Friday, August 22, 2014

Fifteen years ago I wrote this

So, I got pulled up at work due to my lack of attention to detail with reguard (primarily) to the chemical dosing of the cooling water towers and the boiler feedwater. A part of the conversation was that I should be aiming for the job of Mill Manager in 15 years time, I should be better at my time management and ask whenever I get stuck or need help, plus it was highlighted that there is more work to do than 8h work can achieve.

After a couple of days going over my past work, seems to me that the water treatment was working better than I thought it was and that most of the problems therin are beyond my control. For example the makup water has increased from a conductivity of ~700µS/cm to ~1200 µS/cm when it should be closer to 500µS/cm. All subsequent treatment is made more difficult by these impurities.

I still think that there is more than 18h of work I could be doing (as the person most knowledgeable in certain areas). So my plan of getting as much as I can done within 8h and only ever doing overtime when the Cane Payments near infrared spectrophotometer is having issues is still the best plan. For when I worked 12h days to get the milling train performing well after the PLC upgrade and subsequently started to get 2am phonecalls about library updates for the NIR system. Well I was tired, had no food at home and was not able to perform to the best of my ability. Also shortly after this Brother Levi visited for his birthday; and I was just grumpy.

Maybe I should acknowledge my weakness more often, but I get impatient when nobody helps. I still get surprised whenever one of the “MP2 Work Requests” that I have put into the system is actually done. I also don’t like to nag, so it seems to me that asking somebody every day of the week to makup a stronger batch of caustic is too often. Good thing Fridays have a different shift.

Overall it seems to me that every time I get told to pick up my act I review my past mistakes, confirm where I could have made better decisions and end up with a worse work ethic than I started with. It’s taken a while but I have learnt that puddles on the floor are normal and that I should never close an apparently leaky valve. Most of the time its been that way for years or is supposed to be lubricating something. But rather than give more examples, I’d prefer to dwell on things that are wholesome and good.

I used to say that what I enjoyed about work was the variety, but now I think that rather than being fearful of monotony I like the feeling of success and achievement that I get from tackling small tasks. Whereas I’ve found that large projects that have relied on other people have been a bit unfulfilling.

15 years is a long time, I don’t think I’ve ever really planned more than two years ahead. So lets see, what does Ben actually want?
Settled down in a house with a trampoline and 4ish kids, maybe a pet dog as well?
To be a good support character in co-op games and help people have more fun.
A wife to cuddle and talk to and look after bills and filing and things.
Kids to play computer games and lego with and go camping.
Less hours at work; systems should sufficiently be in place that I need to baby-sit nothing. 8h a day 4day a week +callouts.
Keep learning new things and getting better at understanding the world.
I want it to be easy to watch anime and have people to watch with.
To not bother with the bodycorp, have a house where I’m happy to put holes in the wall.
To live with confidence in my salvation but not force my Christianity onto others.
Would it be fun to inspire people to Sojourn and turn that into a mixed alphabet philosophy? Жизньμαιじつ FTW. Maybe implement this in a RPGmaker game. Or rather, within 15 years I plan to make a profit from an Indi game that I have developed.
My house will be all paid off. I don’t know if I want more investments than that.
Pretty sure I still want to learn to play a double bass, or to sing opera style.
Maintain a healthy body, with good food and kitesurfing, dancing (fencing?)
Maintain a healthy mind, learning new computer games and other cultures.
Maintain a healthy soul, be the embodiment of Meekness
Maintain a healthy Ubuntu, a family would do this surely, I can also define myself through relationships in sojourns and rotaract.
Keep up the skills I have previously learnt like POV-Ray. Finish my pov-ray projects, so that they are finished.
Weather I’m the mill manager or not I don’t particularly care, but I want to keep improving and streamlining everything I do. Just like Rock Lee, “better than yesterday”.
Walk around the block on my hands and do a bridge at the end. I suppose I should aim at being able to do a standing flip as well though this just doenst seem as interesting.
I want to continue to go against the flow a bit, remain faithfull, stay a scientist, use linux, acknowledge the duopoly of mercantilism in australia and watch my philosophy.
I want to be a participator, Old enough to know better, young enough to still do it anyway.
I wonder where I would like my family to grow? I think this would very much depend on who I find for my wife. With the magic of the internet the world could be a very small place. And with three pastors in the family, there will probably always be a great number of kilometres between cousins.