Sunday, April 29, 2007
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Vermonting
I've been here for about two months now, and things are going reasonably well.
The positives:
-I've adapted quickly to the tasks that I've been trained in: brewing, cleaning fermenters and counting yeast cells. I have a ways to go on lab work and want to learn to work the particular filter we have, and I'm sure I'll get my chance.
-My social life is better than I expected. It's tough to hang out with the other brewers when we're all on different schedules, but everyone has been really thoughtful about inviting me out when it's possible. So far I've gone out to lunch, hung out at a couple of bars in Burlington, been to a party and taken a road trip. This Friday I may be going to see a hippiegrass band called Hot Buttered Rum and opening act Luke Eriksen, who draws comparisons to Neil Young. We'll see about that. On Saturday, it's another party.
-The area is beautiful. I'm between the Adirondack and Green mountains, with Lake Champlain to the northwest of me. Forest is abundant and New England towns are really cool looking. I biked to work yesterday, which made me feel good, even though my back derailleur shifted on its own terms.
-We brew excellent beer and you should try it!
-The apartment has worked out nicely. I could use a vacuum cleaner and screens on my windows, but my landlord has otherwise been really accommodating.
The only real negative, aside from the giant but expected bummer of missing Rachel like crazy, is that I don't like the job very much. Here's why:
-I perform the same few steps of a process several times a day and pass the results on to somebody else, as opposed to following each beer from beginning to end and doing something different each day to support it. It's like working on an assembly line. I had to do more grunt work at Whitney's, but it was part of something that I was excited about and in direct control of. This job is way more mundane.
-Despite the boring nature of my tasks, the stress level is pretty high. Whether I succeed or fail on a given day is determined by how much I can accomplish in the 5-minute gaps between frantic activity. Somewhere in there, I get hungry and want to eat lunch.
-The guy who I was so excited about working for is never there. He spends about fifteen hours a week at his desk, and the rest of his work life is devoted to running his brewing school from a different location. I still think he's a really smart guy who I could learn a lot from, so it's unfortunate that I've had almost no contact with him beyond polite greetings and time-off requests. My training hasn't changed since I was passed off to my peers on the first day. The other brewers are great people, but it's been like going to vocational school when I expected a university education. Given that I've never worked a job that was designed for my benefit, I think being showered with knowledge was a silly expectation on my part.
Hopefully most of my dissatisfaction is due to the fact that I'm still adjusting - I'm competent enough to do the job but not comfortable enough to do it effortlessly. Once it's effortless, I'll be able to alleviate the repetition by goofing off :). Whether it gets better or not, I'm not exactly breaking my back or going poor here. Overall, this has been a good experience and I still believe it'll repay me in spades down the road.
The positives:
-I've adapted quickly to the tasks that I've been trained in: brewing, cleaning fermenters and counting yeast cells. I have a ways to go on lab work and want to learn to work the particular filter we have, and I'm sure I'll get my chance.
-My social life is better than I expected. It's tough to hang out with the other brewers when we're all on different schedules, but everyone has been really thoughtful about inviting me out when it's possible. So far I've gone out to lunch, hung out at a couple of bars in Burlington, been to a party and taken a road trip. This Friday I may be going to see a hippiegrass band called Hot Buttered Rum and opening act Luke Eriksen, who draws comparisons to Neil Young. We'll see about that. On Saturday, it's another party.
-The area is beautiful. I'm between the Adirondack and Green mountains, with Lake Champlain to the northwest of me. Forest is abundant and New England towns are really cool looking. I biked to work yesterday, which made me feel good, even though my back derailleur shifted on its own terms.
-We brew excellent beer and you should try it!
-The apartment has worked out nicely. I could use a vacuum cleaner and screens on my windows, but my landlord has otherwise been really accommodating.
The only real negative, aside from the giant but expected bummer of missing Rachel like crazy, is that I don't like the job very much. Here's why:
-I perform the same few steps of a process several times a day and pass the results on to somebody else, as opposed to following each beer from beginning to end and doing something different each day to support it. It's like working on an assembly line. I had to do more grunt work at Whitney's, but it was part of something that I was excited about and in direct control of. This job is way more mundane.
-Despite the boring nature of my tasks, the stress level is pretty high. Whether I succeed or fail on a given day is determined by how much I can accomplish in the 5-minute gaps between frantic activity. Somewhere in there, I get hungry and want to eat lunch.
-The guy who I was so excited about working for is never there. He spends about fifteen hours a week at his desk, and the rest of his work life is devoted to running his brewing school from a different location. I still think he's a really smart guy who I could learn a lot from, so it's unfortunate that I've had almost no contact with him beyond polite greetings and time-off requests. My training hasn't changed since I was passed off to my peers on the first day. The other brewers are great people, but it's been like going to vocational school when I expected a university education. Given that I've never worked a job that was designed for my benefit, I think being showered with knowledge was a silly expectation on my part.
Hopefully most of my dissatisfaction is due to the fact that I'm still adjusting - I'm competent enough to do the job but not comfortable enough to do it effortlessly. Once it's effortless, I'll be able to alleviate the repetition by goofing off :). Whether it gets better or not, I'm not exactly breaking my back or going poor here. Overall, this has been a good experience and I still believe it'll repay me in spades down the road.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Family Photo
(From left to right) Eliza, Miriam, Linda, Craig, John, Granny (Joyce), Margie, Tom, Rachel, Karen, and Joe.
My Grandfather's (Jerry) funeral was last weekend. Here's a photo of some of our family that met up in Milwaukee.
The lovely, always generous Lizz sent us a fun present for Oscar! A woman in NYC makes these bottle cap collars for pets. This particular collar features bottle caps from Joe's current brewery (Otter Creek) and some other New England microbreweries. Thanks, Lizz!
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