[Women’s Day] Praising the “little junior sister” among the women in my life – the flower-like woman”

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This post was last edited by Xiaoyao Tenglong on 2016-3-5 at 12:59. There are naturally few girls working in chemical plants; most of them are clerks or administrative staff, with very few engaged in technical work. Think of the girls I met at the chemical plant. The only one among them who could write stories was my junior colleague—a undergraduate graduate in automation with no prior experience whatsoever, who eventually became an automation engineer whom I truly admire. ——Meeting each other is fate; it’s fate that brings us to become good friends for life. 　　They first met in Dalian, around August 2014; she had just graduated at that time. I still vaguely remember what she looked like back then – it was during their onboarding training, and as a senior member of the team, I participated in their training as well. I spent the whole morning playing games with those newly enrolled undergraduates; a lot was said that day, but I barely spoke a few words with her. And that’s how our first interaction came to an end. I only knew her name, her major, and what she looked like, after which we went our separate ways – she returned to Wuhai to work hard, while I continued working in Dalian. I thought we would never meet again. 　　On November 7, 2014, I was transferred to the Wuhai project team. That day, I met her once again, this time in the cafeteria. She saw me and suddenly called out, “Senior brother, what brings you here?” Thus began our lifelong bond as senior brother and junior sister. As a woman, it was rather difficult for her to perform on-site tasks. The supervisor assigned her to a DCS maintenance position. As is well known, no DCS maintenance is required at all during the construction phase of a new project. Thus, she became a clerical staff member in the technical division of the project team, responsible for collecting and organizing technical documentation. When I arrived in Wuhai, this project was almost completed. She and another colleague were sent to Shanghai to learn how to configure the DCS system. That was probably her first step into the field of automation and instrumentation. After returning from Shanghai, the project entered the commissioning phase; she worked with the manufacturer to commission the project’s DCS, while I was mainly responsible for on-site commissioning. 　　This project was wrapped up very quickly; the project team disbanded. As a permanent staff member, I had to remain in Wuhai. Around that time, my junior colleague was assigned to work under me, coming directly under my supervision. From that point on, she began to transition from a \"clerical staff member\" to a \"technician.\" The first task I assigned to her was to organize the I/O point list; after the project was completed, dozens of new points were added or modified, yet the electronic version of the point list was not updated. Since she was originally the DCS maintenance specialist for the project team but had not made any changes to the point list, I gave her this task. I have to say that she is truly meticulous and very careful with her work; there are over a thousand points, and basically no mistakes at all. After that, I assigned her other tasks such as organizing a list of project items, compiling the interlock logic tables, preparing the interlock logic diagrams, and organizing various debugging records. I yelled at her countless times during our working time, as I have a rather bad temper; whenever her work didn’t meet my expectations, I would shout at her. I remember once, after yelling at her, seeing her upset expression and tears in her eyes, I felt a great deal of guilt. As I got to know her better, her skills improved little by little, thanks to my repeated outbursts of anger as well as moments of satisfaction. (Of course, I’m extremely wise and capable; errors rarely occur on my watch...) Later, we went to Hangzhou together for training. We worked together to upgrade the DCS system, and also drafted the management and operating procedures for it... When it came to upgrading the DCS system, I merely laid out the general guidelines; she handled all the specific modifications. I watched as she repeatedly compared drawings, verified everything on-site, identified process pipelines and their flow directions, and communicated with process engineers. After drawing the initial drafts, she still had to endure my sarcasm: “This doesn’t look good,” “That’s not eye-catching enough,” “This design is illogical,” “Those lines aren’t aligned properly.” She made revisions over and over again. In short, under my constant supervision, she kept improving. It took her two months to complete the DCS rectification plan—a plan that was originally scheduled to be finished in half a year... We discussed the interlock design together; I would propose a solution, and she would implement it. If she didn’t do it well, I’d scold her; if she did well, I’d still find faults with it. But overall, we both enjoyed the process. At first, I unilaterally made sarcastic remarks at her; later, she too managed to spot mistakes in my work and sarcastically commented on them. Looking back now, those were truly joyful times. 　　Now, I’ve left Wuhai and returned to Dalian. However, my junior colleague has now grown into a versatile automation engineer. Her skills in using Yokogawa VP and Central Control 300XP surpass my own. In terms of design, modification, and system management, she possesses all the capabilities expected of an automation engineer. I feel extremely pleased about this. It’s already not easy for a woman to work in a chemical plant as a technician; on-site work in the field of instrumentation is indeed not very suitable for women, as they may lack the strength needed to tighten bolts, and working at heights is too dangerous. The field of self-control is extremely broad; it’s very difficult for a person to excel in just one area within it. No matter what happened in the past, I regard her as my junior sister and a lifelong friend.