Cary, NC

It was 46°F this morning when I took Buddy outside.  Nice clear black sky with sparkling stars in it.

On the drive to work the car rolled past 10,000 miles.  Bob called the Fiat dealer service department to set up an appointment for Friday morning to have the oil changed and tires rotated.

Work was busy with meetings.  I did manage to get another course finished - Combustible Dust Training. 

In the afternoon Tanisha Wilder, the DCU Associate, found me.  She keeps bugging me to apply for her job.  I said, "Bitch, please!"  I would never take that job because I would have to work for Penelope, the Quality Manager, and I think Penelope would drive me nuts.  I told her that I could not leave TQ right now because it would leave TQ in turmoil and management would never permit it.  Also, I have not been in my current role for 12 months yet.

Anyway, it does not matter, I heard that four or five people are interested in the job and will likely apply for it when it is posted.

Rebecca called a meeting with TQ for next Wednesday to discuss our Journey Map.  The Journey Map meeting is next Thursday.  Whatever she decides to do, I hope she does not add much to my load because I am struggling right now to keep turning out 1 -2 new courses per week.

Tomorrow is my Friday!  I am glad.  This week seemed like it would be sooo long on Monday morning, but it has moved along nice and fast so far.

Thanksgiving

Wow!  These past 10 days have been a whirlwind!

When I got off work on Thursday, November 16, I came home, loaded the car, and Buddy, Bob, and I drove to Wilmington to visit Becky and Bill for a few days. 

Becky and Bill took us out to Back Swamp, NC to Mike's Farm, an all-you-can-eat restaurant.  We filled up here.

On Monday, November 20, we left Buddy with Becky and Bill and we drove back to our house in Cary to get my wallet, which I left on the dresser; and Bob's shower floor mat.  Then we headed back down I-40 to Benson, and then south on I-95.  We drove to Hardeeville, SC and turned onto US 17.  We drove this right over the Savannah River and into Savannah, GA.

Bob had reserved a room for us downtown on the waterfront.  It was walking distance from everything in the historic district.  This a first visit to Savannah for both of us.  We made Thanksgiving reservations at The Lady & Son's Restaurant back in April!

We explored the downtown area and visited the American Prohibition Museum as well as the Georgia State Railroad Museum.

We had Thanksgiving at Paula Deen's and stuffed ourselves.  We were seated on the third floor and had the buffet.  Everything was very tasty!

The next day we left Savannah and headed north up US 17.  We took the short, but scenic route via Charleston and Myrtle Beach.  We veered off into Calabash and had a seafood lunch at Ella's.

It was afternoon when we got back to Wilmington.

On Saturday we visited with Mary "Nanna" Summers.  We took her out to lunch at the Texas Roadhouse.  She really enjoyed our visit.

We came back home on Sunday and really ran around as soon as we got back.  First we unpacked.  Then we stripped our bed.  I started the laundry.  I ran the vacuum.  Then we folded laundry.  Next we went to Penn Station Subs for lunch and stopped at Food Lion for some groceries on the way back. 

The alarm went off very early this morning and it was hard to get up.

I worked today and Bob hired Lyft to take him to his doctor's appointment in the afternoon.  After work I drove over the doctor's office to pick him up and bring him home.

We are both beat.

Cary, NC

701 Distribution Drive, Morrisville, NC

This week has moved along pretty quickly.  I haven't gotten anything done for courseware because I have been pulled into helping people get their Safety Training (PPE) done and helping the Safety Pillar Leader get training records ready for the Peer Safety Audit next month.

I assigned the PPE training to everyone in the plant on October 16th, and it is due tomorrow.  Right now about 85% of the plant has it done.

There was a random urinalysis this morning and my name was NOT selected for a change!

I had a one-on-one meeting with Christy Morton, the new plant manager, this afternoon.  She just wanted to get to know me and find out about myLearning.  The meeting was only 30 minutes long and I left with most of my questions unanswered.

Tomorrow we have an executive vice-president from the Clorox board of directors visiting the plant.  She hasn't been in the plant in 7 years, so we want to make a good impression.  We are also having a Thanksgiving lunch and a Second Quarter Huddle in the afternoon.

When I get home from work tomorrow evening we are driving to Wilmington to start off our 10-day vacation.

Weekend

As it turns out, I did not have to work this weekend.  On Friday we went to Bob Evan's for breakfast and since we were at the Crossroad's Plaza, went to Target to get razor blades, dish soap, deodorant, and shave cream. 

