Second Last Day at The Work Practice
Mood:
special
Now Playing: www.di.fm --> Trance
Topic: Cars
I have been feeling nervous in a positive way today, since it`s been my second last work practice day. I had visited my school on Tuesday before I had had to go to the evening shift at my work practice and asked also from my teacher when he would do his check out trip to my work practice place, since he had promised to visit everyone at least once and separately for me he had promised that he does it only once to my place, because it`s that much tricky to get the high chief of the garage avaible even for a five-minute-visit.
I was at my work practice place already 25 minutes before, but I spent nearly 15 minutes in the locker room changing the garage clothes under my perfectly clean overall, tying my hair and making sure my hair protecting scarf was placed properly, and that I had my usual stuff with me (pens, work practice diary papers, plastic gloves and ordinary protecting gloves) + of course the final check to the mirror for that I looked decent, while chatting with the other female mechanic whose shift was ending. On Tuesday my teacher had promised to me that he would come today a bit past 2pm when my shift has already started, but I had gotten on the garage`s side at 13.48 and had greeted the other mechanians, starting to do preliminary organizing and cleaning of the tools and desk when I saw with the corner of my eye two male figures stepping from the glass door between the sales desks and the garage, and I knew in my mind my teacher had arrived, though I didn`t officially see him. Actually a split of a second later I tried more to appear like if I hadn`t seen him yet, but I had seen already the 2nd year student who had come with him - even if I was like if hadn`t seen hi either. I was pretending that I was focused on the cleaning of the tools, letting him to greet me first so that I wouldn`t sound over eager or reveal how nervous I all suddenly felt. Graaah! He was standing there and I couldn`t help grinning in a stupid and wide way. I was so much in positive panic, that I even tore partly my already too much damaged work practice diary when trying to open it and to show to my teacher that "Yes, I`ve kept writing things down what I`ve done here."- and whined for more writing space (= Bigger paper or at least bigger sections for the what`s been done section.), but he said that`s not possible. (Why I hear now Throttle saying "Can`t be done, lady"? ) I asked some things about that how the guiding mechanian would estimate my success and that if he wanted to chat with the "Mr. Mechanian, Sir" (My guiding mechanian prefers me calling him that way. ) but he said he had come to see me and I was feeling for a moment a bit special, since it`s so long time when somebody has done something for me or even visited me, even for such an ordinary reason as it being part of the work practice season. (And I`m not counting the visits of my closest family members now. They visit me too often at times and I`ve visited them recently more than it`s legal. ) **Thinks for a moment.** Lessee... last time somebody DID visit me was... uhm... Wait! I shouldn`t count Micronian`s current bf yet to the nuclear family, although they are such pack that I wonder if the wedding bells don`t ring soon after they both have finished their (current) studies. **sourly:** Grreat... - Oh well... Micro`s bf visited my place with Milo herself around 3 weeks ago. **thinks again** Yes, on the weekend comes 3 weeks. We were grilling, talking & joking a lot of stupid stuff and having some good time then - just the 3 of us.
As you can see, I`m not keeping up my social contacts much outside the work & school circles. Even the BMFM circles have been left alone pretty much. (Can you figure out the reason already, huh? `Nuff said?)
Anyway, back to this day and my teacher`s visit to my work practice place.
