Yes, I'm undoubtedly blessed to get to work in a field I love and I can enjoy in ways outside of actual work hours, but I truly enjoy the work I do as well. The real-time, nitty-gritty, high-stress work.
In the beginning of January, my training as an International Space Station (ISS) Data Management Coordinator (DMC) really began. I started studying for roundtable exams, written and oral exams, and sitting standalone scenarios, integrated scenarios, and simulations. Each of these is different from the other (of course, or else they wouldn't have been listed separately, right? Right.)
Some background information on the whole situation.
There is a real-time room. This room is numbered "PCA-1," and it's also called the Console Room. This is where you sit if you're intending for the commands you send to actually hit Station. Up until recently, I was not sitting in this room other than to observe on OJT (On the Job Training). Seven of the positions here in Huntsville are 24/7, so the room is never empty.
Here are photos of PCA-1.
The console position in the foreground is that of the DMC, yours truly,
and includes 11 monitors. Six of these monitors are for our
commanding, and the other 5 are for the videos we are routing.
This is the side view of the room from the tour and media room. The
side room is called the Fish Bowl because people in the room can see
in to PCA-1, but those in PCA-1 can not see out. Kind of makes you
feel like you're in a fishbowl when there is a tour.
Anyway, back to my story. A small amount of the actual beginning training occurs in PCA-1. All of the scenarios and sims occur in PCA-2. I don't have a picture of the room because it's so unappealing to the eye that it never occurred to me to take one. That's pretty bad. Either way. PCA-2 is across the hall from PCA-1 and that's where a new trainee gets most of their hard-core, stress-inducing, bring-you-to-tears training.
Standalone scenarios are the easiest of the bunch. This is where the trainee (me) sits with a certified DMC who then essentially will show me the ropes. We'll go over basic activities, basic steps, and basic failures. We'll learn to talk over the loops. (Note to self- explain the loops!) We'll learn how to communicate efficiently with other positions on console, and who to communicate with, and in what situations. I've had 2 of these.
Integrated scenarios are the second easiest. This is where you sit at the training console for DMC (or whatever position you are training for) and go through about 8 hours of a past GMT day. For example, my first integrated scenario, we did GMT 2010:040:07:00:00- 2010:040:12:00:00. (Year:day:hour:min:sec). So what makes this harder than a standalone scenario? Simple. In addition to you sitting at your console position, there are other people, training, at other console positions, also going through the same timeline. Now, assuming everyone has been trained fairly well, this should still be easy, right? Right and wrong. If we were just allowed to go through a nominal timeline for a nominal day, there wouldn't be too much of that "stress-inducing, bring-you-to-tears training" that I mentioned earlier. No. The stress comes when the trainers who are playing the crew and the positions in Houston... break things. They turn a simple timeline into 5 hours of near-tears, crisis management, and heart-pounding terror. After they've had their fun, they make you sit in a room and basically tell you everything you did wrong or handled poorly, they nit-pick your communication skills during low- and high-stress events, they poo all over your basic commanding, and they do it in front of everyone else (trainers and trainees) in the room. Not great for egos or those without thick skin. (But you're also forced to learn that it's not personal.. They correct you because they want and need you to be the best ISS operator you can be.) I've had 4 of these.
A simulation is the hardest, by far. It's the same as an integrated scenario, except in addition to the other trainees in our building (the positions in our building are as follows: POD, DMC, PRO1 and PRO2, LIS REP, STOWAGE, OC, TCO, and PAYCOM), they add in people who are training in the Houston Mission Control Center (which adds at least 5 other positions), and as many of the Payload Developers (a fancy name for the people who own the experiments on Station) as possible. And instead of 5 hours of sheer terror and pee-your-pants stress, it's about 8. Eight hours of non-stop failures, emergencies, video and data routing, with very little time to eat, pee, or think about a happier time in your life- like before you got to work that day. Then you get to go back into that room for them to rip you a new one. I've had 2 of these.
I am very obviously my hardest critic when it comes to these scenarios and sims. Not once have I finished one of these brutal tests and felt good about myself as a DMC or a human.
