Ever wondered what my work day is like? Well, unfortunately you’re about to find out!
My title is a Customer Engineer for a wide range of machines that process money: repairing, servicing and installing them in the lower North Island. I get around! This is my exciting travel diary for Monday 19 July 2021.
The first thing I did while on the clock was finish off some documentation I was working on. It's a guide on how to clean and service some new hardware we’re rolling out. I enjoy writing, as you probably know, so I'm glad I can do some of that for work.
After sending that off, I jumped in my white Subaru and hit the road. I'm going to work!
You might think of a workplace as an office or workshop, but not for me. I have two places I can realistically claim to be my place of work: my car, and a storage unit.
Luxury workplace, no expense spared.
The storage unit is just a small garage sized lockup where I keep spare parts for work. Not overly glamorous, but fit for purpose. Today I had to ship a part that another engineer needed for a job somewhere else in the country. Oh, parts and logistics. What fun.
On my way driving to this shed I was assigned my first urgent job of the day.
In my line of work I have urgent jobs for things that are broken and need to be fixed ASAP, and also jobs that aren’t urgent, like servicing and cleaning of hardware.
The job that came in this morning was top tier urgent, and far away in Waiouru! After shipping out the spare part, I went on a road trip.
The most direct route I can take is a horrible windy wide road, but it has the nice benefit of this: Stormy Point Lookout. It's a huge viewpoint that lets you see the rolling rural land for miles and miles. I always try to pull over for 30 seconds to take a photo.
A view for miles and miles and miles.
After 2 hours of driving I hit Waiouru. It's very cold here! The job ended up being much more in depth than I expected, but I got it done.
Tanks for the fun, Waiouru.
Before I even started this job, I had another assigned to me: Dannevirke. Unfortunately, before I even could start driving to this job, another job with a higher priority came into my queue: Masterton.
That's a hell of a drive! But the idea of seeing the giant gumboot gave me the boost I needed.
I'm a big fan of a big booty.
Waiouru to Masterton is almost the longest drive I have for work. Before, when I was driving my old personal car, it was exhausting to go on such long voyages. But now I have this new machine with the power and features, it's so much more enjoyable.
Oh, in terms of time? I started work at my desk this morning at 8am, and now it's 6pm and I've still got two urgent jobs to finish.
I found this yellow aeroplane on my way to Masterton.
Masterton is a nice town! I've been here a lot lately, for both business and pleasure. The one thing I've learned is that everything shuts early, and it becomes a ghost town. To prove this point I took a selfie in the middle of the main street. I could have pitched a tent there.
No nightlife, not even early evening... life.
I often have delays in getting access to the machines I need to work on, and at Masterton I arrived 30 minutes before I could get access. I spent that time writing the majority of this blog post, and going for a brisk walk around downtown. It was extremely cold.
I was able to resolve the job at Masterton, but due to an ongoing issue with it I’ll be back - either tomorrow or the next day. And it’ll be a very complicated and long task.
I departed for Dannevirke, and by this point it was dark outside. Doing these long days is so much easier in the summer!
Thor says hi.
The Dannevirke job was easy, just a matter of reseating a cable. After doing that it was getting close to 9pm, and I was hoping no new jobs came in - I wanted to go home!
I was tempted to get some unhealthy takeaways now, as I hadn’t eaten much all day. But no! I got home soon after 10pm and had Weet-Bix with some peanut butter for my dinner.
Meal of Champions.
I’m tired now. I’d better shower and get some sleep before I do it all over again tomorrow. Goodnight, kids!