My Daily Job Doings

Well, I want to post again, so I'll just post about what I do on a daily basis at my job. But first, some background:

I work at my family's sawmill, known as Southern Indiana Hardwoods, Inc. It is owned by my dad and his three brothers. They've been in business for over 25 years, first starting out as a logging company known as Merkley Logging. They first purchased a mobile sawmill and then fit it to be a permanent mill. They worked at this mill until the fateful December morning of 1999: it burnt down. Before the mill burnt down, they also had a pallet stock and kiln operation on the old family turkey farm property. So they decided to rebuild down in that location. This location is pretty cool, especially since the new sawmill has a two story tall band saw with 8 foot diameter wheels.......*drools*.......yes, I'm a technology/machine nerd........maybe that's strange in a girl? Oh well. So they've been working at this site since 2000 and only recently relocated the office down here.

So now for my doings. Before I worked in the office, I worked in the pallet stock operation and back on the lumber stacker. Pallet stock is very loud, so I have to wear earplugs, and I basically stack lumber. This lumber is used for making those wooden pallets that companies put things on, like at Sam's Club. Ya know, how they have stacks of lots of the same product on a wooden platform? That platform is a pallet. Well, we cut the wooden pieces that go to make those, so those pieces are what I stacked. I also worked back at the lumber stacker machine. This lumber is lumber that you would expect. I stacked everything from 8 foot boards to 16 foot boards, from 4 inch wide to over a foot wide, and from 1 inch thick to 2 inches thick. There are two different way you stack lumber back here. If the lumber is being kiln dried, you have to put wooden strips in between the different layers so that air can flow. If you are taking the lumber out of the kiln, you have to take them off of strips and and then restack them without strips. Sometimes you have people working with you, which makes it go quicker. When you put strips on, you sometimes have 1 or 2 people laying the strips down while you work on making sure the next layer fits. If you are taking them off strips, you might have one person making sure the pieces of lumber stay in position. But then again, there are sometimes where I would work all by myself stacking 16 foot long boards, over 1 foot wide, and sometimes over 1 inch thick. Oh well.

But now I work in the office. This is definately not as back breaking, and I kind of enjoy it. I work with my cousin (who was working here before my aunt quit, hence why I have a job here) who does most of the work. I'm here to take the load off, basically. I fax papers, file papers, write out invoices, input data into spreadsheets for logs hauled (we also have a trucking business, SIH Trucking, LLC) and trips out of state, answer phone calls, and I clean on Fridays. Sometimes I make trips to the bank or pick things up at the store that we need, like office supplies or hoses to water the plants around the office, or even band aids........god knows you need band aids at a sawmill. Basic office work, I guess. I describe my job title as Monday-Thursday: Pion, Friday: Maid. lol A lot of the times I'm on the internet though, because Jolene, my cousin, doesn't always have work for me to do. Actually, I'm at work right now typing this......hehe, and most of these posts have been while at work.......actually......all of them have been.........hehe.

Well, I hope I haven't bored you enough.

What I'm Currently Listening To: Red Hot Chili Peppers on my cousin's XM radio