedural tasks and occasionally facing an irate store manager with more immaturity than competence.

The good thing is that I rather like to travel so that takes some of the tedium down a bit, but in the short amount of time I have had in this job I am quickly reminded of the basis for my own quote on life. Which is, "Life is not difficult. People make life difficult". It so aptly applies to the work place in that you can have a job that is easy, but your co-workers, managers, or other people with which you are forced to interact can unnecessarily make that easy job a horrendous chore.

In my own recent experiences it has been in the form of omitted information for doing my work, bad information for doing my work, and/or wrong information for doing my work. There is an old saying that exists in the world of computers. It's usually brought up in regard to data manipulation in the context of databases or spreadsheets, but it applies to more than just these things or computers. It can apply to any situation where information is critical. The saying is, "Garbage in = Garbage out." If you put bad or wrong information into a database or spreadsheet, then the results you get after the data has been processed will be bad or wrong.

In the course of this job, I and my fellow technicians have been given erroneous information. In the course of my work I have no choice but to trust those who have given me the information and that the information is correct. But obviously this has resulted in work that was not performed as it should have been. Likewise, in the area of scheduling. I have arrived at and worked at locations that I should not have because, well, simply because they were listed on my assigned schedule when they should not have been. Now I understand we are only human and humans make mistakes. This is, however, work and a lot of people's time and money are on the line including the company's. Even at that, I can still remain of an understanding mind. The problem I have is when these people make these mistakes and proceed to attempt to cover their tracks while throwing you under the bus in order to cause you to take the heat while saving their own face. Now it is also infuriating when the very people or person that has done this and put you in this position is the very person to chastise you for the results they fostered by their own actions. That is a thing for which I have no patience or tolerance.

So, I'm back at work and grateful as I said. But it sure doesn't take long to be reminded of how a company can have those annoying little weak links in their chain, ready to sell you down the river.

I'll keep plugging on though. After all, it's only a six month contract and then I'll be out looking again.