But I am proud to say that I've only ever gotten negative feedback once, and it was because I called a person on the wrong loop to ask about restricting video (Note to self: Call GC on the ISS MCC loop, not the CRONUS loop). But still, even Hubs can attest to the fact that after almost every sim or scenario, I've come home, told him how horribly I did, then told him I didn't get negative feedback, then reviewed my notes. (I take notes during the tests so I can remember things that: 1. confused me; 2. tricked me; 3. I thought I could do much better; 4. I thought I screwed up.) And almost immediately after I finish telling him how poorly I performed and reviewing my notes, I fall asleep due to extreme exhaustion and partial dehydration.
Those are the hands-on tests. There are three other types of tests. Roundtable exams (called this because they used to be given, seated, at a round table. No joke. They're not the most creative.), written exams and oral exams, both self-explanatory.
I've only had one of the 3 roundtable exams I'm supposed to have. ...It didn't go so well. Well that's true and false. It started out pretty well. I knew the basic, not-so-detailed answers to the questions I was being asked (this was an oral exam, with a white board for me to draw schematics, too). The Powers That Be were pleased. Then a few harder questions that I struggled to get out the right answers.. I eventually talked myself there, but it took longer than I anticipated. Seemed like it took longer than they anticipated also. Then.. Oh, then a higher-up on my team walked in, asked a question, and went marker-happy when I was clearly struggling to answer, causing me to get worked up, and eventually excusing myself to restroom to cry and have a bit of a pity party. I returned level-headed and ready to learn, to find that he left. Almost three weeks later I find out that EVERY SINGLE test he has walked in on, the test-taker has left the room in tears. Both male and female. So while I felt ashamed and embarrassed for those few weeks, I truly feel better about it now. I answered the questions that I was asked in the best way I knew how. Since then, I've studied a lot more and have been regularly asking questions to deepen my understanding about those fuzzy gray areas around the edge of my knowledge sphere.
I was supposed to have my first written exam, as well as my first oral exam, last week, but they were rescheduled.
Now that I've completed all the hands-on testing (..almost. I still have one more sim near the end of March), I've begun the next part of my training. Hands-on real-time on-console On the Job Training. AKA Performance OJT. Called this because I am performing my job in the job's natural and real setting.
This week, February 24-28, I'm on Swing shifts every day, which means I'm working from 3pm-11pm.
Next week, March 3-7, I'm doing midnight shift, from 11pm (the night before)-7am.
The following week, I have a roundtable, a written, and an oral exam, and then 2 days of day shift (7a-3p).
Then I continue with day shift on weekdays until March 28.
The week of March 31-April 4 is my certification week, which means I'm no longer in training, and that I've mastered and learned everything I need to know (at that time. Things and processes change so often it's hard to truly say you ever know EVERYTHING.)
All this is to say: Even though my job has literally given me nightmares, has given me an upset stomach more than once, doesn't always allow me to eat during testing, and has literally brought me to tears, I wouldn't change it.
I've been blessed with a job that challenges me in a way I
love, at a place I love, doing and working with what I love.
(Oh yea.. the loops. A whole different side to training... The loops are the channels, essentially, for the ISS operators on the ground to communicate with each other. At any given time, I can be listening to up to 15 different conversations that may or may not affect me and my console. it can be difficult at times, mostly because certain positions only listen to certain loops, so I need to make sure I use the right loop if I need to contact someone who doesn't have their own loop. For example, my position has its own DMC loop, but other positions I sometimes need to interact with do not, like GC. And there are certain ways to call people on the loops. You say "<who you want> <who you are> <what loop you're on>." Then wait for them to respond. For example, if I'm calling PRO, I'd say "PRO, DMC on PRO loop."
A really cool thing about the loops is that when you talk on them, literally someone around the world can hear you. I talk to Japan and Europe all the time, as well as Houston. I don't talk to the astronauts personally, but the PAYCOM in our console room does. And that's a conversation heard around the world.
Did I mention that about half of all the people on the loops at any given moment do not speak English as a first language? Definitely adds a touch of excitement to general conversation-monitoring.)
