Take it easy and be pampered for a while  Seriously look after yourself 

Quote from: Pellson on March 23, 2024, 03:56:45 PMApparently (and perhaps not entirely unexpectedly) I caught something bad at that fair, having had a strong fever last night and felt rather awkward since. Well - tonight is better than yesterday (no shivers for a start), so I'll likely survive. But there's no energy left for anything but sitting in a chair looking daft. Annoying.

Still - I think I'm on the mend, so it's just to dig in and carry on, I suppose. As always.

Get well quickly enough to feel better, but slowly enough to enjoy being looked after by the rest of the family!  ..........................and make sure you DO get better.  The only item in my diary for  New Years Day 2025 so far is to remember to wish you and yours a Happy New Year.

Thanks, all of you. It's strangely reassuring having a bunch of old grumpy men worrying about you, even from a distance.. 
I'm getting better, but slowly. No real fever since Friday, but i still feel somewhat too warm or somewhat too cold in cycles and on top of that quite unwilling to really engage in anything. Annoying, because in my general situation, you are very well aware indeed of the fact that every day is counting, and that there aren't too many of those left.

Well - I haven't given up yet, so as said - dig in. Move on.

Quote from: Pellson on March 25, 2024, 12:01:55 AM... i still feel somewhat too warm or somewhat too cold in cycles ...

It has been a while since I had a fever, but remember such cycles even from my youth. Sweating when body temperature goes down and shivering when it goes up. (I think it was in that order). A sign that you are not OK yet but your system is working on healing you. Certainly not pleasant.

Get better soon! There's more wood to stack!

Quote from: Pellson on March 25, 2024, 12:01:55 AMThanks, all of you. It's strangely reassuring having a bunch of old grumpy men worrying about you, even from a distance.. 
I'm getting better, but slowly.

   

All good, and glad that you are seeing improvement.

Fever totally gone by last Tuesday evening but work's been abundant since. Now on yearly Easter trip to Denmark, and while the weather forecasts all were wrong (where are my 20 C?!?) it's lovely nevertheless.

Next week is all site work, so no modelling in the plans for some time, but I don't think the kits are going anywhere. And hanging out here is relaxing enough. 

Enjoy the break 

Well - that was 60 hours at work in four days. Most of it spent outside in temps just above freezing, with the added benefit of horizontal sleet. Unbelievable, as Easter Monday closed with 15 C and a lovely sunset over the sea. Springtime is here, they said. Yeah, right...
Anyway - six (6!) layers of clothing and a specifically purchased rainproof, blindingly yellow work coat featuring massive reflexes and even self luminescent panels made it bearable. If just.

Parting ways with the rest of the family at friends in Scania (the province, not the lorry!) on the way home from DK on Monday, I was now on site as the Owners engineer to monitor and inspect the delivery and installation of a couple of substations at a new solar farm situated just north of Halmstad on the Swedish west coast This supply had had a rather troublesome start, the supplier managing to totally miss out on his internal ordering procedures and thus delaying the delivery by almost half a year. On discovering this, however, they have been not only very sorry indeed, but actually also quite forthcoming, really trying to stress their subsuppliers as well as their internal production, so while having a bad start, I feel they've really tried to make amends. I got involved when my client first learned of the delay, and on penetrating the issue recommended to rather stay with this supplier than trying to respecify and reorder the kit somewhere else. Given where we are now, I'm quite convinced that was a rather good call, and I have a firm feeling that my client thinks so too.

As I arrived on site mid-evening on Easter Monday, the kit was unloaded from transports and put on the preinstalled foundations by the suppliers lead technician, a really nice young chap, only in his mid-twenties, but already very apparently well skilled both at the electrical workmanship as well as managing the two high voltage technicians he had brought. It's actually quite lovely to see a kid like that already having become so good! It makes one believe in the future!
Also, I found out that he lives not too far from where I do, and that we do have a few acquaintances in common. It's a small world..