We exhanged a few words, a couple of times I was about to say something but he kept explaining things and I shut up politely, knowing I should wait for my turn and take it when I get the chance for that. Then my chief already came with a customer car and I had to go to put the rubber blocks under it to protect the car from the damages when it hangs on the lift and then I had to go to pick up the spare parts. I saw my teacher chatting with 1 of the spare part sales people, since they knew each other, and I was feeling that it took an eternity to find the right spare parts because they had been put on a wrong place on a wrong shelf. (Typical luck of mine!) And when I was coming back with the spare parts he already announces that he must be going back to the school already. I felt I still would have wanted to talk with him about some things, but he just said let`s babble more on Monday at school. "Yeah, right! On Monday there`s 13 other students more or less eager to tell about their experiences, especially not forgetting the best repairer of the class! I`m just a girl g** *****t and since I`m such a terrible babbler about things in general, my message, the point of my talking, drowns to the meaningless extra details or even stays untold because I loose myself to the side tracks all the time. (Downside of being a strongly visual memory based personality.) When he was already rushing away I remembered that I had wanted to tell him about the feeling that the work practice period had raised in me. Well, at least I got it told that at least basing to the experiences I`ve had at my work practice, I have ended up to like it even more and most of the moments I feel I could do this for my job. The down side is of course that female mechanians are not taken so seriously - I would have to do double as hard as the guys do, to be at the best even half as good as the male co-workers at their worst. Oh well, I knew what was coming - I knew it even before my parents started to warn me about it, since the game is still somewhat same on the IT side too. But as I told to my teacher once when I was feeling pissed off enough about the prejudice I have to face and will be facing, I`m not gonna go to study SoHe-stuff. (SoHe = Social & Health; e.g. nurse, child care, the people of communal social services at least should have some sort of eduacation of this branch... e.t.c...) I chose the car repairings and the school I`m now in, was my nr. 1 choice. Also for the reason that I could finish my remaining IT-studies if getting enough motivation to do that anymore. Anyway, I must admit that now I do have such feeling that I really could do this for my living. I never had that feeling when doing the IT studies and the work practices of it - even if the work practice places were great and I liked to be in those places. It was merely just teaching me for a hobby so that I wouldn`t feel myself totally idiot with the computers. But then again, did I really learn anything special during those 3 years I spent there? -Not much. I knew HTML already and coded pages with my bare hands, so all in all the real thing I got from there was using the CSS and masks. Oh yes, I learned to hate Photoshop even deeper than what I did before that! (Omg... Sidepaths again! )
**sighs** So, sad that my teacher had so little time to spend there. I had bunch of things in my mind to ask or tell about, and he couldn`t even shake the hands of the garage chief who originally took me in to do my work practice in this place where I have been the past 4 weeks. Pity, because I had hoped for that my teacher could tell more about me to them, because now I feel I might have been again a bit too hard on myself when doing my summary about how I`ve done the things. He at least says always I`m too hard on myself, but let`s remember the entry from Friday, 16th of Dec, 2005 under the topic "Dreams" and we remember that my teacher can only be the person to show me the way, but I`m the one to walk through the doors he can`t. I`m the one to make my own success or failure and I can`t give in to the chance for low scores. A girl looses the battle for a job as a repairperson if she has as good grades as a guy has who`s applying for the same job. A girl MUST be TWICE as good as a guy, to be even half from the shadow of the guy. And I intend to be good enough to earn my place in this male dominated world of vehicles. I know what SoHe stuff is (also at its worse moments as well as on the best times) and I know I don`t want to do that when I`m +40 and same goes to the Business & Administration stuff - especially when it comes to doing a small everyday market stuff. I`ve always been liking more the "boyish toys", although I wouldn`t wish to change my gender for any price. And this work practice of mine has again taught me how much more I enjoy working with men because guys are more straight & honest, while in female dominated working places there rules the gossips, backstabbing and all kind of complicated social games and twists, which forces you to play along or you end up to the group of outsiders. Guys say more staight what they think about something or someone, and I prefer that over the "Yes, but..."
After my teacher and the other student were gone I snooped to see if they had come with his car or borrowed the school`s car and as I had had a haunch - they had 1 of the cars of school in use. () After that I returned quickly to my guiding mechanian to ask what I could do and I suggested that I could go to bug the other mechanian who I have been helping also while my own guide has been either wanted to do something without someone else sneaking behind his back or to be guarded, or that he simply didn`t have anything for me to offer and I got immediately the same old tasks I`ve about every time gotten from him. (Battery, tyres, oil change... On this time I could do even the filter all alone and even put the oils in. ) When I was back at my own guide and we were done pretty much everything (He even allowed me to put the oils in too, while he discussed with an other mechanian about something related to their work - I didn`t listen what.) - the joborganizer person comes to me and tells I can do the very first overhaul to the Renault that was standing in front of "our" lift. First I didn`t even register properly what he was saying and I was thinking that he was just talking to my guide who was after all rather near me too, but when the organizer person looks at me and hands the job list to me I slowly start to understant that its indeed me who he means and at the same time I`m overjoyed for this remarkable gesture of trust (Before my work practice began, my teacher had warned me that I can prepare myself to stand silently and watch how the pros do the overhauls & repairs and even the garage chief had spoken in such way that "Well, perhaps we can let you dirt your overall on the last day but most of the time you`re just standing there out of the way of the real mechanians and watch `em working..."), but at the same time I realized that this was at the same time a preliminay test for that I had asked if it might be possible also to get a summer job from there. I was feeling nervous, since I noticed some mechanians watching me and chatting and those 2 couldn`t even advise me when I asked how to adjust the height of light when it was appearing too low on the other front lamp! Fortunately my own guide at least told me the best tool for it, but I had to try via failure the light adjusting. I know I did some unnecessary movements and buzzings between the car and the overhaul duty list, and that I didn`t immediately spot everything in the engine room that I had to check, but that`s entirely the fault of my feelings of being excited and nervous. I even had to go to "argue" with the repair part sales to get the oil changing parts since nothing was booked ready because it was so new car - almost brand new.
