My worst call (in terms of lack of observation skills by people) was an early AM call one night. They told me that a set of belts were not running forward or backward. But the second set was. I told them that both sets of belts were powered by the same circuit, if one is running, the other should be.
The operators always have the supervisor call me, and the supervisor knows almost nothing about the problem or machine. I asked to talk with the operator, so he could answer some questions. The supervisor put me on hold, then when he finally got back he told me "The operator said he's too busy. It's your problem and you need to fix it."
So I grudgingly come into work. Not a horrible drive, I only live about 15 minutes from the factory, but still annoying to be interrupted from a nice sleep to fix stupid issues. I walk into work, walk over to the machine, and see the motor sitting there turning, and the belts stationary. And a coupled shaft in two pieces just flopping around in the air.
I walked over to the supervisor, pointed to the broken coupling and rod, and told him to get the maintenance personnel to fix it, then walked out the door.
One of my biggest peeves about working in this industry is how little knowledge exists and how little knowledge from experience is retained by people who manager puts in charge of this stuff. I don't know about elsewhere, but here it seems that the people in the Electrical department are the only ones with any training. Maintenance and Setup personnel, who are in charge of repairing and keeping machines running, are nothing more than machine operators with enough seniority to have been promoted. They are not trained at all, and while a few of them are very knowledgeable and very handy, there are more than enough bad ones to make my head spin daily. Regardless of the issue, and without even observing the machine to get an idea of what the real issue is, the first line of defense is always "Call [ME]!". I don't have a problem helping or fixing real problems, it is part of my Job. But I just wish management would train these promoted operators better, or choose a better selection of people.
I wasted almost an hour yesterday having to repeatedly explain to an operator how to reset a machine after a safety gate was unlocked, opened, and entered. They didn't seem to understand that you had to press the "Acknowledge Alarms" button on the Alarm screen that popped up after the safety circuit was broken. After the third time of calling me over, the operator said "Why can't there just be a single button called 'Reset Machine'?" To which I said, "There is, it's right here, called 'Acknowledge Alarms'. You press this button and the machine will start up." and walked away.
I have a temper problem I think, and while most of the time I try to stay calm about all the lack of trained people in positions that require knowledge, I occasionally crack (I think I repress all my anger about it so much that it tends to come out in bursts). I'm glad I work for a single shop, and don't have to deal with other customers. I think I would make a bad impression for my company if I was snapping at people I don't work with.
PS. I'm not claiming to be an expert on everything, I've only been working in the business for 5 years, and started fresh out of college. I'm sure there are a lot of things I don't know which others would think were simple.
