Playing musical chairs at work…

I have a couple of videos to cut together that I’ve just been sitting on, but in the meantime I would like to share some of the goings on at my work.

Since I last left off on the topic of my aerospace job (possibly already a year ago?), I had mentioned that I finally got a lateral promotion that I had been wanting alllll along! Yay! That lasted a good nine months or so. The unfortunate motivation I had for switching to yet another position was the development of carpal tunnel syndrome in my left hand. Yaargh. At the time my job was to transform an unearthly set of cabinets made of fiberglass, and aluminum hollow(ish) core panels by carefully adding veneer to all of the door and drawer faces, and then applying mouldings around each one and laminate on the backs of each. It was darned satisfying work to see those door and drawer faces turn into flowing grain. The carpal tunnel was a result of repetitively taping on moulding after moulding. I’m only thankful that my dominant hand seemed unaffected.

As I dealt with being on light duty work, Dr.’s visits and going to physio, eventually an opportunity to switch positions arose. I jumped on it. And thankfully I got the position. So for about three months I enjoyed another lateral promotion. Now I was working in a different building (read; posh, quiet, and bettererer). The job was completely different. I was reassembling the cabinetry and all of it’s many components AFTER the finish had been applied. It was ultra satisfying to work on the cabinets, as now the cabinets were a beautiful high gloss that brought out all of the wood grain and revealed what a top quality product it really was. And since the cabinets had been completely dismantled for finishing and painting, it meant putting everything VERY CAREFULLY back together in order to properly adjust each piece. Ducting, wiring, plumbing, lighting, appliances were all integrated into the process, and it’s amazing how it all went together. But this bliss didn’t last forever.

I got moved back to the initial building along with a bunch of other employees. Return to start, do not collect $200 as they say in monopoly. And suddenly I did feel like a game board pawn. Frustratingly I literally ended up filling a hole in the production, doing the very first job I had when I started my aerospace job. The very same one that was so unappealing to me that I’d had thoughts of quitting. I’ve been doing this job for several months now and thankfully there is a upside and a change in the works. The upside is that coming full circle has given me great perspective and of course skill. I now found it almost effortless to tackle this same job, and I felt like I had a chance to conquer a daemon in my work history. In so doing I didn’t feel the same angst about the job itself, but I did feel underappreciated. Thankfully the ups and downs of working for a large company still includes those ups.

Since I wasn’t happy about my lateral demotion, I took matters into my own hands. Another opportunity presented itself and I applied for the role of team leader (of which there are three total in my section). What followed was a roller coaster ride of interviews, long waits, and the job almost evaporating into thin air. Somehow the decision came back around and I got the job! Best of all it is an actual promotion. So I start next week on yet another adventure.

This may be my most important experience to gain thus far. My whole goal for working in aerospace is to gain valuable skills to then eventually confidently start my own business with. To be honest this management skill set scares me the most and yet it is the one that I may need the most as a future entrepreneur. For some reason I have an aversion to phoning people, and I think this job might desensitize me to that, and other such phobias I need to work on. Trying new job positions has always been scary to me, and yet every time I plough on ahead I end up feeling glad that I didn’t shy away. So onwards and forwards!

So this concludes my recap of my musical chairs career movement in recent months, and I hope to get around to working on cutting together those new videos soon- another thing I am slowly working on improving haha ( read; amateur video continues)! ‘Til next time happy woodworking, friends!