If you don't like the poultry industry.... wait a week

I can't tell you how many times my shift manager has said that, but I never knew it was so true!

Monday night
Our shift manager decides that she wants us to start learning more of the positions in the plant so we can be moved around to fill in as needed. Agreement is made that Lines C/D supervisor will spend the week learning how to run Tray Pack, and then in the following week, I will move back to shipping and learn those responsibilities and paperwork. Shipping is currently missing a lead, and in order for that supervisor to take his requested vacation in a few weeks, we need a back-up.

Tuesday night
We got word we were opening the cone lines back up on night shift. When? The very next night... We thought at first it was just going to be a temporary thing, but now we have new business, and instead of just hiring for one line, they're supposed to be hiring for all four. Decision was made to move lines E/F supervisor over to supervise the cone lines, leaving lines E/F without a supervisor. Additionally... Line C/D supervisor's training of Tray Pack is cut short as he has to return to help me run our room.

Wednesday night
Fourteen new hires, split into two orientation groups of English and Spanish speakers, and we have cone lines running. In talking the night before, we discover our lead/trainer for our room also knows how to work on cone lines, so he spent most of the night over there teaching the new people. We begin discussions about promoting new people to leads, and eventually our lead to the next supervisor. He accepted the challenge.

Thursday night
Calm... Lots of talking with our lead about his upcoming responsibilities, pouring over information currently in our supervisor's manual, and information I have promised to help write to make things easier for him to learn.

Friday night
Hour long meeting in the middle of the shift. A decision has been made upstairs to change the typical line arrangements of night shift and instead of 4 lines of Chipotle and 2 lines of zero bone, we're to have 3 lines of each. In order to successfully do this, the experienced line D will switch places with the mostly new hires line F. Line C, a former chipotle deboning line, is basically handed a 4 cent per pound pay cut. We spent most of the rest of the night fielding requests from all of the experienced employees from line C asking to move to lines A/B or the new version of line F. It is believed that our lines are not productive enough, and re-aligning our lines will help allow the plant to run 1-million plus pounds in a five day week instead of a 6 day week. There is much discussion on the fact that currently 4 lines sometimes have trouble meeting chipotle orders and we have no idea how only 3 lines will accomplish this alone. I could go much further, but there's only so much that makes sense without writing you a complete book...

So to recap the week......
We opened a cone line and hired 14 new people, we moved one supervisor to the other room, we promoted our lead to supervisor, promoted a deboner to a new lead/discussion, promoted a meat dumper to the shipping lead. Made a list of 15 people we needed hired in our room to make full lines, 10 more people needed in tray pack, and who knows how many needed to fill the cone lines.

Needless to say....... Tuesday at work should be hell. I hope I have enough chocolate!