t was a rather eventful week here at Ideal. During the beginning of the week, I revised and posted a large consumable report onto SAP once I received the approval of the PMs. Purchasing establishes the rates of the consumable items and then the PMs and PEs confirm the network and activity numbers for me to punch into SAP. Once that task was done, I shifted my focus to the master vehicle fuel report. Every month, Virg must go through copies of receipts and punch in certain data containing mileage for each vehicle that was used on a job. Later on, I work on a few miscellaneous office assignments and gathered SOY shirts of superintendents for them to wear during the event in August.
The highlight of the week was obviously the Fort Wayne job site visit. We arrived Wednesday evening, checked into our hotel and had a nice steak dinner with Glenn and Derek. It was a great opportunity to bond with one another and learn about their respective career tracks. Glenn was a member of one of the first ever Ideal Contracting intern classes, and he is now the senior manager for this huge Barton Malow project which to me is very impressive. His loyalty to the company must be a testament to the training, mentoring, and family-oriented foundation Ideal provides to its people — qualities that only certain companies can boast.
We got a tour of the job site. Jon Hautau and Gus Cerku also contributed to the tour, as they contain an abundance of knowledge on the subject of construction, both on the managerial and labor sides. The three of them, Glenn, Hautau, and Gus, touched on a multitude of concepts that are not explained in a typical college or university classroom. It taught me that much of what you do in the workplace is knowledge that is obtained on the job and passed down by more experienced professionals, rather than from a McGraw-Hill textbook.
Below are some pictures we took on the trip. A huge thank you goes out to the following people for helping make this field trip a success: Jon Hautau, Yesi Ramos, Alex Hamric, Gus Cerku, Glenn Peer, and Derek Wolo–You guys are the best!
Cement laying. A laser beam helps detect the smoothness and levelness of the floor, so that there are no bumps. This is a relatively new innovation within the construction industry that has helped make the lives of these hard-working laborers much easier.