Nov 24, Nov 25- its a doosy

Nov 24th

The ash was fairly busy today, I was back running them because B4aG got a call around 7:40p and went home for the day. I guess something happened with childcare for his kid, either way he left. Before he left, he informed the lead that he was not coming in tomorrow which I found out from a guy who used to work in my bay. Not even my bay coworkers! So I wanted to make sure it wasn't hearsay and asked B4aT if B4aG was in fact not coming in B4aT said it was true and B4aG was not. So both of my Bay coworkers are calling in tomorrow (B4aT told me he wasn't coming in the day before Thanksgiving break over a month ago), but now that leaves leaves me to run the busiest Bay in my department alone... Alone! I think tomorrow will be tiresome...

Nov 25th

Well I was hoping B4aG was going to change his mind and show, he did not. I bet he would have shown if today was a double points day (points go on a record and after so many points, "action, up to termination" can be taken). But awesome, an old Coworker who went to Bay 5a/6a was my helper for the day, since both of my coworkers were out! Super glad to have him back. I love working with him, he makes the day enjoyable. My lead took over Bay 5/6, leaving Coworker from B7C to run 7C and 7D, lots of people are doing double duty.

At the start of shift change there are 10-25 minutes that the two shift are both on. During the time the shifts are together there is this protocol that takes place called 'passdown.' Passdown is when the current shift passes down to next shift the going-ons of the Bay. What tools went down, why, are they up, do they need Qual, how busy the day was, what tools had the most P1 lots, are there any P1's in the tools currently, the counts on the descum (or Bay specific counter tools) and any other questions that are day specific if something different happened that day). Well this is the day before Thanksgiving and a lot of people called in or no showed. So passdown was crazy with all the work that needed to be done.

During passdown the Day 1 guy said that 7 people in the department were not at work for his shift. Leaving his shift with only 13 people in the department. I must have given a dumbfounded look from, what can be seen of the eyes anyway, because the next thing he said was "what?" i wanted to make sure he said that he only had 13 people in that day out of how many normally? 17 normally, and 13 that day... I explained my look because on my shift we start out with only having 13 people in that department, and for this day at least 2 are calling in (the two from my bay). I don't think I've worked a day with everyone there let alone today being a day where people are going to no-show. So that is what I told him, he 'only' had 13 people this day and we 'only' have 13 people, 4 ended up being out from our department and by end of shift were still able to make and exceed both goals for the department and the fab as a whole. Our department goal was 2,000 and we hit 3,200. The fab goal was 98,000 and we hit 103,000. Day shift with it's more people, doesn't make goal often.

And the day is not over...it was very eventful.
Next, just after shift change our department maintenance guy was working on a tool in Bay 3A, but he was in the in between Bay called a chase. It is where the back of the tools are. My sink has a glass around the loading end and you can see into the chase.

He was working on the tool with his back towards me and he had a slight cough. Not a big deal... Until he turned around and I could see his facemask was not over his nose and mouth. It wasn't even over his mouth. It was down under his chin! This is SUPER against protocol, so I told my lead and she told my supervisor. My super said that we've been having a problem with this maintenance man for awhile even when he is in the bays because he feels like since he doesn't directly work with the product, he doesn't need to cover his nose or mouth with the mask, even though both nose and mouth are the biggest sources of contaminants inside a clean room (when wearing protective items properly). My super told my lead to tell me to write an email to the maintenance man's boss because maybe he might finally do something about it. My lead took me to a back corner of a different bay, sat me at the computer and directed me to where I could send the message. ---- (Update: 1/26/16, remember this it comes up again. it a few times)

When we find the bosses message box a pop up comes up that says 'user not allowed. Fab techs can only send messages to supervisors'. So I sent the message to my Super, starting it off as "Supper please forward. Dear [MM Boss]..." When done, I thanked MM Boss in advance for any help he could offer to correct the issue.

At shift change from N1 to D2, the step in coworker (from 5a/6a) went to get water from the gowning room and said there was no one in there changing for the next shift yet. Just around 5:45/5:47, people started trickling in, they were going to be working on a skeleton crew. That sucks.