Low Bridge, Everybody Down

This entry was written on Thursday and uploaded Saturday morning, so don't worry about my being at work on Saturday.

I am breaking the law. Alright, not the law exactly, but definitely the rules. I am at work and writing my blog entry instead of editing documents, and in so doing I am breaking the rules.

Now, anyone who knows me knows that I enjoy doing things, and document editing is pretty high up on the list of things that I enjoy doing the most. It’s right there beneath “watching educational TV” (cf. some blog entry from a while ago) and “eating,” though I anticipate that everything will eventually be bumped down the chain once “insert name of monogamously committed (to me) male here” enters the picture. I really enjoy fixing the flaws in other people's writing. So why, you might enquire, would I be doing anything but that, particularly in consideration of my strange scruples regarding the necessity to work while at work?

In all honesty, I want to work. I would love to work. But I can’t. And I can’t because I have nothing to work on. It is an interesting dilemma in light of the fact that I was hired because of the desperate straits in which this project finds itself, training document-wise. Let me fill you in:
I am a technical writer for X company (I’m disinclined to use the name of the organization, because I don’t know who will be reading this. An odd reservation when the rest of the details are bound to be rather telling. If you really want to know, check my oh-so-discrete Facebook profile.[Edit: Or, apparently, the previous blog entry, to which I had no access while at work.]), which is an architectural and engineering consultancy firm. I have been assigned to work for BP on its Pipeline Renewal Program, facilitating the generation and review of training documentation for different systems on the Trans Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS). I’m also supposed to be helping the engineers who are creating the documents to use language that is appropriate to the education and concentration level of the individuals for whom they are writing (eg. An operator who is focused on the two weeks that he’s been away from his wife or whose plant is in the process of blowing up doesn’t want to interpret “The forward velocity of the oil imparts an angular acceleration to the rotor causing it to rotate at a velocity proportional to the oil velocity.” He wants to know that “the flow of oil across the rotor causes it to spin.” And that’s really all he needs to know. Eric, you should take notes just in case you find yourself writing system descriptions for operators.) and to correct any grammar errors, however benign or egregious.

These, again, are all things that I would love to be doing. But, despite having met with them yesterday to discuss the handover of their draft documents, and despite the fact that I have hardcopies of those same documents (some dates 7/25) at my desk, I have yet—26 hours later—to receive a single file from any of the 6 of them. I have emailed them, and my boss. I have emailed their boss. I have called their offices to have their admins harass them for me. My hurry is due to the fact that we must have a minimum of 35 documents ready for delivery to Operations by 8/24. Yes, in 8 days (counting the weekend) we have to have 35 documents written, edited for language and clarity, tech reviewed, ops reviewed, and formatted. And have I mentioned that the ops review has to happen on the Slope because that’s where the operators are? Mmhmm. And yet the engineers—in this case, contracted engineers, because of the scope of the project—have still not sent me a-ny-thing.

So here I sit, counting the seconds until 4:30 (I was here for 9.5 hrs yesterday finalizing a document generation procedure…I believe myself to be uniquely suited to this position, because I loved the hell out of writing that procedure.) when I can go home and worry about the lack of documentation in comfort. Or to the soothing strains of DV-R’ed episodes of “Heroes,” my newest and saddest addiction (sad because I told Mom that I had enough shows—which I do—and didn’t want to start another, but it happened anyway).

At least my work station is, thanks to the lovely man from Situs, being ergonomically configured tomorrow, so I will be able to wait without placing undue strain on my wrists, shoulders, neck, knees or lumbar region. Apparently my desk is currently 2 inches too tall for my body, my monitor is 3 inches too tall, my keyboard is too high and my shoulder are so freakishly broad as to require an angled keyboard. I also have an strange aversion to sitting against the back of my chair, undoubtedly the result of untold choir rehearsals involving one Steven C. Warner demanding that we sit tall, away from the backs of our chairs.

This weekend: my first voyage in the new RV. Provided that I’m not living in my cube because all the engineers have sent their documents at the same time.

What a Way to Make a Living!

Once upon a time, a girl named Katie fretted and stewed that she would never find a job, and would continue to be a leech stuck to her parents’ wallet for the rest of her life. Then, suddenly, she went to an interview, loved the people but was thrown by her own performance, and still got a call on Friday asking if she wanted to work at the firm. And oh, by the way, would you mind if we pay you more than you requested? And give you great benefits at practically no premium, including both a 401k and stock options? Would that be okay?

That’s right: Katie is working for HDR Alaska, Inc., an engineering and architecture consultancy firm with locations in 140 cities throughout the US and Canada, and project sites the world over. And I am their newest (read: only full time) Technical Writer, translating Engineering into English. My first project is with BP, where I now have an office and (to top it off) access the BP fitness center. Since the spills on the North Slope last year, and the subsequent shut-down and analysis of the pipeline, which let them know how much updating the pipeline needed, they’ve engineered some new leak detection systems and new pipeline procedures. That’s where I come in: the operators need to know how to turn things on and shut them off, how to troubleshoot and what the warning signs are if something is going to blow up. I write the manuals that tell them, in simple terms, what to do.

The good thing about it is that I don’t really need to know why the systems are going to do what they’re going to do, just how, and if it’s explained to me in terms that I can understand, then we can guarantee that BubbaJoeBob operator can understand, as well. And the name is not to imply that the operators aren’t intelligent—they are likely to be amused by the simplicity of my instructions—but is the remnant of a hilarious “Pinky and the Brain” episode.

So, I’ve survived orientation, and pretty much have my background information down (I’ll write later about all the pigs in the project that keep me laughing at strange times), so next week I’ll actually start working. Who’s excited? That’s right—this girl. Every morning I wake up and do this whole happy dance, because I finally have a purpose. Oh, and money. I’ll have real money, and in January or so, I’ll have an apartment of my own. My own, with my own refrigerator, and my own living room for storing potatoes, and my own walls for art. It’s going to be great.

Weight loss:28.3

Exercise: W, T, F