Balancing act: Handling due dates for new babies and job shop responsibilities

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When it comes to doing things on time, I’m sure we all have our setbacks. Some people like showing up early to the party and other people make excuses and show up late or never go at all. I grew up playing sports so showing up a little early was instilled in me, especially on game days. Now that I’m older, I still play sports occasionally and take adult kickball pretty seriously. But in all reality, if I don’t show up early to kickball, I know I will get hurt from not warming up properly.

When it comes to work and the daily ebbs and flows of a job shop, we have due dates on most of our jobs. The popular “I needed it yesterday” job is always present and the experienced workers take that with a grain of salt. Some jobs are pretty laid back and don’t require too much to complete it, but you never know what new adventure is around the corner so you better knock it out quickly so the work doesn’t pile up.

Take, for example, the surprises that occur when a new baby arrives. I have two beautiful daughters and they both came with some surprises, especially the second one. I was on a business trip to California with my friend Bill Illife to help expand his skateboard truck company, Illife Truck Co. We met with some of his old colleagues from his days at Intel to get some of our traditional kingpin style designs tweaked and machined.

I will elaborate on this in a future blog, but before we left on that trip (a month before my wife's due date), Bill told my wife Courtney to not have the baby while we were gone. On the last day of our trip, my phone rings very late at night. I did the math quickly and figured it was three hours later back home in North Carolina. Sure enough, my wife went into labor. I could talk for hours about this story. Fortunately, I made it back home and was there to witness the birth of my second child.

Before the recent birth of our third baby in early December, I needed to get some things accomplished before the due date. Not the same due date as a job shop is used to, but nevertheless, more than exciting. There were plenty of things to do to get ready for a baby. Nursery, crib, supplies, clothes. We had to put some clothes on this boy and the old hand-me-downs from our daughters might not do the trick.

So, when the [due] date of November 30 was set in stone, I was pretty nervous to travel anywhere besides work. Given the month-early surprise of our second child, I wasn’t going to risk it.

The crew at Mountains2Metal worked tirelessly to get new products ready for some Broncos that were going to be on display at the SEMA Show in Las Vegas in early November. I had my heart set on going to the show to witness our hard work on display. Although, I was warned by many people and some strangers that I would be crazy to try to attend. So, I took the high road and decided to stay home.

Shortly after SEMA was one of my favorite shows to attend, FABTECH. This year it was in Atlanta and is only about a seven-hour drive from the shop. That doesn’t seem like much, but I wouldn’t be able to keep my head on straight for that long but if my wife went into labor. I did it once before from all the way across the U.S., but my wife warned me she wouldn’t wait this time. So, I decided to hold off and let my dad Tim Martin and co-worker Zach Hall take the reins and walk the show floor. If I were to go, the inevitable would have happened.

While my dad and Zach were at FABTECH, Cody Rosenzweig and the Mountains2Metal crew were had their noses to the grindstone trying to get some new products released. Doing a product launch is very draining and there always seems to be one more thing that isn’t planned for. You can write it down all you want but sure enough, there is always something that will come up and slow you down.

While they were gone at FABTECH, we ran a few large jobs in the shop that eventually had to be put on the welding robot. I was running at full speed and didn’t slow down long enough to realize that I was the one that would have to program the robot.

Barnes Metalcrafters’ manager and father Nick Martin explains the delicate balancing act of due dates in the job shop and responsibilities at home with the arrival of a new baby.

My dad would casually tell me to get going on it, but without a weld fixture, what was I to do? That didn’t last long as one of our fabricators was quickly put on the task. With some back-and-forth ideas, we had a good fixture that was ready to be programmed. Finally, my dad called me in his office and showed me a chart with due dates. He said he needed that robot ready and welding before I was going to miss any work because of “the other due date.” I could see his excitement and figured I would ease some tensions and get the job done.

After a few hours, we were welding parts. You get going so fast in one direction that it is hard to kill all that momentum and switch tasks. The majority of the parts for that job were welded in a few days, and I had two more jigs that I had to program. We were on borrowed time by that point, but I knew we would get it done one way or another. As I sat there programming, our laser operator Derrick Whitaker came up to me and said he didn’t want to interrupt my video game but that he needed some help with the old laser. Sure enough, I was pulled away from the task and we plugged holes in the sinking ship, literally. It ended up being a water leak that took some time to address.

When it comes to due dates, there are several ways to approach them as a job shop. You can get all the parts done, but is the shop you are making them for going to use them right away? Sometimes they need just enough to get them out of trouble. These are all questions that you can work through when you have relationships with your customers. Seeing the pallet of parts you made on a shop floor, untouched, a couple weeks after delivery can hit below the belt. Oh well. That is how it goes. I couldn’t ask an unborn baby whether he was ready or not. So, when you have a baby on the way, take that due date seriously. I know I have.

Now I’m going to go find a burrito and keep practicing my swaddling.