What Do I Do? Factory Job

My dad asked me a question recently. 

"Chick, what is it, exactly, that you do?". 

This was in reference to my new job, which I'm still settling in to and figuring out, so I couldn't give him a proper answer right then and there. But it did get me thinking about what I did in my previous job...

When I was in varsity, my folks asked me a similar question:

"Chick, your degree is a very good degree, but once you're

finished studying, what, exactly, will you be able to do with it?"

There is pretty much no straight answer to these questions. As students we were told by our unforgettable Maths lecturer that as engineers, we are taught to think and solve problems.* I think that sums up pretty well, what engineers do. But it's also incredibly broad and still leaves you with no idea of what I would do on a daily basis. 

So, in a nutshell, here are some of the things I did in my previous job:

• Learnt something new most every day
• Helped to look after and maintain the software that controlled our factory operations
• Debugged code (and either fixed it myself or got others to fix it for me) when it was causing issues in factory operations, for example when:
• Valves stayed open/closed and tanks overfilled/didn't fill up - incorrect mass set points in the code
• A software sequence was stuck on a step - it was waiting for another sequence to end so it could use the same device
• Helped process engineers to optimise code by testing and monitoring proposed sequence changes with them and noting if it was physically possible or not
• Co-ordinated weekly maintenance planning meetings and followed up on planned maintenance activities carried out by the artisans
• Tracked breakdowns that occurred in the plant and put together action plans to improve the ICE (instrumentation, control and electrical) issues
• Attended project meetings
• Got called out a lot, in the middle of the night, when my team were battling to solve a software related issue or troubleshoot on the code (definitely the worst part of the job!)
• Worked on stabilising our control systems by facilitating the upgrading of our servers, sorting out licences and ensuring future projects took the control systems into account
• Helped to co-ordinate a supply chain graduate induction program in my second year (not exactly engineering, but such fun!)
• Maintained and kept track of any software change requests that needed to be sent to our 3rd party software guys
• Helped to commission some projects

This device is one of many that I had to learn to troubleshoot
on at the factory

The key is learning how to interpret the
error messages (and knowing when it's
time to replace the entire unit!)

It was a pretty stressful job, but I learnt so much from it and got to work with the most incredible team. This is just one of many types of jobs that engineers end up in. My current job will be very different from this and once I get my teeth into some proper work, I'll update you on what else an engineer does!

So, now, I hope that you have a better understanding on possible jobs that an engineer can be involved in. 

And, if you're an engineer, what does your day-to-day job involve?

*He also told us that the only three things you need to remember in life are:

1. Your wife's name. 

2. Your wife's phone number. 

3. Where you left your car keys.

And the rest of the things can be worked out if you think about them carefully enough. 

(This is difficult if you're a straight female...but I think it illustrated his point quite well:) ) 

The Time We Lived In A Snow Globe Town (Part 2)

Jobs

So, the main reason for our trip to Vail was to work, ski and earn some money so that we could travel the States for a month before coming back to South Africa.

I worked two jobs while I was there. The first was my "full time" job - I worked at the Spa as a receptionist and Kids For All Seasons (KFAS) attendant. I also got a second job at the local cinema, called the CineBistro, after I injured myself on the mountain and had nothing better to do.

More Four Seasons Bears
The Spa was down the stairs on the left, past the swimming pool and through the glass doors on the other side.

At The Four Seasons, when there were no kids to look after I answered the phones

"Thank you for calling the Spa at Four Seasons. This is Cath speaking, how may I help you?" 

was the constant greeting I gave to anyone calling the Spa.

We aimed to answer the phone within 3 rings which is a lot more

difficult than it looks when you've got people standing in front of you wanting to 

check in for appointments, others tying to check out and pay their bills, 

someone wanting to know whether they should buy x or y item from the store

and 2 or 3 different phone lines ringing! 

Don't ever underestimate the power that a receptionist holds to juggle

multiple tasks, all the while keeping a smile on their face.

took bookings, called people to remind them of their appointments, wrote reminder cards for guests at the hotel, gave tours of the ladies locker room and assisted anyone who was interested in buying something from the Spa Shop. I also sometimes had to cover or uncover the loungers by the swimming pool. When it's snowing outside and each lounger cover in literally an ice block itself, it wasn't an easy task! 

When there were kids for me to look after, I got to spend my time painting, playing wii, drawing cartoon characters for kids to colour in, reading books, watching Disney movies or the Disney channel and basically doing cool kids stuff. Sometimes the kids were demanding but most of the time they were lovely. It was awesome being able to be like a kid again.

There were some kids who were very demanding. One insisted we play the same game over and over again - for FIVE hours straight. Then she came back the next day to do the same thing! Another one got very sulky whenever she lost a game on the wii. But most of the kids were good fun and only there for a few hours at a time.

Me and some of the KFAS/Front Desk girls, one of our therapists and
some of the girls boyfriends. All proud Four Seasons employees!

I worked with an amazing team of 2 spa managers, a lot of therapists, a hairdresser, front desk ladies, KFAS attendants and locker room attendants. Everyone else was American, other than myself and some of the locker room attendants, who were South American. 

Everyone at the Spa was very interested in South Africa and what it was like. I was able to show them some pictures of my life and hopefully one day, one or two of them will come to visit me in South Africa! There was one therapist who had been to South Africa and we chatted a lot about the wines that we had to offer, it was awesome to meet an American who knew South African wines and wine farms!

