Well…. It has been WAY too long since I blogged, and unfortunately, I am pretty sure …no wait, I am ABSOLUTELY POSITIVE this will be completely boring to everyone. Trust me though; this post does have its purpose. The first, for those of you that don’t really understand what I do – again, I think this is everyone I know, unless you work with me – by the end of this post you will. (That is if you keep reading!! Ha ha) The second, I am frustrated, and I think writing my thoughts, and subsequently sharing them with the world, will help me be un-frustrated. (To those of you I work with – the names have been changed to protect the innocent!! LOL, totally joking!)
To understand my issues, it is necessary to explain what I do. First of all… I think most people would find my job VERY boring, but I REALLY love it! Seriously, I LOVE my job!!! There are always new challenges, and I work with awesome people. They are people, that due to the crazy chicken plant life, I consider family. Yes… family. I really do (most of the time) love them that much!! J Anyway, back to the point. I am a HACCP Coordinator. When people ask what I do, my usual response is “I work with USDA to make sure everything we produce is safe”. That is the super short, abbreviated version. Here is the kinda short version of my main job responsibility….
HACCP means… let me just say that I am going to use “I” a lot, that is DEFINITELY not the case!! I work with a whole team of people from various departments, and every single aspect of what I do is a team effort. I am definitely not able to take all the credit for the hard work that goes into what “I” do. So, I evaluate everything, everything, in the plant for any potential physical, chemical, or biological hazards that can be introduced. That is the HA part – Hazard Analysis. Then I identify critical control points (that is the CCP part) to help control the process. There is A LOT of paperwork that goes along with this: supporting documents, justification for decisions, and lots of records to show “we are doing what we said we were going to do”. I get to work with every department as well as the USDA. Most of the time, getting to interact with everyone else and see pieces of what they do is super interesting. Of course, as with any job, it has its stressful times too, and remember those people that I said are like family. Yeah, that is in every way possible. Including the disagreements, but that is one of the good parts of being so close. We all understand how stressful and frustrating it can get sometimes, and we typically forgive easily – well we are all stubborn, I guess quickly would be a better adjective than easily!!!
To summarize the previous paragraph, that basically means I am the person that is… well there are a lot of adjectives that could go here, most tend to be condescending!! Lol, and believe it or not, I am TOTALLY ok with that! Here are a few of the ones I typically hear….
Nitpicky
Police
S*!^-Stirrer
Necessary Evil
I am sure there are people who could supply MANY more names to this list, but like I said, it typically doesn’t bother me. Because at the end of the day, I am the one who is all of that. But, like all of the un-fun, necessary things in life, I do have a purpose. When something does happen, it is usually my department’s responsibility to:
1. Identify what product is not acceptable to release into commerce. (i.e.: I am the one to blame if you get sick or hurt!!)
2. Justify why everything else IS acceptable to release into commerce.
3. Complete the above while remembering we are in business to make money, and either decision, especially if it is the wrong one, will cost A LOT of money. We are talking about millions of pounds of food being produced in a very short amount of time.
So, to go back to me being a “necessary evil” – I do pick on the people I work with LOTS, and I am thankful they put up with me! I swear, I really do have good intentions though! (I have to insert that my grandaddy always said “good intentions pave the road to hell” – and I find this amusing, because this is one of “his proverbs” that he told me frequently!) This is because it is really easy to think “huh, if we would have done this, we wouldn’t have this problem”. I really do try my hardest to think of as many of those things as possible before something happens. It is important when you work in QA/HACCP that you think very proactively. If you don’t, by the time you realize something is wrong, you have probably lost the company a significant amount of money. It also means I have to ask a lot of questions, because there is a lot about processing I don’t know. I promise, I do have good intentions with all of my questions too!! I can make much better decisions if I understand how everything works better.
All of this rambling brings me to my point, while I understand I am in a position to be the bearer of bad news …all the time… it is my hope that the people I work with do see there is a purpose for what I do. I have a vast amount of respect for the people I usually pick on, and I should probably tell them that more! Sometimes though, I feel that SOME, and let me say there is a TON of emphasis on SOME, of the people I work with, could absolutely care less about my goals, and more importantly how they could impact the goals of the company. I normally don’t care too much about what others think, but for some reason I am having a really hard time with it. I have to add that I am by no means at all perfect or easy to work with. I have plenty of faults of my own, but I am not asking for everyone to be happy and agree all the time. (Life would be boring if I didn’t have anything to gossip about!! J) I guess I really don’t know what I expect, but I think it is that I will be respected for the assets that I bring to the table. As I said, I know I have plenty of faults, but it seems like the only time I am useful is when I am doing something that someone needs to complete their job. The problem is, with the good comes the bad. So, when I am doing all of the good stuff, I do have to point out all of the bad stuff.
I feel better after writing this, but I do feel stupid and somewhat petty. These are probably issues that everyone in every job deals with, and I am just not adjusting well. I truly hope that I do not make my co-workers feel this way. We all have different functions, but we are all working toward the same goal. I think it is very important we recognize what everyone has to bring to the table, good and bad. Perhaps I am idealistic …wait, I know I am. Is there anything wrong with that?? Is it wrong to expect that at some point we will get to that ideal place? (I must say, the other plant I worked in had pretty much the perfect atmosphere – most of the managers were older, and had worked in a lot of plants. I think that makes a difference too. They understood what was important, and they had made a lot of mistakes to learn from. They were also very interested in teaching young managers how to be the best, and they were patient. They put up with my questions, and they taught me a lot.) Don’t get me wrong, the people I work with now are fantastic!! I wouldn’t trade them or what I am doing now for anything!! I don’t know, I don’t think there is a solution. The really nice thing about it, as I said at the beginning, we are a lot like family. That means that we can tell each other that “I have a bad attitude” or “today is just not the day”, and everyone (almost everyone) understands and more importantly, cares.
I have said it a lot, but please don’t take this the wrong way!! I really love my job, and it wouldn’t be the same without the people that I get to work with everyday!! I am truly blessed to have so many wonderful people in my life – I guess my young, idealistic view of the world is being compromised, and I am not quite ready to let go of it!!! That being said… I watched Harry Potter with Ella as she was falling asleep, and this Dumbledore quote stuck with me…
“A child's voice, however honest and true, is meaningless to those who've forgotten how to listen.”
--Albus Dumbledore
“Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban”
Here is to hoping that I never forget how to listen… let me rephrase that, here is to hoping that I get better at listening!!! (and yes, those of you I work with are more than welcome to make fun of me for this!!!) I also have to brag… I didn’t once mention names, the company I work for, or any confidential information. Which is difficult because everything I do says “confidential”, and I would get fired... J Have a good night!!
--Amanda
