On the Road Again

What’s got me on the edge of my seat at the moment is the RTW date for the 3600 - 22nd of December. Complete with fire system, dispatch, Accugrade, Comms, etc, etc. if it had arrived on time it would’ve been no sweat. Because it didn’t I see night shifts on the horizon.....

Fail to meet that date and I can see the wife being as pi$$ed as I am right now. I haven’t even booked a ticket home yet - too many variables.

At least you can't be in the position of cannibalizing some other machine to make a date.

No - More’s the pity.

It wouldn’t be the first Xmas I’ve spent away from home and likely won’t be the last one either.

When I used to travel a lot for work my Monday drive to a couple places was 1070 miles. Get out of the house about 3:30 on Monday drive about 17 hours, so you could be on the job next morning. They would call me and ask me to stop a couple places and do a little job on my way. They had no idea, what traveling that far was like I guess.

Nige said:

What’s got me on the edge of my seat at the moment is the RTW date for the 3600 - 22nd of December. Complete with fire system, dispatch, Accugrade, Comms, etc, etc. if it had arrived on time it would’ve been no sweat. Because it didn’t I see night shifts on the horizon.....

Fail to meet that date and I can see the wife being as pi$$ed as I am right now. I haven’t even booked a ticket home yet - too many variables.

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Nige, are there any penalties involved for late RTW ? Or is it normal "less than 1st world" shrug and carry on ?

Nige said:

And of course Maintenance copped the flak for the fact that the RTW target was missed.......

Pardon my cynicism. I ought to be used to this sh1t by now.

Then again the EX3600 was supposed to arrive 9 days ago but got held up in Customs with “paperwork deficiencies”. Logistics again. Anyone see a pattern here.? If that had been the case I would have been off this weekend instead of being into my 27th straight day without a break. I think I’m entitled to be cranky.

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Never met a yellow iron man worth his lunchbucket whose default mode wasn't cranky, it's just the world you choose to live in. Scottie from Star Trek leaps to mind, he always said that when you did miracles, they come to expect miracles every day.... or summat like that. BTDT, lol.

Oh Nige, I do envy you your adventures and those lovely big furry pets... damn I miss that stuff. Couldn't hack it now anyway not that anybody's calling me for projects. Cheers.

seatwarmer said:

Nige, are there any penalties involved for late RTW ? Or is it normal "less than 1st world" shrug and carry on ?

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Other than maybe not getting invited back, probably not. I’m doing it as an external contractor on a day rate anyway so in that respect the longer it takes the more I get paid, but with Xmas looming that’s not the point - at least not for me anyway.

Nige said:

Other than maybe not getting invited back, probably not. I’m doing it as an external contractor on a day rate anyway so in that respect the longer it takes the more I get paid, but with Xmas looming that’s not the point - at least not for me anyway.

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Money is not everything. I'm actually wondering about the "planners" of this exercise. It seems to be going way over budget because of bad planning and not bad execution on ground level.

lantraxco said:

Never met a yellow iron man worth his lunchbucket whose default mode wasn't cranky, it's just the world you choose to live in. Scottie from Star Trek leaps to mind, he always said that when you did miracles, they come to expect miracles every day.... or summat like that. BTDT, lol.

Oh Nige, I do envy you your adventures and those lovely big furry pets... damn I miss that stuff. Couldn't hack it now anyway not that anybody's calling me for projects. Cheers.

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I think it was Truck Shop who posted in another thread something along the lines of “If I stopped working I’d probably just stop”. I feel the same way, and as long as the phone keeps ringing I’ll keep dabbling as long as I feel competent to do it. While there’s someone out there who’ll pretend to pay me, I’ll pretend to work....

seatwarmer said:

Money is not everything. I'm actually wondering about the "planners" of this exercise. It seems to be going way over budget because of bad planning and not bad execution on ground level.

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The explanation is quite simple. Estimated RTW dates had to be put into the application for funding to buy all this kit. At that time they were nothing more than best estimates based on information given by OEMs regarding current machine availability from the receipt of a firm purchase order. Obviously things change from initial enquiry to confirmed PO, but nobody in Planning went back and reworked RTW dates based on info received regarding ex-factory delivery dates once the OEMs had the POs in their hot sweaty hands. Therein lies the disconnect and it didn’t get fixed until words were said shortly after I arrived on site and pointed out the discrepancy. “Planning - they couldn’t plan their way out of a wet paper bag.” They already know what I think of them - explained mostly in words of one syllable and liberally sprinkled with 4-letter ones....