My other place of work - the CineBistro was the most awesome movie theatre I have ever been to! You'll read more about it in a later post. But for now, I'll leave with with the idea of "Dinner and a Movie" all in one. Frosty also got a job there which was a lot of fun as we got to see a bit more of each other.

We had some awesome managers at CineBistro as well. I was a front desk person again. This time my duties included answering the phone, recieving customers and assisting them to buy tickets, giving advice on the movies that were on show (even if I hadn't seen them!), ushering guests into the theatre and showing them their seats, making sure the entrance doors were clean and all the floors were swept and preparing the theatre before hand with menus and cutlery. Frosty mainly ran food to the guests in the theatre and cleaned the theatre afterwards to make it ready for the next guests.

This sculpture sat right in front of the CineBistro doors. Since they were
glass, I spent a good few hours looking at this sculpture. At night it lit up and used to
seamlessly morph from one colour to the next.

The perks of the job were awesome as well - free movies for you and a friend, free popcorn and soda any time you wanted and discounted meals!

I worked front desk with one old guy who worked to keep himself busy. I'll always remember his favourite reply whenever anyone asked him how he was doing, was

"I'm just peaches and cream thank you very much!"

There was a lovely Jamaican girl who I also worked with. She loved getting Frosty to come and chat to her and say "ice" because in our South African accent, it sounded just like "ass" to her ear. We laughed a lot over that. 
One of the runners was an awesome South American guy and his little son used to come and visit us quite a lot. He was the cutest little guy and all of us used to fawn over him!

Easy Cheese Muffins

One of my all time favourite recipes is these yummy cheese muffins. I remember waking up over the weekend when I was a kid, to the amazing smell of cheese muffins, usually baked by my dad, but sometimes by my mum as well. They also remind me of my gran on my dad's side (Goko or Goks as she is fondly called by all of her grandchildren). Whenever we went to tea with Goks, she would have cheese muffins and crumpets. She would then mix butter and syrup to make a paste/spread and we would eat muffins and crumpets with butter and syrup - there is nothing more delicious!

So, in memory of childhood and to honour Goks, who unfortunately is no longer able to bake, here's my take on yummy cheese muffins:

Ingredients:

150g grated cheese (or more, if you like cheese)
1.5 cups of self raising flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 egg

1 cup milk

Garlic salt and mixed herbs to taste

1 teaspoon English Mustard (the non-powdered variety)

Method:

1. Sieve the flour, then add the rest of the dry ingredients and mix lightly.

2. Mix all liquid ingredients together (the mustard counts as liquid).

3. Add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix together.

4. Use spray and cook, or some equivalent, on a muffin pan that makes 12 muffins.

5. Spoon the muffin mix into the muffin pan.

6. Bake at 180 deg C for +- 30 mins.

* You can sprinkle a bit of grated cheese on top of the muffins once they've been spooned into the pan to give them some extra cheesy yumminess.

Enjoy!

Margarine 101

So, as I briefly mentioned in my About Me page, I work at a factory. On my site there are a number of different factories producing a number of different products, but at my factory we produce margarine. Of all the exciting factories I could have been allocated to, I was allocated to the margarine factory.

As you can imagine, I (a dedicated butter eater) had been allocated to work at a margarine factory. In the maintenance department. No other females in my office. It was TOUGH. I mean, really tough. For the first 6 months I was not a happy person. I missed Frosty. After spending almost 3 years together seeing each other every day I had to go months weeks without seeing him. I had no clue what I was meant to be doing. I was just dropped in the deep end and left to figure out where I fit in to the department.

After about 6 months, I finally started to get into my groove. I started helping the guys in the ICE (instrumentation, control and electrical) team troubleshoot and solve maintenance issues with the software that controls the processes in our plant. I've now been driving software and ICE in the maintenance department and we are slowly seeing improvements. Yesterday there was an issue similar to one we encountered a few months ago. A few months ago it took us a WHOLE WEEKEND to solve this problem. Yesterday, once we identified the problem, it took us about 2 hours. Middle of the night call outs (for me at any rate) are decreasing. We're starting to see the light!

Now, I'm sure you're all wondering how marge gets made. More importantly, I'm sure you're all sitting there thinking 

          "Finally, someone who can answer me this age old question! Is
           margarine black at any stage of the process?"

You'll be surprised to discover that NO at no stage in our process is margarine BLACK!

Let me explain to you the basic process of margarine making (without giving away any secrets), and then you can decide for yourself if you believe me or not.

Recipe for Marge

Ingredients

Oil (mainly sunflower, can add other types of oil too)

Water
Brine
Milk Whey
Minor ingredients

Method

1. Refine the oil, add a few secret ingredients and store it in a big tank (Oil Tank).
2. Mix together the water, brine, milk whey and minor ingredients and store in another big tank (Aqeous Phase Tank).
3. Mix oil and aqueous phase together in desired fat percentage (lets say 50-50, to make life easy) and store in another big tank.
4. Pass the oil through a series of heating units (heat exchangers) and chilling units (Margarine Processing Units). The temperatures are essential for the correct formation and breakage of crystals and need to be controlled to varying degrees of precision - ask your nearest marge processing engineer what these temperatures are.
5. Once the marge has got the correct consistency, pack it either into tubs (for the lower fat % marge) or bricks (for the higher fat % marge).
6. After packing the marge, store it in a cool place to allow final crystal formation for a few days.

And there you have it, folks. Marge 101. And I'm sure you'll agree with me, it's impossible for oil and water mixed together to turn black.