It was chilly out - 33°F, but it warmed up to the 50's later.

On the way back home we stopped to fill the gas tank.

For lunch I went out and brought McDonald's back. 

I paid my bills and spent the rest of the day surfing the Internet.  I did get a couple more items ordered for Christmas with the money left over from my paycheck.

Yesterday I made omelets for breakfast.  Later we went out to mail a bill and get Bob's haircut.  His favorite hair cutter at Great Clips would not be in until 12:00, so we went to lunch.  Bob had a reuben sandwich with fries and I had a chicken pot pie.

We returned to Great Clips and got Bob's hair cut.  Then we went over to Food Lion to get a couple of frozen lunches, some fruit, some eggs, and other things.  I will only need three lunches this week because the company is buying us lunch on Thursday.

Now I am getting the laundry washed and dried.  Later I will run the vacuum.  Then we have a crock of home made sauerkraut to shovel into jars.  Our canner is somewhere in a box, so we will put this into jars and refrigerate it.  We might give some away too.

Just four more days and we will start our Thanksgiving vacation!  We are taking Buddy to Wilmington, and then Bob and I will head down to Savannah, GA to have Thanksgiving dinner at Paula Deen's restaurant - The Lady and Sons.

Cary, NC

Temps were cooler today and it was overcast all day.  I wore my lined raincoat with a knit cap to walk the dog this morning.

At work I did not do the things that I thought I would be doing.  We had a meeting in the morning about the Basic Mechanical Operator exam failures with hopes of deciding what to do about it.  The first thing that we decided to do was analyze the exam questions to see which ones missed the most often.  Then we would know what topics the students were weak on.

I had to create a scatterplot of the questions versus the number of times it was missed.  This did show us a couple of clusters.  So, if we have to re-train these people, we know which topics they need to go over again.

The other thing that kept me busy today was the Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) assignment in myLearning.  Now that there are 5 business days left, everyone wants to get busy on this.  We passed 51% done this afternoon.

When I left work this afternoon it was dark and wet.  Temperature was 45°F.  When it is wet it just feels even colder.

Cary, NC

On Sunday we stayed in all day with one small exception:  I went to Food Lion to get sourdough bread, cheese, and ham to make lunch.  We opened a quart of beef stew that we canned in May 2014 and I made grilled ham and cheese sandwiches.  It was a gray, cool and wet day, so hot soup and hot sandwich sounded really good.

I got the laundry washed, dried, and folded first.  Then I ran the vacuum cleaner.

Off and on during the day I worked on formulas in the Mike Girvin book Ctrl+Shift+Enter Mastering Excel Array Formulas.  I am doing this with hopes that I can master some advanced Excel techniques and perform magic with Excel at work.

In the evening we experimented with food.  We made Crab Rangoon Egg Rolls.  I don't think we had our oil hot enough to fry the wrappers fast enough before they split open and spilled all of the cream cheese, scallion, and crab meat filling.  They were tasty, but I think we satisfied our curiosity more than our hunger.

On Sunday evening I got my shower and shave, dressed, and drove to Burt's Bees to work with Third Shift.  I visited with each person in Compounding (there are 7 people on third shift) and collected their Training Histories.  This completes Compounding.  I also helped a few people get on their myLearning PPE Safety assignment or print their certificate.  Upstairs I copied a Hazard Communication quiz from paper into an online myLearning quiz (with pictures too!), and updated everyone on TQ Group on what I did during the night.

It was foggy when I drove home this morning.  Bob made breakfast while I took Buddy for his walk, then I laid down for some sleep. 

Post 2600

Today we went over to Great Yarns where Bob bought some blue and red fingerling weight yarn he is going to use for Christmas gifts.

Next we headed over to North Raleigh and toured two very large used book stores.  Incredibly, we did not buy any books.

We drove over to Durham and ate lunch at The Pie Hole, a coffee shop that specializes in pie.  Bob had a shepherd's pie and an iced coffee.  I had macaroni and cheese pie with chips and a coke.

Today was overcast and damp with temps in the 60's.  Tomorrow I am planning to do the laundry, vacuum, and then help Bob make crab rangoon egg rolls.  Tomorrow night I am considering going to work with third shift and then taking Monday off.

myLearning

Screenshot of myLearning home page

Back in December last year, there was a day that I was scheduled to make two batches.  Somehow one of the batches got canceled, so after I finished making my first batch, I took the extra time to get my 6S Zone Inspection done.

