Job Update.

[curtis rosche]

Afew of you asked for an update once I started working. Monday was orientation, got paid but didnt work. Tuesday the real work started. Got my own tool bag and all the tools and saftey gear needed for the job for free. I start at 4am, so i have toget up at 2:30am, and leave at 3. Its in a large production facility. Basically we get the peices needed from the carpentry shop, layout and nail down the walls for the forms, lay cable or rebar into the form (there another facility that does the rebar, we just lay in the cages), add the plates or what ever the plans call for. We pour the concrete, but we stop there. The next shift does the surface and finishing work, then set up the next pour.
Its not "hard work" per say, more just strenuous at times, like nailing the forms on hands and knees, or pulling cable through the rebar cages, but its quality and saftey over quantity. I would describe the pace as semi laidback, but far from lazy. Its more about the speed of a small family company than a high production place. Take a little bit more time but get it done right and safely. If i heard and remember the numbers right, across the entire facility, sandblasting, machine shop, rebar, carpentry, production, storage yard and shipping, and the concrete plant, they have gotten reportable injuries down to less than 25 a year, and a few individual sections of the plant have gone much longer than that.

I like the work, but i pretty much wake up, drive, work, drive, have an hour and a half to eat and get what ever done, sleep, and then start again. Monday through saturday.

[mickey cassiba]

Congratulations Curtis. You've landed in a field with upward mobility. Work safe...good luck.

[Brian Elfert]

I just couldn't imagine that kind of work schedule week in and week out. For 23 years I worked two weeks a year with hours up to 16 hours a day. The last year I did that was 2010 and I worked 4 hours a day at my regular job and then 9 hours at my temporary job for two weeks. Basically I would get home and go straight to bed and then get up in the morning, shower and go straight to work. It would drive me crazy to never have time in the evenings to do non-work stuff.

I hope you don't have a house to maintain in those 90 minutes a day you have at home.

[Shawn Pixley]

Curtis,

Congrats and work safe. 25 OSHA recordables sounds high without context.

[Van Huskey]

Hard work at a young age often pays great dividends. In one 7 month stretch during high school I worked 7 days a week (without a single day off) 56-60 hours a week and went to school for 4 months of that time (the rest was summer) and didn't miss a class much less a day of school, I left home at 6:30 AM and got home at 11:30 PM on school days. That was the basis of a work ethic that got me to the point 27 years later I now can average 20 hours a week of work and make about 90% of what I made in those 56 hour weeks in 1 hour. I find hard work is easy when you have a GOAL, when you don't have a clearly defined goal work is drudgery.

I agree 25 reportables sounds high (without context) but lost time injuries gives a better indication of the number or "real" injuries since some employers consider almost nothing beyond first aid (ie guy gets head cut off, they move him to his car and say not work related) and some consider a scratch time to go to the doctor and doc always = reportable.

[Belinda Barfield]

Glad you are happy with the job so far. I agree with the others that 25 sounds high, and again without context it's hard to say. In 11 years of business we have had 2 reportable injuries (same guy both times), and that's pretty good for the stone industry.

[Lee Schierer]

Curtis,

Congrats and work safe. 25 OSHA recordables sounds high without context.

That's what I thought our local Bio Fuel Plant has gone over four years without a reportable. Congratulations on the job though, just be careful so you aren't one of those 25 reportables.

[Jim Rimmer]

The number of reportables does sound high; the TRIR (Total Recordable Incident Rate) gives you the context you need - number of incidents per hours worked. What OSHA requires to be reported is pretty clearly defined.

[curtis rosche]

Im not sure how to clarify that one,,,, I just remember it being said during orientation. That was plant wide though and we run 6 days a week 24 hours a day all year. Thats counting anything more than a bandaid needed as we were told.

[charlie knighton]

is this a summer job Curtis?

[curtis rosche]

is this a summer job Curtis?

From now till I go back to school at the end of january begining of febuary. And Im hoping I might be able to come back next summer.

[John Fabre]

Sounds like a good job, congrats.