This morning as I ate breakfast Jessica read a simple parable that Christ gave. I realized that a song, which we sang in the ward choir during Thanksgiving, cites the words of this scriptures. "first the blade and then the ear, then the full corn shall appear;" Jesus compared the Kingdom of Heaven to the growth of crop. The sower does not know how it grows. "But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come." (Mark 4:29) I did not understand the parable until the next family scripture study session, which was the twentieth of December. The Kingdom of Heaven is representative of the establishment of God's church. Christ will come for the harvest as it is known as the second coming, but no one knows how the church grows.
The first thing that I did at work is upload the QC Sequence Manual, which was quick, but it was monumental, since it was developed over months.
My role in the Multnomah County Central Court House is Quality Control for the facade construction by Columbia Stone Inc. I learned to not post QC reports until my project manager reviews it. The first time I did it the general contractor ran with my report, and the owner's commissioning agent even wrote about it in a site visit report. My program needed a lot of guidance. Hoffman hired a consultant from Intertek to counsel me.
My QC reports have developed a lot. I learned that blanket statements will not accomplish anything; unless, it is for training. If one wants something done, the individual needs to give direct instruction. My reports took a while to become direct and instructive. The report is for management, but the field will not use the content; unless, a specific task is given with formal documentation. I would not have developed my quality control program without my veteran project manager.
This is my routine. Since I am in charge of arranging third party inspections, I walk up all the floors, recording what is and is not ready for inspection. A matrix is developed to track the progress of each level by elevation.
When I walk down, I look for deficiencies in productivity. I learned that a deficiency is defined by the sequence. All construction is in progress; unless, a sequence is given. It is inefficient to point out something to fix, when the product is not finished. A sequence is the method of construction. The establishment of a sequence is Important for consultants to understand, or they will make QC items to resolve in the middle of construction because the field's methods is not logical to them, making up their own sequence for the company's production. If the construction does not follow the sequence, a deficiency report can be made to resolve the issue. We have established three types of field reports. QC Alerts are for the foreman to teach the crews of situations that may stray from requirements. Deficiency reports address deficiencies by the understanding previously mentioned. Verification requests were my idea to verify the completion of unique situations like RFIs, items that I don't have access to, etc. I can verify things myself too.
After my QC walk, I printed the deficiency reports, finalizing last week's QC Report. My QC Report includes a progress report, a list of outstanding ems, new non-conforming items, resolved items, inspection reports, and general notes.
When I got home, I needed to rush Jessica to eat dinner because she had a ministering appointment at 6:45. On the 19th of every month, we go out to celebrate our marriage, since we were sealed on the 19th of March 2016. We went to my favorite Thai restaurant. I never had a favorite Thai restaurant until I moved to Portland. What qualifies me to advise on Thai food? I grew up on eating Thai food, since my mom is Thai. It is called Thai Herb. They make the best ice cream. We typically have ice cream for dessert, but Jessica was too full. She always orders a pad Thai dish, and my favorite dish is Gai Kua, a chicken wide noodle dish was a little salad in it.
I edited my journal entry of the past several months, publishing it that night, after Jessica left for her appointment. The last time I posted was July.
20 December 2018
Shelter is the song stuck in my head today. The video is below, if you would like music to listen to matching the day of this entry.
It took me five hours to schedule 34 inspections. An accurate scheduling of the many inspections is important to help the dispatcher manage his inspectors. I scheduled nearly thirty inspections one time, and we did all of them within the time requested.
My laptop has been glitching out, turning off on me twice during my scheduling effort. I had lost about an hour of work.
Jim, our foreman, asked me to reprint the connection plate layout document for Complete Fusion Welding's CEO, since he lost it. One may think that printing something is easy; however, jobsite printers can be finicky. This task may have took me more than an hour.
My project manager sent me Eclad & Picco's latest Site Visit Report today. All of the items were for us. We have a handle on most of them. I learned to respond promptly to site visit reports especially relating to items near or within the company's scope, for consultants can determine means and methods, and they can expand scope without attempting to pay subcontractors for additional work; unless, the subcontractors respond within days. Companies need to actively define their scope of a project, or it may become ambiguous. The management of an ambiguous scope's costs and profits is very difficult.
21 December 2018
Drops, the app, gave me a ten minute Thai language lesson this evening, which is double normal. I can write in my journal now that I finished that.
This morning Jessica read the story of Christ, rebuking his disciples and the storm. I thought that it was funny that Jesus called them faithless. The boat was about to sink, being full of water; however, the story does not say that the disciples worked to empty the boat of water. It seems that the disciples expected that fulfilling Christ's command would be without unusual effort. Disciples should know that faith without works is dead, and "Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them." (1 Nephi 3:5)
Wendesday and Thursday my project manager was working at the headquarters, and we caught up for the first few minutes today. I did not give myself much time to prepare for the inspections before the inspector arrived. I just realized that I didn't give myself much time to prepare for the inspections this afternoon either.
The inspector and I performed only one floor of torque inspections, when I planned to do three floors, because most people got half a day to work. The inspector and others were feeling the spirit of Christmas, and they even sang joyously.
I received the 41st site visit report today by RDH, the waterproofing consultant of SRG. Only one item for Columbia Stone Inc. was published, and I issued a field verification request to resolve the item. One thing that surprised me is that RDH cited my sequence manual in this site visit report.
The composition of my week's QC report was the work that I performed the rest of the day.
The video above is the sci-fi animated short of Shelter. It is a very good, and I would expect that you would be distracted from my entry if you watched it.
