It’s #Friday the 8th, roughly one hour to go
before a well needed (at least it sure feels like it) #vacation starts. We
haven’t yet received the class authority go on leaving for #sea trials next
week. For the non ship builders: When a ship leaves for her first voyage, the
(sea) trials, the ships certification authority has to declare her fit for
testing.

It’s raining cats and dogs so I quickly remove
my jacket and helmet when I’m back in. “Let’s hope it’s not the same next
week…”. Together with my superior we discuss the last transfer of info
and updates before shutting down my pc in an hour. The phone rings, it must be
the class surveyor with whom I agreed to have a final tel conference call to
discuss the last sea trial items. We close the office door, put the surveyor on
speaker phone and start discussing his remarks. Luckily he only makes a few
minor remarks. The phone call ends with a class go on sea trials next week. Another
small victory.

With this hurdle out of the way, it’s about 30
minutes to finishing the week. Jacket and helmet back on, one more round past
the guys at the outfitting quay. All is well, nothing major to have to act on.
We shake hands: “See you in a couple mate!” Time to head back to the
desk and check any last emails. Still wiping the rain drops from my face I meet
two colleagues at the office entrance. Again we spend a few minutes exchanging
the last updates and info, all is well. All right, time to close it down and
head home. Then Bert walks in… “We have a valve coming in, it just left
the airport and has to be placed on the vessel tonight by crane”.

At this point I have two routes: The first is
questioning Berts judgement to find out the urgency, the second is acting.
Knowing Berts amount of experience and the fact he never asks questions without
sound reason I obviously choose the second. “Bert what time is the valve
coming in?…All right I’ll try and make some phone calls.” I call the
yards head of transportation and tell him the urgency. We arrange for an
evening shift to be standby to lift the valve aboard the vessel by crane the
moment it arrives later during the evening. The phone call ends, I give Bert
the update…another happy customer :D. This surely was the last hurdle?

Again I take of my coat and helmet, check my
last emails, shut off the computer and pack my bag. Off to home then…

This was a short recap of my last working hour before going on vacation. I do my best to continuously function through a few ground rules one of which is: Maximizing my added value. If I interested you in reading more about some of my experiences in shipbuilding and business, check out my article on “What a janitor can tell us“.