Lately my life has fell into a lull. What I mean is, I’m in the rut of raising my family and working. In the last two years I’ve gave my life some adventure by going on a medical mission trip to Nicaragua but this year I decided against it. We could use the money for our family. So I decided to have some adventure with my assembly line job. You already know that we make ranges there.

I have been in the same area for about a year and a half. I had put together the same parts of the range all of that time. I was so bored. Time would drag slowly by. I told people around me I was being assimilated into a Borg for our manufacturing company. (Resistance is futile!) My hands would repetitiously move like a robot and my mind would wonder to some dreamland far, far away. It is not good when this happens especially when the run of the model you are making changes. You take a chance of putting the wrong part on several ranges in a row! My mind definitely needed more stimulation. I needed some challenge to focus on.
So I decided to become a “ranger”. A ranger is someone who fills in in different areas of the line. I started this on Monday. We have 14 different areas on our line. I know 7 of the areas. I plan to do this for 6 months and then probably go back to my “side panels” area.
Some more reasons why I chose to do this are:
1. I know one or two people in each area. I want to know everybody. Each team in each area has its own personality and I want to know that too. There are about 90 people on our line. I’m glad to say our line is the friendliest line on our shift.
2. I want to learn the details of how we build our many different styled ranges. This may not seem like a major thing to most people but when I look out over our line I want to be able to say I know all the different jobs. This will build my confidence. (Confidence, hhhmmmmmm, I haven’t gotten a big dose of that in recent years.)
3. I want to focus and do my part to keep mistakes from being made. In fact, I want to try to notice details that would prevent a mistake.
4. I’ve been so spoiled with my routine life that I have had a lazy attitude about trying new things. This job forces me to take on any job they need me to do.
The job of a ranger is unpredictable. Another new ranger, a woman about my size, asked me if I became one. I told her yes and then she said, “I’m sorry.” This job has already made me sore from head to toe. I kinda want to feel sorry for myself but another part of me likes the excitement of the opportunity. Some of the areas I’ve worked so far are:
front frames
storage drawers
mainback
oven cavities
I know those may not mean anything to you but sometimes the work in those areas can be physically demanding. For the most part that doesn’t matter because I really want to do this. This might sound a little silly but I want to have an “I can relate” bond with the different teams and then I want to learn about each person and find out interesting things about them.
So I realize I may be a little rough on my body for the next six months. I’ll just eat more protein, take some pain relievers, and take supplements such as glucosamine-chondritin-MSM, B-complex and Mineral Rich.
In fact, while I do this I kinda want to experiment with my attitude. I want to not get discouraged and change my “I always want to know what’s expected beforehand” personality into a more adventurous one where new experiences won’t make me so nervous and fearful. In fact, I plan to learn the Chuck Swindoll Attitude quote with my children:
The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.
Attitude, to me, is more important than facts.
It is more important than
the past,
than education,
than money,
than circumstances,
than failures,
than successes,
than what other people think or say or do.
It is more important than appearance,
giftedness,
or skill.
It will make or break a company, a church, a home.
The remarkable thing is that we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day.
We cannot change our past.
We cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way.
We cannot change the inevitable.
The only thing we can do is play on the one string that we have, and that is our attitude.
I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me, and 90% of how I react to it.
And so it is with you….we are in charge of our attitudes.