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Taking Work
Nov. 12th, 2008 09:51 pmToday, for the first time on this job, I took work home. Well, not quite all the way home. You see, this week's project is to take all the sub-team investigation reports for the current Major Project and integrate them into a single Interim Report. The first step in the process is, in essence, simple copy-editing. I review the report, mark it up for consistent style and formatting. Add queries for clarification. Tag for any major section-rearrangement to fit the overall report format. Identify sections to be compiled and summarized in the overall Executive Summary. That sort of thing. The sort of thing I do best on hard-copy but am easily distracted from. So I finished marking up one of the two sub-team reports that has come in and decided I really wanted to have the other (longer) one done and ready to go first thing in the morning. Hence, taking it home.
But on the way, I concluded that once I got home I wasn't likely to pull my nose out of the computer long enough to work on it, so I decided to pull my old grad school stunt and work at a cafe instead. This required stopping by Office Depot to pick up a red pen because if I'd gone home to get a pen, I wouldn't have left again. But in any event, I got the whole thing marked up over dinner and it was no longer work by the time I got it home. Hence, unsuccessful at "taking work home".
I also went out on a limb today and made a prediction about the phenomenon I'm investigating. Without being too revealing, there's a test parameter for our product batches that was regularly coming out above the Action Limit during a period in September and early October but since then has been relatively low. The thing that the discrepant batches have most in common is the time-frame in which they were tested, and yet nothing in the test process itself has been identified as correlated with "high" versus "low" results. Having looked at the last couple years of data, there seems to be an irregularly periodic fluctuation in this parameter (independent of any factors that might be expected to result in high or low results). On the basis of those patterns, I'm predicting that the elevated test results will start appearing again around 11/21. I still haven't a bleeping clue what the actual cause of the elevated results is, I just think we're likely to get into another elevated period around then. It will be interesting to see if my prediction comes true (particularly since I've made it in front of my whole department in order to have witnesses).
But on the way, I concluded that once I got home I wasn't likely to pull my nose out of the computer long enough to work on it, so I decided to pull my old grad school stunt and work at a cafe instead. This required stopping by Office Depot to pick up a red pen because if I'd gone home to get a pen, I wouldn't have left again. But in any event, I got the whole thing marked up over dinner and it was no longer work by the time I got it home. Hence, unsuccessful at "taking work home".
I also went out on a limb today and made a prediction about the phenomenon I'm investigating. Without being too revealing, there's a test parameter for our product batches that was regularly coming out above the Action Limit during a period in September and early October but since then has been relatively low. The thing that the discrepant batches have most in common is the time-frame in which they were tested, and yet nothing in the test process itself has been identified as correlated with "high" versus "low" results. Having looked at the last couple years of data, there seems to be an irregularly periodic fluctuation in this parameter (independent of any factors that might be expected to result in high or low results). On the basis of those patterns, I'm predicting that the elevated test results will start appearing again around 11/21. I still haven't a bleeping clue what the actual cause of the elevated results is, I just think we're likely to get into another elevated period around then. It will be interesting to see if my prediction comes true (particularly since I've made it in front of my whole department in order to have witnesses).
