Humbling Grace

I've been very quiet lately because I've been working at the new job. It's been four weeks, and it's been a very humbling experience.

It's hard to be the new person anywhere. It's hard to be the oldest person in the group. I remember being the youngest and then, for a long time, being one of the pack, most of us almost exactly the same age. Now I'm the oldest, and I just turned 54.

It's a tremendous transition and a tremendous amount to learn. I'm working in a wafer fab clean room again, something I said I'd never do. The noise level in the place is a source of stress all by itself. There is paging going on and alarms and much ambient noise. It's difficult to make out what is being said when someone is conveying vital information to you. I also have not worked in a clean room in 20 years, a fact I've been trying to hide. (They never asked. I didn't offer the information. I said I had worked in a clean room. I didn't say when was the last time.)

The inspection is the easiest for me. This is where my transferable skills come into play. What is difficult is trying to keep track of the numerous Excel spread sheets which are used for various reports. (It seems like there's an additional sheet every day, and then I lose track of what we did last week.) Difficult, too, is using Workstream, the antique tracking system which controls all the lot movement in the wafer fab. It's one of those programs leftover from the days when all computer systems were caps only, so it looks like it's screaming at you. It's difficult to pick out the information I'm looking for from the display. There are so many commands to learn and the proper times to use them. In my position, a bridge between the tool operators and the engineers, I'm supposed to be able to do everything and have access to everything. I have the power to do many things (I can hold any lot at any time for anything) and I have to learn how to use it without creating havoc.

Some days I just feel stupid. I lost a day to illness this week, and when I came back after three days off, it was like it was a whole different job. There was a new crisis to be solved, and suddenly all efforts were being put towards that and the things I was feeling confident about before weren't applicable.

It's a different industry than I've worked in before, and things are different, so I am still feeling my way around that. Mistakes are inevitable, and there are times I can feel that I am trying the patience of the (very) young woman who is training me. I feel old and slow and useless some times.

Every morning I pray to learn this job and to do it in a way that brings Christ to the work place. I pray that he can use what I'm doing for the glory of his kingdom.

I don't know the people there yet, either. The weekend tech called yesterday to say he would not be in because his young son (a toddler) is in the hospital with a high fever. I felt bad for him because I had cousins who had a child who suffered brain damage from a high fever -- I know how dangerous this can be. I didn't know if it was okay to say I would pray for him, so I kept quiet and am praying for the health of his child without saying so.

I will likely fall silent for a while again after this. I have two more weeks and then I go on my night shift. I'm both looking forward to and dreading that. I'm looking forward to being better trained and working opposite my day shift counterpart so the work gets spread out more evenly and not so much overtime is required. Seeing the traffic going in that direction at that time of day, I'm dreading the drive in to work.

So I pray that God gets me through this and uses me to be a light in the darkness.