While doing the inspection I found a lot of bulk product smeared on the Clean Room plastic curtains.  I went to Jason Childers, the Compounding Line Leader and told him, "I don't want to be the one who always comes to you with something negative, so thank-you for cancelling that second batch this morning - I was able to use the time gained to get my zone inspection done.  While doing my inspection I found a bunch of product smeared on the Clean Room curtains.  How do we remove it?  Just wipe with rags on the inside and outside of the curtain at the same time?"

He told me that was the way to get the material off of the curtain and I went back to the Clean Room to remove the offending material.

A few minutes later he found me and said, "Vince, c'mon, we have to go upstairs and see Josh."  I was not sure what this was about, and said, "Oh boy, I wonder what it is now."  Jason said that he didn't think it was going to be anything bad.

Once the three of us were seated in Josh's office he said, "I have a question for you.  What would your ideal job be?  What would your ideal job be like (within reason)?"  I said, "What makes you think I don't like my job?  There are good things about my job."  He replied, "That's not what I meant.  After George, Michelle, and I took a TQ visit to Atlanta, I saw that our plant was way behind in rolling out myLearning, and I want to create a new position for someone who would be responsible for writing courseware and theory of operations documents and other things.  I can't say specifically what the job would be responsible for because I don't know yet.  Do you think you'd be interested in this?  I think you'd be a great fit for it.  Plus, it would be first-shift only and have a pay increase."

I knew what myLearning was because there were a couple of courses in it I had to complete as a new hire, and in October I did my Information Security training in myLearning.  After that, that was it - there were only three courses in it for our plant.

I really didn't know what to say.  I was interested, but the lack of specific information was perplexing too.  Right before the meeting ended Josh said, "We won't talk about this outside of these four walls."

I stepped out of the office and waited for Jason to come out.  I guess I had a fairly distressed look my my face because Ken was sitting at the pillar table and asked if I was alright, and I nodded.  Then he said, "Do you want to talk about it?"  I shook my head no - we were just told NOT to talk about it!  Ha!  I guess I looked perplexed because I was being asked to make a decision with incomplete information.

That was on a Thursday.  The following Monday I was working with Teddy on K1600 and K1620 making coconut foot creme when Josh came up and asked me if I got a chance to think about what we discussed.  He still wanted to be sure I was interested in doing it.  He was working on getting the position created and then he would work on having the job posted.  He said that when the job was posted, he didn't want it posted for long. He wanted me to apply for it, and then take the posting down - basically I would be the only applicant.  This was going to be a sure thing!

In January, Sid Pant, a young man of Indian descent, came to our plant from Georgia.  Sid is in the Clorox Supply Chain Leadership Development Program.  Our plant would be his second rotation.  Josh also came from this program.  Sid would be helping me train on myLearning and help develop the Rolemap that we would follow to create all of the curricula that would need to be made. We could look forward to having Sid with us at Burt's for about a year.

After one of the Play To Win book review classes, I asked George about the interview process for Pillar level positions.  He said that usually a person has to give a Powerpoint presentation to senior leadership.  They pick the topic and give you a template to create the slide show with.  Then you have an appointment to present it and tell them everything you know about the topic.  That made me a little nervous.  I told George, "We might have the opportunity to work together a lot more in the future, but I have some hurdles I will have to cross first."  He said, "I know what you're getting at."  So I guess Josh had already been talking to George and Michelle about bringing me upstairs.

At the end of February the job was finally posted.  I immediately went and applied for it on the computer in ADP, and then emailed to Josh, "The deed is done."

I saw the job opening and description posted in the breakroom too.  People were reading it, but I didn't know if anybody else had applied for it.

The job offer came quickly after that and I had to log in to ADP again to accept the job.

On the first Thursday of March 2017, I was making coconut foot creme with Teddy once again.  He had failed the Applied Technology Test again and I offered to help him with any of the problems that he thought were hard.  I said, "Let me know Teddy.  There are going to be some changes soon and things won't always be the way they are right now."  He replied, "Oh I know.  They are going to take you upstairs.  They won't keep you down here on the floor when you have all those degrees."  I guess my jaw dropped open from surprise.  I couldn't believe that he had guessed what was about to happen.  I didn't say anything.

