Well they did it to me again. You'd think I'd know better by now wouldn't you
Monday and Tuesday were 8am to 7pm, flat out, no breaks, moving a printing press paper alignment system we make from one machine to another. 1st machine is being scrapped and 2nd one has a very poor record of paper control.
Why me? you may ask (and so did I). Well the fact is the system was designed by three people: The (retired) managing director, an ex-employee... and me
I was told the job was pretty much a spur-of-the-moment decision - yeah right - and had to be done in that time frame as the old one was broken up by scrap merchants today, and the machine the system was moved to had a couple of days down-time while a motor and some bearings were changed.
This time I couldn't even gain the assistance of either our apprentice or one of my colleagues - there simply was not room for more than one person to work on the cabinet. Indeed I'd argue there wasn't room for just me!
I will admit I did have a moment's glee at the end. The new production manager at our customer's is quite hands-on (without being a pest) and was keen to see the system start up, having never seen it run on the old machine before it was mothballed.
Once the press had been put back together and all the parts mechanically aligned following the refurbishment, it was run up with a not terribly important job so I could instruct the operators on the differences with the control system. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the guys astonishment as I made a few adjustments to the tracking while the operator manually aligned the paper. By the time he'd done that I was able to switch the system to auto and it held everything tight without any fuss. I was highly relieved, I can tell you!
What was priceless though was after stopping to set the next job, the production manager said "Of course the real test is to see how quickly it locks the next job." Well, I know the system - if it holds one job it holds them all! The operator started the machine again and as the press came up to speed, the production manager asked how long it would take to 'lock' the job. I had a real struggle keeping a straight face as I told him it already had. He grabbed one of the printed, folded sheets coming out, examined it, swore and looked at the operator who just grinned.
A slight spoiler was today (my day off) when I kept getting stupid calls from our office people wanting explanations of all sorts of decisions I had to make on the spot. What they didn't know though was that our Ex MD had invited me to his place for a late (and partially liquid) lunch. After several calls, he grabbed the phone from me almost shouted at them to leave me alone and told them they could book me an extra hour's overtime for the interruptions
Now, perhaps I can get on with the really important stuff again - music