2316 – Sunday Digest: The Week in Review

I knew it was going to be one of those weeks when I woke up to the snow pictured in my “From 29°C to WTF?” post and it did not disappoint.

The night I posted that entry my wife got hit in the head with a steel rod. It seems a co-worker didn’t secure the item properly when they were putting it away and when she went to grab a box it bounced up and hit her above her left eye. She was lucky not to lose an eye but has been suffering with headaches all week since. Likely a concussion that has kept her home and on the couch. To make things worse she also picked up a nasty cold.

At the same time, it is one of the more hectic weeks at work. The staff bid on the lines they would like to work for the next six months. Although I am not directly involved in the bid process, I am responsible for entering the results into our scheduling system. You would think this to be straightforward but it involves a bleep-ton of massaging the data to ensure the upload goes smoothly. If I were building schedules.

I’d start with a master that includes the full staff complement. First, I’d determine what staff require static lines such as those working static Monday to Friday lines or those accommodated schedules. Once that part of the schedule has been determined I move to the biddable schedule and as we never operate at full complement, I’d begin removing extra lines from the master schedule to ensure a balanced distribution of staff across the entire schedule. This would avoid creating areas with overstaffing and others where we operate short.

Unfortunately, that is not how these schedules are built, instead we build the bid schedule first and then add the static lines. The problem is nobody seems to be aware of who is not bidding so it becomes my responsibility to figure out who is missing from the bid schedule and build their static lines and accommodated schedules. It is an inefficient way of assembling a massive jigsaw puzzle that invariably leads to holes in the schedule and people being missed.  Admittedly, it is exacerbated by the fact that I am new to the role, and it is my first time working the back end of the scheduling process.

None of this helps as for the last week to ten days I feel like I’ve been mired in the mud. My motivation is low and my mind is focused on other things. The cost of living, my daughter’s summer baseball schedule, ongoing car problems and of course my wife’s health are all weighing on my mind. Oh yeah, and that damned snow that has reared its ugly head again after a week of summer weather in April!

So it has been nothing but vegging in front of the TV and listening to music. I have spent countless hours watching the Leafs, Blue Jays and the Netflix show “The Last Kingdom” or listening to homegrown artist JJ Wilde.

Five Word Weekly Challenge

Four Line Fiction Challenge

More highlights from Greg’s Blog…

Around the Blogosphere…

Next week…

Look for the usual features, Five Word Weekly, Four Line Fiction and T-Shirt wisdom Wednesday. I said it last week and will say it again… Hopefully, some more new posts too.

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