For Take Your Kid to Work Day I could not go with my dad because the majority of the time he works on restricted or access-given job sites as a fire alarm technician, and I couldn’t shadow my mum because she takes night shifts. so today I am shadowing my dad’s coordinator, Marian, in my dad’s office. In the office they have three different coordinators, Marian, who’s team handles new or still-in-construction buildings, Collin, who’s team goes into Marian’s buildings a year after they finish their installations to look over the building, keep sure everything in functioning, and fix anything that might be malfunctioning, and Blair, who’s team manage malfunctions and trouble calls. Unfortunately, Blair was not in today, he was out sick, so Collin and Marian had to pick up his emails and calls as well as their own. There wasn’t a whole lot I could do to help out Marian since most of her work was on her computer but she still kept me up to date on everything she was doing and working on. The main job of all three coordinators is to keep up with the calls and emails for the fire alarm systems, make the technician’s schedule, and dispatch a technician to every call.
This morning my dad had to go into office for a little bit, a rare occasion as he barely comes in at all, so the first thing he did when we entered was give me a tour of the office. It is the ground floor of a yellow building in Burnaby. When we got there not everyone was in the office yet but he introduced me to the people that were, and he introduced me to his supervisor, Troy, and of course Marian. The mornings I’m told are the most hectic, after Marian picked up her messages and she went over to go pick up Blair’s messages. Since she works with mostly unfinished buildings, Marian’s projects can go on for ages, because while building a structure or skyscraper, etcetera, every alternation or addition in the structure changes everything in the electrical wiring.
In the first half of the morning I sat beside Marian and watched her work on her computer as she explained everything she was doing to me, the second half of the morning Marian gave me some things to do. The coordinators do a lot more than I thought they did, they pick up calls, answer emails, communicate to the technicians, actually, they have to communicate with everyone, they write out files, create and prepare the technicians’ schedules, get the office ready for the next day, and quite a bit more. Marian decided it would be useful to teach me how to file. Since Blair wasn’t in today I sat at his desk and used his computer, which was at the front of the office right near the entrance (I lost count of how many times I heard the joke “Hey Blair dyed his hair today” or “Hey Blair you look a different,” every time someone entered the office.)
After our lunch break and my filing Marian brought me to the other side of the office, where the salespeople sat, and showed me what she did when a project was set and completed. She collects all the information of a file and puts all the information in an envelope with a completed certificate of the project, she then closes the envelope and puts it on a table at the front of the office where customers either pick it up or have a technician drop them off. The customer need this envelope before they can open their building to prove that they have gone through all the pre-cautions during construction. After they put the envelopes on the front table they go to the filing room to go and place the file they were using either back where it came from, or if it was a new project, in the appropriate placement.
At about 2:30 Marian started to show me what she did to get ready for the next day. She had to go into the schedules of every Fire alarm technician on her team and update their progress on their job, she would then get in contact with the technicians and see where they were at in progress of their work and she would ask them their opinion of where they thought they should go the next day. Marian would ask the technicians if they had a big project that didn’t get finish and if they thought it would be better if they went back there tomorrow, or if they thought they should go back next week. That was one thing I really liked about Marian, I thought it was very kind of considerate of her to ask the technician’s what they wanted to do the next day before she assigned them something even though it was completely her decision and if she wanted she could assign them to any job she wanted or thought was fit.
All in all, after my full day from 8:00am-4:30pm, I thought that shadowing my dad’s coordinator for a day went well. I have a better understanding of how it works to be a coordinator and how my dad is sent to his jobs. The job of a co-ordinator can be stressful, difficult, and have to be quick to think, especially if there’s a problem or a complication, like how Blair was absent the day I was there, but I can definitely say now that I have a much better appreciation for what Marian and her job do for the whole company.
Marian at her desk
Blairs desk
The Co-ordinators work space