Entry 3, Josh – Work life balance (Diary of an Apprentice)

4th July 2012

Author: MIGAS
Categories: Diary of an Apprentice News & Blogs

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Work life balance

“  I started the fortnight with a 2 day working week, taking Wednesday through till Monday off to catch up with family.  One of the down falls to coming to the city to attend university and then staying for this job, is that I rarely get to see my family.  I live with my aunt and uncle not far from my work, but my parents live near Mt Isa and my sister and her partner live near Rockhampton; consequently family get-togethers are few and far between, which takes a toll on the personal side of my life. But the people I work with have become a surrogate family for me, helping me with things at work as well as outside of work: giving me advice on car issues I seem to constantly be having, what tools to buy next or sometimes even relationship advice… work life balance

Since returning from my days off, I have been experiencing one of the more physically demanding jobs in our workshop to cover for one of the men while they are away on leave.   The job is to clean, shape and polish the castings before sending them off to the customer.  I have been receiving training on the safe use of a nine inch angle grinder, to do just that.  Two skegs were used whilst training me on the correct order of grinding and sanding, as well as the best methods to achieve a consistent and appealing pattern on the job.  Since then I have completed two rudders for the same job, cleaning the skin from the castings then roughly polishing the blades ready for customer.

Additionally, I have been catching up on some of my apprenticeship studies.  As part of my apprenticeship I am required to keep a log of practical training I perform each week, so for the week just gone I have written about the rudder grinding.  Though, I am not as organised as I wish I was so I have a few weeks to catch up on.  I have been making a list of things I have recently been probing, including the structure of a lathe/mill tool, signs of tool wear and damage, measuring tool maintenance, machining methods as well as many other aspects I’ve recently been involved with.  The entries within the logbook become a valuable resource when coming back to a job that I haven’t done for a long time, or doing a job similar to one I have done in the past.  ”

Cheers,
Josh
Apprentice Fitter & Turner

work life balance