Wow, I thought January and February were supposed to last a little longer...
Well, it's March now. I lost a few months there somehow...Oh well. I guess a few updates are in order.
I no longer work at ServiceLink. Right around Christmas I was hired by a company called TMI International. Basically we make and sell things made out of PVC (like those weird hanging plastic strips that you have to walk through to get into walk in coolers and freezers). We also sell other dock supplies and air doors (those things that blow air down on you when you open a door), but they aren't made at the location I work at.
Anyhow, I was hired as Invoicing Clerk, and for a little over a month I was doing just that. I got to work every day, collected Bills of Lading from the trucking companies and tracking stickers from UPS, then going into the system and creating invoices for the products that we sold to our customers that had shipped the day before. I would then print all of the invoices, attach one copy to our paperwork and mail a copy to the customer. Finally I would file all of our paperwork so that it could be referenced later in case there was a problem with the order or if the salespeople wanted to check a customer's last price, etc.
Needless to say, my job was extremely boring. Also, I was making more money at TMI than at ServiceLink, but my student loans went into repayment in December and I was in a very bad way financially. I was looking for a second job to supplement my income, but because I didn't really like my job, I was completely open to taking a new full time job. Well, it just so happened that right around that time my Dad's friend Lisa, who had helped me get the job at TMI, knew of a job opening with Herr's Potato Chips. They were looking for a route salesman, and I thought that I would be just the man for the job. The hours would be horrible (5:00am to as late as 6:00 or 7:00pm, averaging 60-70 hours a week), but the pay was fantastic and I would get away from my boring desk job, so I went to three interviews and had a ride along with another salesman.
After all of this I was going to take the job, and I was just waiting to hear back about the results of my background check so I could schedule a physical and drug test when my boss at TMI called me into a meeting with our HR representative and the manager of the production department. It turns out I'd been doing a very good job and they weren't really ready to let me go. Dave (the production manager) wanted to promote me to his department and match the minimum that Herr's was going to give me. It took a few days, but I eventually decided to stay with TMI. I mean, I get to stay at a comfortable job making decent money. I'll have weekends off, and if necessary I can still get a second job. On a quick side note, I may still get a second job just so I can save up some money because I need to get a new car.
At any length, I've been in the production department for two weeks now, and I'm enjoying my job a lot more. I only wish that I could learn more about the department. Some days I don't know why they need me. I started out as a part of the purchasing portion of production. I would right purchase orders for sales orders that required items that we could not produce at our facility (like air doors and dock lights and other things that aren't PVC related). I quickly grasped that and began writing internal purchase orders as well. Soon I hope to be able to take on more purchasing responsibilities, like contacting the companies that we purchase our supplies from and making the purchases.
However, since I quickly was able to overtake the amount of purchasing we do on a daily basis, I've been learning how to do other production related tasks. I now know how to close finished jobs. Whenever we need to produce a product, Ed (who also works in production) creates a job with bar codes and instructions on it so that the people in the shop can scan the bar codes and read the instructions in order to pull the proper material from the right places, as well as keep track of who's working on what for how long, and to ensure that everything is produced properly. When the jobs are finished, they need to be reviewed and closed, then the material can ship. I can close and ship the material so that the orders can by invoiced (my previous job). It's a very cool full circle kind of thing.
Anyhow, I don't seem to be able to learn enough to stay busy. Some days I run out of jobs and purchases and have far too much free time and I have to go around asking people for work. Next week I'll be in the shop learning how we make everything we make, then my training is supposed to pick up in earnest.
Well, I'll attempt to not wait three to four months before posting again.
Until next time,
Joshua
