My new skills

So I haven't written much at all, but here are some of the skills I have learned and/or processes I've done!

I can:

• remove the skin and debone a chicken thigh :)
• tell the difference between thigh meat and leg meat
• check tubs of meat for bones, and operate the belt and sensors that move the chicken tubs
  
• operate the bagging machine to create 4 ten pound bags of meat to put in a box (I can do the 70 lb tubs and 40 lbs chipotle boxes too, but they're easier).
  
• open and close the "gates" that dump chicken to my stations on my line using the weigh tech scale
• Assign a person's badge to a station number
• Manually clock people in and out if needed
  
• clear the weights on the scales (only with Donna's permission since I erased hers once, lol)
• dump chicken onto my line! I maneuver (not lift) the 70 lb cases onto the roller bars and dump onto the belt. I never do the last of the pallet that has to be lifted.
  
• make about 200 labels a night to put on the 70 lb cases
• explain the date/lot/hour codes on our labels
  
• Write-up someone who lies to me about being sick just to go home
• Suspend someone who refuses to do a job they're asked to do
• Fire someone who misses too many days, and have him escorted from the building
• rattle off and understand what most of the 0016-001, 750-141, 0314-928, 8134-207 kind of codes mean :)
• Do the *magic* that makes the raw and finished weights on my production reports add up and balance out
• adjust the raw weights for girls who have stolen chicken from somewhere and have a strangely high yield over the rest of their line.
• verify temperatures for the QC girls (HACCP stuff)
• remember my function codes to do my reports and line sheets
• Enable or Disable lines on the tub return
  

I cannot:

• Debone a whole leg, or anything in the coneline room
• Set up the distribution system that sends the tubs to each of the lines
• remember when I do and don't need to clear the lines (unless I'm going to an older kill date)
• Operate the cryovac packaging machine
• operate the device that tests the CO2 to O2 concentration in the cryovac packages
• Operate the strapper machine that puts the hard plastic straps around boxes to keep them closed
  
• drive one of the jacks loaded with a pallet
• understand how in the world they figure out payroll!
  

Thursday Thirteen

Thirteen things learned in my first month as an intern:

13. I hear the words "Saddle" and "Football" often.
Saddle = both whole legs (leg +thigh) connected by a piece of the backbone, really looks like a saddle with the tailbone, I'm amused :)
Football = whole chicken minus the wings, has a football shape to it (I haven't seen these yet).

12. The foam is your friend...
... and you're supposed to step in it. When you enter the production floor, there are hoses on each side of the doorway that spray an antibacterial foam to sanitize the bottoms of your feet. I avoided the foam for a while before I asked what it was, and a couple of times when it squirted out it spooked me, I've gotten a few laughs :)

11. Some DO follow the law
While waiting for Leah to come back from her smoke break, I spotted a sign that said "We follow the law" and basically pointed out that if you can't legally work in the US already, they will not accept your employment application. I have a little more pride and respect now for my new employers. At some point I'll post a picture of the sign.

10. X-rays are not perfect
There's an x-ray machine in the other room that scans for bones in the chicken breasts. I had the chance to stand and watch it one night. I can see the xray screen, and then there's a black arm that sneaks out and steals the chicken breasts that it detected a possible bone inside. Then there's a lady on each side that hand checks the chicken the machine stole. I watched for a while and every piece it stole was put back on the line, with no bone found. Nice invention, but almost seems not needed in a way since so little was actually a bone. But I guess for that one bone that it DOES find, it's all worth it, huh?

9. A Smile is the universal language
Followed secondly by holding open a door. I'd say 95% of the people there are Hispanic and I don't have a clue how many of them speak English, but I don't talk to many of them yet. However, a smile goes a long way in being friendly and helpful and not looking like an arrogant person who thinks you're better.

8. Becky freakin ROCKS!
The Shift Manager is a female! And she rocks! She has an amazing knowledge of tons of things. The guys have the utmost respect for her. I've got a great trainer for my position. I have a feeling if she said jump they'd say Which direction? How high? and How long? hehehe

7. 4pm-1am is merely a suggestion of hours.....
I'm expected to be there about 3:30pm and already having everything on my line going at 4:00pm. And in a supervisor position, you can't walk out at 1am. The deboners have to stick around until they finish what they're working on, could be 12:30, could be 1:15, 1:45, 2am, you get the hint... Anyway, once they leave, you're not done! You still have to take the palm out to pull the data for the night, and then that has to go into the computer, get sorted, print the reports, and then once all the workers clock out, you have to finalize the time sheets! I left at 3am Monday night and the guys were still going. Sheesh... Oh, and you don't get any credit for being there at 3:30, your time sheet says 4pm. SUCKS

6. There are TWO guys named Wilfredo
I refer to them as the Alfredo brothers. I really seriously thought my boss was calling one of them by the wrong name, and then I finally noticed them on two different line sheets with two different last names. *light bulb* hehehe

5. They turn the temperature down even colder in the summer!
So the first week... not bad, Monday night of the second week, FREAKIN FREEZING. I was shivering half the night! I finally asked Becky if it was always colder on Mondays, and she said they turned it down another 5 degrees because it's turning to summer and it helps the meat stay cooler longer to start off colder. So what's the temp now?? About 38 freezing degrees. Oh, and that's not even mentioning the actual cooler/freezer part of the plant. I'll find that out soon. (update - 24 degrees in the freezer, hence the detour I take through the coneline room to avoid the main freezer, LOL)

4. I learn something new every day.
I've been there a month now and I'm still learning new things. It's such a change from my old job. But since the new guy started, I try to teach him what little things I can. Us non-Spanish speakers have to stick together, hehe. What'd I learn last night? When my girls and Juan are "upgrading" it's damn messy! Also, the distribution machine is cool enough to take the meat from line D and automatically dump it into line F and none of us have to deal with it. Rather cool!

3. The men are obsessed with weighing themselves!
There's a big scale right inside the main room for weighing the 1750 pound tote bins, I swear I see at least 2-3 guys a night step up on it and look at how much they weigh. The only time I've seen girls on it, they were in a group and there were no individual weights, lol.

2. My stereotypes are mostly wrong.
a - it does not smell like a chicken plant
b - the workers are not slaves
c - they really do make decent money! I sat down with Becky and we figured up one guy's pay with all the incentives they give, and he made quite a bit more than me in my last job!

1. I still like to eat chicken :)
I was kind of worried I'd be one of those people that start working with food and then can never eat there again (a la Amanda and KFC). But I do still love chicken, I feel a certain pride in going to Wal-Mart and getting a package of the boneless skinless thigh meat that has "OMP" in the date code stamped on the package (HINT HINT). I will admit, there have been a few nights I've been so sick of staring at chicken that I go to sonic and get a bacon cheeseburger just to NOT support my new industry, LOL.

A new adventure!

I've finally done it! I interviewed on May 15th and was offered a job on May 25th as a Production Intern for OMP Foods in Rogers. It's not what I want to do for the rest of my life, but they're a great company, and I'm going to learn a ton of things. I have loved my time dearly at the UofA and will truly miss a lot of the people I work with, but the time has come to move on, make my own way, and get paid more than what just barely pay my bills...

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's chicken, but hey, I love chicken, it's delicious! They're promising to teach me a lot of different things, so it'll be more than just watching over a line of people deboning chicken. You'll see :)