Sarah's Vocational Day
Sarah was dropped off at the Tuolumne Sheriffs Office in Sonora, which is nice and close to the county jail and Court. Met Lt Ruckman who is charge of the office, and has a lot of experience in different fields of law enforcement. Knowledgeable guy! I had a quick look around the office, listened to the briefing for the shift, and was introduced to Alex who would be riding with me for the day (poor bugger). We started the shift off by washing the car...but unlike at home, we didn't have to wash it, the inmates did it for us! Best Idea! So while we waited for the car to be detailed, we had a look through the armoury, SWAT room and a quick look around the Jail. Different system here than at Madera. They don't have the Officer walking around the inmates which I think is a little bit safer!
We headed out on patrol and Alex showed me the trouble areas (Jamestown) and the more touristy places (Columbia). The scenery is lovely and I'm lucky to be able to go on ride alongs and generally get to see a lot more of it than the rest of the team.
Glen's Vocational Day:
Today I went to Trotter Welding & Steel Supply with Clay Rosasco and Jerry Nielsen. They are a steel processing plant that employ 150 people and have a lot of machinery infrastructure including plasma cutters, four brake pressers (one of them was 750 tonne!) and a lot of rollers. In Tassie we use four major suppliers from all over the state, but here, everything is in the one shop. They also have their own machining and fabrication shops, it was huge!
Once again, my cultural experience took me to Mexican. After lunch I went back to my hosts (Henry and Judy) to play cards. I had my first Artichoke. Henry tried to teach me how to play Rummy 500... tried.
Michelle's Vocational Day:
I went to the Sonora Regional Hospital, which is a privately owned (Seventh Day Adventist) and met with Julie Kline. Unfortunately I was 2 minutes late to see a near birth in the Foyer of the Hospital. Julie works in the HR department of the Hospital.
She introduced me to Tom who is the recruiting officer. I spent the day with him talking about hoe they do their recruitment and advertising and also with the fact that they are classified as a remote area. This makes it similar to Tasmania with the difficulties of encouraging and retraining staff in the remote areas. As it was an induction day for new staff at the hospital, I was able to sit in on their Induction Programs which covered OHS and other departmental policies. I had a tour of the hospital, and drawing from hospitals that I have worked in around the world, found the facilities were of high standards as it is a relatively new hospital.
I spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the hospital observing practices and technology before being picked up and taken home to my host family (Donna and David, their son and girlfriend and the cats and dogs which I had problems with).
Will's Vocational Day
Will visited local Community College Columbia College. Have I explained the whole concept of Community Colleges, State Universities and University of California before? I'll check through the blogs and post an explanation if not...
The day started inauspiciously when my radio alarm clock went off and I heard on the radio news that the Columbia College phone system was off the air. Thousands of staff and students were without phone services... We rang the Head of ICT at the College at about 7:30am to ask if today might be a bad day? He said to come anyway...
I had a great tour of the facility and learned quite a bit. Although the College is bigger than mine and has an older student population, they were managing many of the same facilities as us, and grappling with many of the same problems. Interim boss Brian De Moss provided me with some great ideas about desktop PC management, online learning management systems and video conferencing. It was a very interesting day. Hopefully I'll speak to them again to discuss thing in more detail.
Chris' Vocational Day
Guess what Westy saw for his day??
Westy's Vocational Day - Continuos Roll Rack & Cutting Machine
That's right! Westy saw another carpet shop. Chris and the manager agreed that within about 2 hours they could probably both run each others businesses. One observation is that carpet salesmen in the US seem to be paid at higher rate than their counterparts in Australia. Contractors are near enough to the same though.
Westy's Vocational Day - A Big Stack of Carpet!
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