Changes

Well things at work have changed. My manager is no longer my manager. He will now be what they are calling technical manager, basically he is in charge of dealing with the most complicated equipment we service, quote large jobs and help us out when we need it. He did however take this as an opportunity to take a leave of absence until late January. So we are even more short on staff for the next while.
The new manager is one of the owners. I think he will do a good job but only time will tell, we are told to expect lots of change. First priority though is hiring some experienced people. This is good news, things are very busy right now which can be quite stressful. Currently I am on call, technically it is a switched week, so that means instead of 6 weeks break before my next time on call it will be 2. I had not thought of that when I agreed to switch. Ah well, I just hope we get some decent time off at xmas. It's not looking good though.

Thinking of skiing

Sadly the skiing season is still several weeks away. I say this every year but I really hope to get on the slopes more this year, actually if I go once this year I will have beaten my score for the last two years. 

I really like to go but since the closest decent resorts are about all about a four hour drive it makes for a very long day, and makes for last minute trips almost impossible. 

I will look into getting some of the MINI people together for a week end trip that could be fun, and if we all cram into a cabin it could actually be quite affordable. 

My biggest concern and one of the reason I have skipped the last two seasons is my knees, they aren't that bad but do hurt me somewhat regularly, I do try to avoid kneeling so much at work but it comes with the job. Skiing can be hard on the knees and I really don't want things getting worse.

I am late.

I apologise loyal readers, I missed my deadline last night. Frankly I was tired and really had nothing to say, or at least nothing I felt like getting into. Work has been rather busy lately.
I do have a tip for you though, if you have a machine, what ever it may be that isn't working turn it off. Yes this seems like common sense but it may not always be apparent. This week a convenience store have issues with their main cooler. Basically it was not cold.  There were no obvious noises or anything so the left it as is until I arrived much later to fix it. I arrive and realise the condenser fan motor has failed. Nothing major here happens all the time. I get it replaced, no easy task in this particular application. I turn the system back on, the compressor will not work. Many checks later, yep it done. Maybe it was a fluke, but without a condenser fan motor the pressures and heat get quite high this causes the compressor to overheat and eventually trip it's overload. Technically this should protect the compressor repeat this cycle over and over as the overload cools and damage will occur. So had they shut down the system once they realised it was not working they could have saved themselves a compressor, especially since this one was only four years old.

Back at work

Well I am done with school and I am happy to report I passed. Back at work, things aren't as different as I was expecting since the loss of my co-worker. We are rather busy though kinda hard to get back into the grove when it's this busy.
In a few weeks I get to write the test for my refrigeration license. Once passed I really don't know what I will do. I am likely to keep things as they are for a while but as a licensed mechanic it opens allot of doors. No actual plans on bailing on my current company but change is not a bad thing. I guess we will have to see.