Here we go again…

Against my greatest wishes the first shift supervisor has been forced to move to become the refrigeration supervisor due to the current one resigning in 2 weeks. This all came as a surprise and right when we had finally established supervisors in every shift for our plant. With the refrigeration supervisor leaving more jostling will be occurring but for now everyone is staying where they are, which is fine by me. This all came about over the last week and was very hush hush in the maintenance department. No one wanted to take the job as either they did not like the idea of being in charge of all the Ammonia on site or they did not have enough experience in the whole plant to deem themselves experienced for the position. My boss raised an eyebrow at me in reference to the position but I stated that even though I am a mechanical engineer who studied HVAC that I did not have enough experience in the plant or the refrigeration field to validate me taking over the whole refrigeration department for the plant. I think I may offer to come in early every day to start learning the refrigeration though as it could be beneficial in the future and who knows I may end up in that position some day. For now I have lost who I consider the most beneficial player on my side of the plant and a great guy to work with. He will still be available to ask questions but he is no longer on “the team”, I now must rely on the mechanics for information that he used to be able to give me. That doesn’t seem bad but mechanics like to hold their knowledge of the plant over you and when you ask questions they make sure you know how little you know. At least with the first shift supervisor we had a team understanding and we didn’t hold anything over one another. Oh well, a first shift position is open, maybe I can vie for it. I do know that in the absence of the 1st shift supervisor I seem to be the one to move into all operation relations and planning in maintenance, so I guess the responsibility factor was upped with the decision. GREAT!!!