Yang Ma Ma speaks...

(*gorry stamping feet* MUMMMMMMY!!!!! Get offf my bloggggggggggg)

Looking in retrospect over the past 1.5 yrs, its been one of the best times of my life... I know people always give a contorted face whenever they talk abt their jobs but being E&S has been the most eye opening experiences in my career so far....

I used to think that being a scheduler just entailed sitting beside the phone and yelling at operators & technologists... Who knew that being a scheduler was such a fundamental role player in the refinery?

1.5 yrs ago, i carried all my barang into the MCR to meet my new Mummy (Gladys) and havent looked back since. All i knew back then was temperature, pressure, catalyst deactivation and Hystar... I knew nuts about tanks, tank bottom contamination, product specifications etc etc.

The tech environment i had been in is in such a deluded state! There's no such thing as the money spinning machine. Whoever thinks of units in those terms and fights for glory to be the high profile unit tech is, honestly, unaware and completely ignorant of our industry.

Streams from the units are worthless until they are blended into a product. Until they meet a specification and even then, whether there is a market for it. Why did we kid ourselves previously that only the high profile units are the only units worth fighting for?!

Remmebering how a certain ex-colleague used to make life hell for ggqq just because she got allocated a "high profile money spinner" totally makes me incredulous now in retrospect how ignorance of our industry could change 1's behaviour.

I had only dabbled in the black oil cut for 3 months before being unceremoniously hauled out of it to do Crude scheduling to the jibes, laughter and amusement of Big Bad Wolf. But i'm sure BBW was really proud of me =))

To jump from product to crude is a big deal. Particularly if u've only been doing product for 3 months!!!!! :''''((((

The first thing that i had to master was THE MACRO. This scary looming thing was held in such high regard by BBW, Mummy and others that it frankly scared the hell out of me. What's THE MACRO u ask? Its a 3 weeks plan for our refinery down to the detailed discharges and unit run rates... All while balancing the feedstocks.

Mummy told me that they used to do it by hand. If there were errors, they would erase and photocopy the same piece of paper until the whole thing is just a flimsy thing. At least i had the chance to try it by the excel format, which is no less easy. =(

Nowadays we do it by Orion, which takes out alot of the thinking process if u're not familiar with the tank systems etc.

The more i did crude scheduling, the more interested in economics and the oil market i got... I've been reading alot of books about them... i hope to grow up as knowledgeable as the gurus in SCOPE one day whom most of them have gone thru scheduling =)). Guess i am on my way then. 1 small step for lamb, 1 giant step for sheep-kind! To infinity & beyond!