Nige said:

The explanation is quite simple. Estimated RTW dates had to be put into the application for funding to buy all this kit. At that time they were nothing more than best estimates based on information given by OEMs regarding current machine availability from the receipt of a firm purchase order. Obviously things change from initial enquiry to confirmed PO, but nobody in Planning went back and reworked RTW dates based on info received regarding ex-factory delivery dates once the OEMs had the POs in their hot sweaty hands. Therein lies the disconnect and it didn’t get fixed until words were said shortly after I arrived on site and pointed out the discrepancy. “Planning - they couldn’t plan their way out of a wet paper bag.” They already know what I think of them - explained mostly in words of one syllable and liberally sprinkled with 4-letter ones....

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Oh so the proverbial "Can not organise a p*ss up in a brewery" ?
My currrent project is the same, just got told on a Sunday not to plan having a Xmas lunch with the other half.

seatwarmer said:

Oh so the proverbial "Can not organise a p*ss up in a brewery" ?

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Indubitably.

I chuckled somewhat when I was told yesterday that somebody in Planning had ordered some parts sea freight for an urgent breakdown repair. I’d love to be a fly on the wall when they get hauled into the office to explain that one......

Nige said:

Indubitably.

I chuckled somewhat when I was told yesterday that somebody in Planning had ordered some parts sea freight for an urgent breakdown repair. I’d love to be a fly on the wall when they get hauled into the office to explain that one......

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Why do I get the idea the "planners" are bean counters ?

I wish they were, then it would be easy to hate them. However they all without exception have an engineering qualification. It’s a shame they don’t have some common sense to go with it.

This day and age a estimate after ten minutes has elapsed becomes the final end result and after a half an hour has elapsed no one can remember what the estimate was.
People running businesses, high level managers that are actually low level managers start a project, give orders, change their minds every three minutes working their way
into the basement after starting on the 40th floor. And when asked who made that decision it's {I don't recall or I wasn't privy to that information}. In the end it's all the
janitors fault.

So we all agree that common sense is "unobtanium" today

Nige said:

I think it was Truck Shop who posted in another thread something along the lines of “If I stopped working I’d probably just stop”. I feel the same way, and as long as the phone keeps ringing I’ll keep dabbling as long as I feel competent to do it. While there’s someone out there who’ll pretend to pay me, I’ll pretend to work....

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My old man was on the tools for 41 years and 1 day. Retired on sept the 2nd this year. Lasted less than 4 weeks before going casual for a local mob. Back doing 5 days a week now.

No hobbies, doesn’t take to the drink, and my mother would have him herding cats at a crossroads if she has her way. I don’t think he will properly stop working until he doesn’t have a choice

If the management people where I worked were anywhere the same as the ones we had for the first 20 years I'm not sure I would have retired at 65. Just got to be that they no longer felt the need to train people and jobs you had done in house for 20 years all of a sudden they thought they needed to farm them out to anyone who could put numbers on a letterhead and call themselves a repair shop.

And it's not just my work that went like that! The plant welders, for example, built a bin for a special product years back but when time came for some repairs to be made to the structure all of a sudden they were not "qualified" to do the repairs! Also they were not allowed to work on Saturdays. But the small one man and his kid welding shop around the corner was given the job and our men had to explain to him how to do the repairs!

kshansen said:

If the management people where I worked were anywhere the same as the ones we had for the first 20 years I'm not sure I would have retired at 65. Just got to be that they no longer felt the need to train people and jobs you had done in house for 20 years all of a sudden they thought they needed to farm them out to anyone who could put numbers on a letterhead and call themselves a repair shop.
And it's not just my work that went like that! The plant welders, for example, built a bin for a special product years back but when time came for some repairs to be made to the structure all of a sudden they were not "qualified" to do the repairs! Also they were not allowed to work on Saturdays. But the small one man and his kid welding shop around the corner was given the job and our men had to explain to him how to do the repairs!

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I can relate. When I started with the organization, we were a division of a major oil company. Management knew we were in every lawyer's gun sight for a payday, so they didn't sweat the risk. I could hire a local outfit to pressure wash the gum off the sidewalk. After the division was sold off, management wanted every contractor on site to have a 5 million liability insurance policy as well as worker's comp. (That was pushing two decades ago, limits are likely higher today) New management was risk adverse for IMHO, several reasons. 1.. new managers climbing the ladder don't want to be associated with negative events. But, they don't know or care their action or inaction costs the organization beyond their silo or budget. 2..New managers don't know the business, so everything is risky. But, they don't know or care their action or inaction costs the organization beyond their silo or budget. 3.. New managers want to make a splash of "saving" money or cost reductions. But, they don't know or care their action /inaction costs the organization beyond their silo or budget.

See a pattern ? Your plant welders doing the job create a risk or liability. Subbing the job out passes the risk outside their responsibility. But, they don't know or care their action costs the organization beyond their silo or budget.

I want parts and sales to be my pallbearers so they can let me down one last time.