Starting at Toyota

So, the big news--how is Toyota? It's a completely different mindset from anywhere else I've worked. That's probably because it's so much bigger. I could see that creating many difficulties, but Toyota places such strong emphasis on systems that the potential problems should be able to be avoided or resolved, or so I believe. Resolution does tend to take a while, though, from what I've seen. 

There are several things I have heard over and over that I am very excited about:

• Toyota is a fantastic company
• There is plenty of training
• There are paths designed for transfer to other positions

My first two weeks were an orientation, focused on creating the culture that people want to have from the beginning. I met several people, but I mostly hung out with the other maintenance guys. They are generally a great group of people I think--quite fun. After orientation, we spent two weeks at the community college, mostly taking safety classes to prepare us for being at the plant. That period ended yesterday, but most of us still did not have team assignments yet (including me), so we will be back at the college on Monday.

There is so much more I could say, but I guess I should have made daily notes because those things are not coming to me now. So for now, let's go back to before I started at Toyota. I ended up only subbing two days out of the three weeks I was unemployed. I should have subbed another 1-2 days, but I got sick. I wish I had been able to sub more, but I was fairly productive with my time off--cleaning, organizing, and investigating houses. Oh, I also tried to help out with some 3D printing and scanning for a couple of days.

Bible memory has gone well. I have a 60 day streak and have nearly finished learning (or rather, starting to learn) Romans 8. Church, prayer, and Bible reading have not been as consistent. I haven't missed a morning service except when I was sick, but I haven't consistently attended the evening services. My reading has veered toward webfiction. I did purchase some books recommended in the systematic theology class at church, but I haven't read much of them yet. I've been cooking a good bit, even during the work week. When I don't have anything else to do, I have been playing Satisfactory. I don't get sucked in as much as I did for Factorio, though--I find it hard to play for more than two hours at a time. I think it's because my new way of playing is to make modular factories that are visually appealing and logical, which involves a whole lot more than just finding sources and connecting machines with conveyer belts.

Now that I feel confident about my career future, I have been researching houses. By my next post--hopefully in early summer--I hope to have a plan for acquiring my own residence. I've been looking at houses that are already built, but they rarely have the features I like, whereas new modular home designs are more in the style that I want. A modular home would require that I have land, which adds considerable complexity to the already intimidating process of acquiring a house.