I must admit I relaxed quite a lot when the joborganized arraged a lift for me and I could get myself away from the eyes of the most of the spectators. And although there came a complete family to buzz and watch my working when 1 other mechanic was doing some overhaul to their car right in front of my lift, I surprised myself by not taking any extra pressure from it and by appearing cool and like if I had known exactly what I was doing then, even if I was only pretty sure of that I knew what I was doing then. Fortunately the first overhaul is so simple to do, compared to the later ones. Still despite from that I did a lot of unnecessary movements and forgot to check this and that, and when I go again to read the list with a thought, I notice the things undone or half done and take a few deep and calming breaths repeating to myself "Calm down now dear girl. There`s no rush - just do what you have to do. You`re now one of the mechanians and you can show now what you are able to do. They trust you. They trusted enough to give this task for you to do and care."
I think I did it just fine at the end anyway. I left the easy task of oil changing to the end so that I could relax myself with the fact that at least the second last thing to do would be simple and familiar and when I was replacing a new oil filter on its place (my guide had had to open the old one for me because it was too tightly fastened for me. I couldn`t get a proper grip on it even with the right tools.) the customer/owner of the car comes to me and sees the oil that has leaked from the filter removal. (It would have leaked from anyone because of the way the filter is fastened to its place, so it wasn`t entirely my fault.) he looks and asks if I`m starting or about to end my work and if that oil on the bottom of the car is result of leakage, but I just smiled politely and answered that it was from the filter removal, and that the engine is perfectly clean otherwise. He looks to me like if he`s not taking me seriously and when I`m fastening the bottom armour back on its place he comes back again and almost insist on that he can drive his car off the garage but I say it`s still missing the test drive and he looks a bit like if he`s not trusting his precious car in my hands because I look so young and I`m a girl after all, but because I`m a mechanian at least in his eyes because I wear no tag on my overall telling me to be an apprentice and because my overall is the same kind as the others have too, he can`t raise a hell about me driving his jewel and I headed outside the garage for a short test ride. I couldn`t help hearing in my mind my mom saying that I must drive carefully because I have a strange car under myself, but the test drive goes just fine. (I didn`t even manage to shut it down to the crossings, even if it`s gone 1 and 1/2 weeks from my last proper driving with a manual geared car.) The car acted beautifully, but when I arrived back, I screw up with the locks of the doors and I have to pick up help from my guide, who solves the problem and advised me for the next possible case in the same nature. It was also giving me fantastic feelings when I spotted some looseness on the right front tyre and I had to ask an other mechanian to check my findings. He goes under the car and tells me to shake the tyre and the problem is gone and he says the problem to be exactly that what I had doubted it to be. Yippiee! I did my first overhaul myself! I`m so delighted for that gesture of trust and that I managed to do it alright, despite of the unnecessary nervousness and worrying. I`m feeling so happy that even if the customer was looking my overhaul document paper and examined my name for the possibility that I had screwed up something so that he would know who to blame, it ain`t casting much shadow over my feeligns of success. At least I think I didn`t screw up much.
Omg! It`s approximately 1 and 1/2 hours to the moment I must wake up again and start a new day. Whoops! I`ve been babbling so much here now...
Anyway, even if it`s here already 10th of Feb, 2006, I`m posting this entry as it were written on 9th of February instead. That`s after all the right day I`m talking about and also the day when I started to write it. I`ve just been on so talkative mood again... Babble, babble, babble... And Mr. Teacher: I intend to have that summing chat moment with you about this work practice when I return back to school! And I have listed down all kind of smaller and bigger thing I need to get done for my "white knight" before it can go to the inspection. And I don`t plan on doing the inspection visit twice, so put me work so well that my car goes through on the first shot!.