However, when inspecting the kit more thoroughly on Tuesday, I was unfortunately able to see that the suppliers factory had failed to mark most of the connections in the control cubicles. This is not acceptable, as it basically makes maintenance impossible, so I demanded correction, and the poor lead tech dispatched his HV techs to do the heavy cabling on their own and added sorting the almost 700 markings we found missing to his own scope. That is a dog of a job, and Thursday morning, we realised that this marking f-u would delay us all significantly. The HV techs was at that time all but done with their part, and when we had a discussion to plan the completion, the older of the two HV techs looked pretty tortured, telling us that he had an arrangement for birthday party for his teenage daughter, but sure, if we couldn't spare him..

At that point, this young kid looked me in the eye and just stated that no project is worth sacrificing family for and sent the HV guys off home, taking it upon himself to sort the remaining work by himself, no matter weekend or not. Soon after, getting back into the stations to evaluate the scope left, I could see that there was work enough left not only for that day, but definitely for all of Friday and likely most of Saturday. At that point, I asked for a spare set of screwdrivers and a cable ringer, telling him that I'd rather help him out so that both of us could get home while still having families to come home to. He looked a bit consterned, but did as requested and having quietly watched me work on my own for a bit said:
"You've not always been an engineer, right?"
Telling him that a) even if admittedly in the Stone Age, I was an electrician before studying to be an engineer, and b) that I wasn't going home before he was going to anyway, he laughed and just said that he'd not previously seen a client help out like this and, having called his fiancée to let her know of the delay, he now expected to have to forward his fiancée's thanks for getting him home before the weekend.

As I suppose most of you other old farts will recognise, getting the opportunity to fiddle with things you did when young is an absolute blast - as long as it is for a limited period of time, so I did my best to look tormented while getting on with it (most likely without any significant success) and I will have to admit that I wasn't any less pleased with myself finding a few crossed wires in the process, something I'll eagerly bring up when visiting the factory in anticipation of their next delivery in a few weeks.

In my time, we ringed every connection, supplying either a connection diagram with greened connections or a connection table with each line checked and ticked off. Nowadays, they claim that this is redundant due to factory testing before delivery, but I think I now have grounds to teach them some old fashioned QA.

Anyway - by 3 PM yesterday (Friday) we were able to close up and start the four hour drive home, and waving the young lead tech off when we both exited the motorway about half an hour from home, he going north and me east, I think I've made a new friend.

So. All in all, and in the end, a pretty good week. My client is happy as f&@k getting his kit up and running and in addition to that, supply quality ensured. The suppliers lead tech is about equally happy getting home almost according to plan, something he'd given up on as soon as realising the extent to the snagging left by his factory, and I'm happy having been allowed to cheat in my old profession for a bit. Also, it was really great to see that there still are young men being brought up not only as good workmen, but also great leaders. Prioritising his mates family duties before his own was a good call in my book!

Modelling? Not likely until I've caught up on both sleep and body temperature. While having felt somewhat back in old tracks in the cubicles, my body now is telling me to shut up and ask for retirement. Preferably somewhere warm..

All one can say is  WELL DONE PELLSON!!   One of those situations better viewed in hindsight, but both you and the young  lead tech should have  a well deserved glow of satisfaction!!   I'm sure that a live audio feed from your forthcoming discussion with the supplier would make entertaining listening.

Nice one! I hope the end-user appreciates all that extra effort both of you put into the job. 

Quote from: Rheged on April 06, 2024, 12:43:39 PMAll one can say is  WELL DONE PELLSON!! 

Completely agree!

Also about your commentary on the Young Lads' work and leadership ethic.
It's nice to see someone of that age being willing to put in that much effort and working to the job, not the clock.   

 
What the others say.

Well done sir 

I also admire your ability to document it in a slightly humorous manner    although I'll have bets that the meeting with the supplier won't be quite so humorous 

Thanks, chaps. Nice, but somewhat undeserved praise, methinks. After all, my main contribution during the week was to make sure I wasn't freezing somewhere in the way of real work being performed. 

Re the supplier and his quality issues - I'm not intending to go totally berserk on him. While having cause for being a bit annoyed, my goal here is not to make a huge thing out of this, but rather to make a point of stepping up their procedures just a tad. They're not totally bad or reckless, they're just not really where we want them.

Sunny and decently springlike today. I might get out and sort the odd issue on the cars or in the garden today, after all.