Job Shadow

I went on my job shadow today. We started at approximately 8am, and I finished at 12:30pm. Then went to lunch at IHOP.

Here’s the story of the day’s shadow.

First, we met at Aroma Roasters. Then we drove to the lab, to pick up some water testing equipment, a box full of empty jugs. After that, we drove to his house. Along the way, we passed the Eldridge Sonoma State Hospital. It’s probably full of crazy people.

When we got to the guy’s estate, we had to call the house, via the keypad which then allowed us to enter. The person on the other end buzzed us in. While driving on the long driveway, decorated by a vineyard on both sides, Rich, the person I’m shadowing, pointed out that there were little signs directing one where to go, like at a theme park. Each sign post included a security camera. There were three posts until we arrived at the house. There was a guest house on the driveway in.

When we finally parked the car, between some trees, the guy’s wife came out and greeted both of us. We quickly got to our planned task, collect some water samples from his complex water system. Rich had such a hard time gathering water samples because he wanted the reverse osmosis system to be working while he took the samples. That part, getting the reverse osmosis unit working took the longest, (2+ hours).

The system was so complex, there was no shutoff switch, no manual override, and in the end, we found that the probes in the tank to monitor water levels were in a redundant system. We had to go check on the tanks four or five times, each time requiring a long hike up a 45-degree trail. That was most tiring.

This Intel guy had so much water stuff, he didn’t even know what it did. When he went into the mechanical room, he said “This is the first time I’ve seen any of this stuff”, or something to that effect. I think he just got sold all the stuff because he can afford it, I mean, he must have billions of dollars if he invented DRAM, the EPROM, and the world’s first microprocessor… Oh well.

Rich said that Les said that the reverse osmosis machine worked practically all day, but for the two hours we were there, it started at the very end, at approximately 11am. If everything had been operating correctly, Rich said that this entire thing could have taken less than 15-minutes. But that would have been boring. Maybe if it was that short, I would have been able to see some of what will be done with the water samples at the lab. At least we figured out a problem, sorta.

Apparently, Les’s house is run off a well, naturally for being out in the country. He has a pool, spa, the house water, of course, his irrigation system, two fountains, and a fire/emergency system which includes sprinklers and various fire hydrants. All those hookups are run from the well water. Rich told me that sometimes he runs out of water. I thought, Duh, he’s got so much stuff hooked up to it. But it could have been anything, from bad piping designs, to leaks.

When we finally got the reverse osmosis system to work, taking the water samples didn’t take very long at all. He put all the jugs back into the box, and didn’t check if the caps were very tight. Oh well. When we got back in town, he opened the trunk to drop off the samples at the Brelje & Race laboratory, the box that was holding the samples was damp, probably because a bottle leaked. Inside the company car’s trunk, which Rich drives all the time, were two bags full of basketballs, because he coaches his son’s CYO basketball team, and a bunch of jumpropes. One of which we used to try and trick the reverse osmosis pump into thinking that the tank was empty, which should have caused it to turn on, but didn’t.

In the end, the way we figured out how to get it working was just to wait, but Rich thinks that we would have waited all day unless we tricked the reverse osmosis pump into thinking that the tank was empty.

Some pictures from the trip.