Patti O'Shea's Blog

Everyone who works in Technical Operations at my airline is required to go to Human Factors Training. It’s a two-day course to try to make people more aware that little things can start an accident chain. That’s a real loose definition, but it’s the best I can do to condense all those hours of training down to one sentence.

On the first day, we were split into five groups of five, given a plastic container with Lego pieces and 3 assembly instruction books, and told to assemble a tractor. Only it wasn’t quite that easy. First we had to assign roles to each member of the group. I’m not quite sure how it happened, but I ended up as group leader. We also had an inspector, a wheel and brake guy, a guy who could only assemble black plastic pieces, and another who could only touch pieces that weren’t black. Oh! And a materials guy. He was the only one who could hand pieces to those doing the assembly.

The age range according to Lego was 7-13. Surely, five adults (four of whom are airplane mechanics) can assemble something a seven-year-old child could. Even if we were only allowed 45 minutes.

If you said of course, you’d be wrong.

When I mentioned three different instruction books that would be because there were parts for three different products in the box–a race car, a weird motorcycle thing, and our tractor. I grabbed the motorcycle instructions by mistake. The thing looked like a tractor to me. Luckily, I figured it out before we started putting pieces together.

First human factors crisis averted.

Lego does not put words in their instructions. It’s all pictures. I do better with words with images as illustrations than with pictures alone. Strike one. Also, I found Lego’s images ambiguous on where to attach things. So did my team.

We tried to line up with colors since there were red, blue, gray and green pieces in addition to the black. Lego didn’t always show the color or at least we couldn’t see it. Lego also would list we needed two pieces of the same type, but only show one being attached in their drawing. That forced us to page ahead trying to see where to put the second piece, and when that wasn’t readily findable, guessing. Later, we’d find where the piece went and have to try to fit it on after we’d gone past that stage.

It took a while, but we finally built up some momentum. And then the instructor said shift change. That meant the guy who’d just started figuring things out had to hand off his job to someone else. Not long after this, the instructor started asking how we were doing and when we’d be finished.

This was a human factors element because mechanics would be dealing with this in the hangars. Me? This didn’t bother me very much because it’s a different mindset in the office–at least to some degree. I did nearly tell the instructor, though, that we’d be done faster if he’d stop bothering us.

The first team finishes their tractor in 35 minutes. It looks like a tractor. I look down at ours. We’re still working on the center assembly and looks nothing like a piece of farm equipment. A second group finishes their tractor and a third group right behind them. My group is still working.

Pieces fall off our center assembly when we turn it to add a new Lego. This isn’t good.

Time is called. We’re not even close to finished.

Our tractor is still only the center assembly and now our work is going to be critiqued. All the guys who finished their tractors had made mistakes on things. Well, I thought, we might not have made it too far, but at least what we did was correct. It wasn’t. We’d attached part of the assembly in the wrong place. We failed. Utterly.

Since this is training what were the lessons learned? The big thing was that we should have divided the work and had more than one guy working at a time. I didn’t think of that because I like to follow instructions step by step and not jump around. The second thing I learned was that I should never be in charge of a project like this. I have no experience in building things and can’t make informed decisions. The only good thing about my being the leader is that I didn’t have to do any assembly. Believe me, our tractor would have ended up in worse shape than it was if I had.

On Day Two, we were given a plane crash scenario–we are survivors of a plane crash, but we’re in the desert and it’s a 135 degrees. Rank the importance of the items you have. Then he told us to work in our tractor teams. My announcement? We’re doomed.

Adventures can happen in the oddest places at the oddest times. Yesterday I had one when I least expected it.

I was supposed to go to SET training yesterday, but a half an hour before it started, I was told to go to Part 145 Mod 1 training instead. I know, the names don’t mean anything to you, but it helps keep them straight as I talk. SET training was 45 minutes, Part 145 Mod 1 is 4 hours.

This changes also required me to mentally shift my schedule for the day. Not my favorite thing because I’m not a real fan of spur of the moment anything. I like time to plan, and although this is far cry from say, hopping on a plane and flying to Singapore, it’s still a disruption to my mental organization and I don’t like this. I always end up feeling frazzled as my mind tries to adjust to the new plan.

