At this point in my time at Regency, I was admitably getting a little fatigued with my work. I know that repetition is the best way to learn something, however there is a point where repetition goes from being necessary but tedious, to tedious but necessary. After a point, even if it's needed, you just need a break. A chance to learn something different and break up the monotany. Thankfully I had gotten to a point where I could learn more about some things that had been interesting me: fixing chains, and using the laser welder.
I'm Thomas, currently looking for things to do given that I have done just about everything I am capable of doing in the store. As part of my apprenticeship, I'm doing this blog as a sort of documentation of my progress. I've been enjoying these, but I'm running out of ways to uniquely introduce myself. Instead of fumbling about, I might as well get on with it, and talk about what happened in July.
June and July were starkly different months. All of June was doing the same things over and over again. Droning on with each day to drill good practices into my head. All of that was also after having already been doing what I was doing for a month prior. So July brought a nice change of pace. I was able to get on to a new part of my training. Chains. How different styles of links sit together, and how to fix them. It might seem like it wasn't much of a change, which is only a little true. In theory rings sizings and chain repairs are both just a solder and cleaning, so why the Joy in doing something that's almost the same? Well the thing I was tired of wasn't really the soldering, it was the damned prep. Prepping rings at this point was just plain boring to me, and I was happy to find that prepping chains was much faster. Not only did I get to work on chains, I got to start to use the laser welder. I will say that I really did enjoy using the torch, but the laser welder is so much more enjoyable to use. When Jeff told me to give it a try, I was thrilled. I just made life easier, and not just with chains. Sizings started taking less and less time, and started to get more and more consistent when I got involved with the laser. As July was going on, everything really felt like it was starting to click, and then I got covid in the last few days of July.
I can't tell if I'm getting better or worse at wrapping these up. I feel like I'm starting to ramble at the end of these. Then again, what is this if not me rambling into the void just in case someone might be listening. With that said I'll digress. August will have some more interesting pieces in it than July did. With all of that said, be well.
Sincerely
-Thomas R. Hildreth
