Friday, February 3, 2012

Confidence

What you see on the left in the picture below is what happens when you do not properly clamp a casting into the fixture prior to machining.

I woke up crabby on Thursday. No real good reason, other than the 10 hours shifts we'd been pulling at work. I managed to shake some of the crabbiness off when I punched in at 3, but still felt "meh". I had emailed Holly before work about my day, and she emailed back saying that she appreciated how hard I was working.

When I punch it at work I look for one of two people who can tell me what I'm starting the night on: my supervisor Joe or Bill, the 1st shift mill setup man.

Bill had me running one of our newer mills, running the job you see above. In this operation, we mill the flat on the bottom and drill 4 holes. 

I was shown how to load the part and how to deburr it once it was done. About an hour or so in, I loaded a part wrong, just a bit angled and it took more metal off than it was supposed to. Scrap piece #1.

I mentally noted what I had done wrong, determined not to do it again. I *hate* making junk parts.

Another hour goes by, and after I hit the start button and turn to deburr a part, I hear the machine make a sound it shouldn't. I hit the stop button. Part of running a machine is listening to the sounds it makes, and the unholy sound of a part loaded wrong and a tool doing more than it's supposed to let the whole shop now something's wrong. I had loaded the part too high in the fixture, and the mill was trying to remove too much material. What you get is the part on the left in the picture above. Scrap piece #2.

Joe comes to check on me and the tool in the machine and deems all to be fine. He mentions that this happens and not to let it bother me, that it happens to everyone. I shake it and continue.

Another hour passes, and once again, the machine makes the unholy sound, and once again, I hit the stop button. I have now made Scrap piece #3. Now, my confidence in my ability to run this job is broken. It's simply a matter of making sure the part is properly loaded and I haven't been able to do that. Joe comes to check on me once again, and asks if I want to keep going and that if I scrap one more piece, he's going to have to put my on another job. I ask him if he wants to move me and he says it's up to me. I tell him that I want to finish the job. He nods and gently reminds me that I am out of screw ups on this job.

Now, I'm gun shy. I begin obsessing about clamping the part right, and watching the millhead make contact with the part before deburring the last part run. I run the rest of the order without issue, albeit very paranoid.

I head into the lunchroom to get a soda and grab one for Joe as well. I walked up to him to hand him the soda and thank him. He tells me that he can see that I take pride in my work, and that he knew I wanted to do the job well so he gave me the option of sticking with it or bailing out. Everyone has a shift like this, he says.

Both Holly and Joe were a boost to my confidence when I needed it and that made the difference in my night at work.

2 comments:

Diane said...

I'm with you - I loathe making mistakes, though mine don't always come to light as quickly - or as publicly - as yours did.

We are so much harder on ourselves than others are, carrying the guilt and shame much longer than we need to do. If we've learned from the mistake, we should be able to move on without carrying the burden forever. Or at least you'd think so.

Anonymous said...

God is the ultimate confidence booster, while we have our earthly confidence builders. He is our constant from the minute we rise out of bed to the minute when our head hits the pillow