The Part 145 Mod 1 training is in a training room above Hangar 4. This is an area of the building that I’m unfamiliar with because I never go over there. Keep in mind that lining the hallways are rooms to clean airplane parts, shops that fix parts, boxes with parts, and all the other equipment needed to fix airplanes. When I say the training room is over hangar 4, I mean it is directly over hangar 4, so I’m in the maintenance operation area.

I’ll skip all the training stuff, including the fact that I nearly got bumped out of the room, and get to my inadvertent adventure.

We get a break and I seek out a restroom. I went down the hallway by the training room, but there’s just more training rooms. I go down the stairs and to my left. I find the men’s room, but that doesn’t help me. Someone finally points me the other direction and tells me it’s down by the garage door (remember, I’m in the hangars area.)

I thought I missed it. I walked and walked and walked and there are multiple “garage doors” all over this place. I was thinking I was going to have to ask someone for help, when I finally spotted it. Whew! It’s actually a fairly large bathroom with those round fountain type sinks like you sometimes see in grade schools. I wash and dry my hands, put some lotion on, and leave to head back to class.

I stop short just outside the door. This doesn’t look right. Which way do I go?

I study the area, trying to figure out which way to turn. This really looks unfamiliar. In fact, it doesn’t even look like a hallway, it looks like a hangar. How can I come in from the hallway, and when I leave, it’s a hangar?

The light bulb goes on. There must be two doors!

I turn around and go back in the bathroom. Sure enough, there are two doors. I go out the other one, the one I would have known to use if I’d 1) been paying attention when I walked in. That side of the bathroom was much different than the opposite side. 2) wasn’t completely directionally challenged. 3) wasn’t already feeling a bit frazzled about being late getting back to class because of how far the restroom was from the training room.

This time I am in the hallway, but I still have to figure out which way to go. Yes, I am that directionally challenged and the other items in the previous paragraph apply here, too. I chose left. I had a 50/50 shot and I was right! Woot!

Of course, I still needed help finding my way back to the main hallway after class, but that’s another story.

At work on Tuesday, the 757 engineers received new desk chairs. Unassembled.

(In case you’re wondering why I didn’t get a new chair, it’s because I’m no longer part of 757 Engineering. I’m now in Maintenance Programs and under a different manager.)

My first thought upon seeing this unassembled chairs is that this should be right up an engineer’s alley. Most of them have hobbies that seem to involve putting things together–or taking things apart and then putting them back together. Apparently, chairs are another story.

Instructions? We don’t need no stinking instructions! Then he turns to me and asks what he should do first. I said I think you’d start by putting the casters in the base. It makes sense, right? Start at the bottom? So he opens the plastic bag with the casters and hands me the instructions. A quick glance at the paper said I was right, but even after asking me do you think that’s what the engineer did? Um, no.

While I’m perusing the directions, he decides to insert the pneumatic cylinder into the seat bottom. The reason I know it was the pneumatic cylinder is that’s what it was called in step 2. I would have just called it the tube thing.

When I glanced up and saw what he was doing, I was like, dude, that’s step 2 and you’re putting the cylinder in the wrong place anyway. I showed him Figure 1.

At his objection to having to follow the instructions, I said, “I’m glad I’m not going to be sitting in that chair.” He reconsidered doing things his way and decided to give the manufacturer’s process a chance.

At this point, one of the tech writers came in and sat down. All our tech writers are former airplane mechanics, so I figured they didn’t need my presence. While the two of them were working to install the casters, I excused myself for a restroom run. When I came back, the casters were in the base and the pneumatic cylinder had been installed correctly. Mostly. The men had decided to remove the plastic sheath. I was told I never should have left them on their own. Hmm.

I spent the rest of the assembly process reading directions aloud. And rereading them. And holding out the paper and pointing to the diagrams.

The final outcome? Chair was assembled, but the tilt feature won’t work. All in all, I thought we did well. I’m still kind of amazed, though, that an engineer and a former mechanic needed me to help them get that chair together.