That was Thursday.  On Monday I was scheduled to make two batches with Dennis.  Those batches would require oil phases and the oil phases need to be made up the night before they are needed.  We watched Dennis carefully.  He finished his batch at 10AM.  Then he went to the computers for an hour.  Then we returned to the floor to help Joey with his batch.  Then we saw him push a portable kettle up on to the scale and begin loading it - so we thought he was going to make the oil phases after all.  Turns out, he was making the oil phase for Joey!

Later in the day as I was cleaning the Beeswax Transfer Station, ten minutes before quitting time, he came to me and said, "You know we have two oil phases that need to be made for Monday."  I replied, "I am working with Teddy today."  He said, "I'm just saying it's going to be a long day on Monday if we get a late start because those oil phases weren't made."  Then he left to go home.  The expectation is when you are assigned to work with somebody, you work with that person all day.

Oh was I pissed!  I went to the Washroom to dump my mop bucket and Javier came in.  I said, "You aren't going to believe what just happened."  I told him about it.  He could believe it because those same assholes used to do the same things to him.  Well, he went and found Jason and hold him about it.  Jason picked up his phone and called Josh and told him about it.  Josh told Jason, "Why is Vince still on training?  He signed his job offer today.  Take him off of training."

Jason said, "When you come in on Monday, do not come to the morning meeting.  Go on upstairs with Sid and Ken and the rest of the pillars.  I will let everyone wonder what happened with you.  Then I will let Dennis fall on his own sword!"

On Monday, March 7, I came in and someone held the locked door to the PSO offices open for me.  I went right on upstairs.  Just Ken and Gigi were there.  Right from the start Ken started to give me a hard time.  I told him, "I think you'd better start getting used to seeing me here."  They knew all about it and congratulated me.   Sid came in about two hours later.

I found a spot on the long Pillar Table just to the right of George.  The table was crowded.  On the back against the wall we had Steve Winslow (Operations Empowerment Pillar), George Pollard (Training and Qualification Pillar), me (myLearning Owner), Chris Szymanski (Environmental Sustainability Pillar), and Brent Williams (SCLDP participant).  On the other side of the table we had Griselle Garcia - Gigi for short (Daily Operations Pillar), Ken Dayton (Improvement Methods Pillar), and Sid Pant (SCLDP participant).  In the same room behind a cubicle screen, sat Michelle Bowers, she was also part of TQ Group, for now, but she also did many other things to help the plant run.

Going forward I was about to have some new experiences from a mid-level leadership perspective.  There were a lot of things to learn, but the group at this table got along well and collaborated on many things together. This is the group that plant management relies on to help run the plant.

And that is how I got started on the road to being the myLearning Owner at the plant.

Cary, NC

My day got off to a rocky start, but it eventually turned around.

I tried to clock-in, but I got a blue bar on the clock screen instead of the expected green bar.  I pressed the "Review Punches" button and swiped my badge again.  It said, "No punches recorded during the past 12 hours"... well, since I had not been to work in the past 14 hours, I guess that was expected too.

I wrote Sean an email message asking him to put the time into ADP because of the issue with the clock.

Michelle told me that even though she had left a sign on the front time clock telling people that it was broken and to go use the Production Floor clock, when Third Shift came in last night, the first person saw the screen lit up, so she pulled the sign off of the clock and swiped her badge.  15 people after her also tried to clock-in on that clock and none of the punches were recorded.

At the Daily Review Meeting, held at 8 AM, Rebecca and Christy were both there.  As we worked our way through our regular routine they were asking questions.  Lots of questions.  Some of them were asked so that they just know.  Some of the questions were asked because we should be asking them to ourselves.

One thing that I don't like about the meeting is that some people grandstand and jawbone a tremendous amount because the managers are there.  Just trying to make themselves look important.

Later I began working on the Flowlytics Flow Path training.  Adonis came up and helped me get screenshots and information and then I continued working on it.  Later, after lunch I went to the floor to show him what I had put together in Powerpoint so far.

Our technical writer will be at Burt's tomorrow starting at 9:00 AM.  I don't know yet if I will be escorting him on the floor. 

This evening Bobby made hamburgers with a beef-onion gravy and green peas.  It was very tasty!  He also got a nice card from his physical therapist in the mail telling him what an inspiration he is for working so hard and not giving up!

I am beat and ready for bed.  This weekend the clocks roll back an hour, so we will be going to bed earlier, but we have to get up earlier too!