Changing Gears

It's been almost 14 years I've been at my job, and for the most part I've been doing pretty much the same thing. The work is fairly straightforward, but is pretty physical. Four or five years back, I finally got on the weekend shift, which is nice in that there's less people around, so it's easier in that regard, less drive time traffic, and there's a little bit of a bump in pay for it. A few times I've been asked by supervisors if there is another department or position I'd like to be in, but nothing has ever materialized. I even had tested for some electronic correspondence customer service at one point.

A month or so back, (we are an essential service, so there's been no stop at my work, although almost all of the sales and support staff are working from home) there was a meeting time blocked out on my daily schedule. Hmmm... I meet with one of the heads above my department, who I've never had any interaction with, and she tells me that they have combed the employee bios, and saw that I had been formally trained in Surfcam, as well as having self-taught AutoCad, BobCad, and Solidworks. For a while, I did a ton of work in Solidworks, because it renders very realistic looking designs, and once you've created them, you can make a pretty good drawing of the part fairly easily. Turns out, Solidworks skill is just the sort of thing they're looking for!!!

They set me up with a couple of the technologies they use, and gave me a half day or so to mess around in Solidworks, to get a feel for it again. A couple days later, they gave me a couple test parts to design and generate drawings for. Apparently, I did well enough for them to offer me a position on the team coming up with the files. The down side is I'd be off weekends, the up side is I'll be working from home!!! I'll be saving money on gas, and saving an hour to an hour and a half of commute time a day, so I'm good with it, as well as being able to use some long dormant skills. Last week they gave me the equipment to bring home, and a day to set it up. The project is supposed to go for around 9 months to a year.

This has been my first week, learning how the process will go. There's a lot of new stuff, which I don't think will be too tough, but I've been on Central Time for the learning, so I don't care for the hours, but that will get better. First time I've ever had a dual monitor set up. I used my old desk I had my home desktop set up on (which I mostly only use for the printer connected) and cleared out a spot in the corner, by the windows. Using the suddenly very popular Zoom any time but early on, I'm terribly back lit, but apparently it's not a big deal. Since I'm much more sedentary, I've been walking a couple miles every afternoon.

Oh, and the design there is something I did in the practice day. It's a rough representation of one of those Saturn Ion rims.

Happy Birthday to Me

My parents had us over on Sunday for a Birthday feast. My sister's birthday is next weekend, so they kill two birds with one stone. It was a lot of fun, my oldest sister and my niece and nephew Eyeball were also there. Always nice to catch up with them. They all were jealous of our garlic festival trip. My parents gave me some cash for my birthday. Thank you!!!

The next day, there was an ad for the printer I've had my eye on for a while, the Canon Pixima MP610. Actually, an all-in-one. It was still more than the best price I've seen it for, but it was a good $30 less than what it usually goes on sale for. This will be the first time I've had a working printer in probably six or seven years. I did, however, feel like a second class citizen at the store. Usually they try and sell you a USB cable, and more ink. I was lucky to get the printer. I rather like the style, and the pictures I printed out are stunning.


A funny aside, after I had the printer in my cart, I went over to the laptop area to see how the 17" Toshibas look, a lot of places had those on sale this weekend. A salesman comes up to me to try and sell me on something. Tells me I can get a much better printer for a lot less if I buy a laptop. He points out the deal on the MP310. Now, I'm no marketing genius, but doesn't the hierarchy for model numbers usually have the higher number as a better model???