Day 112 of my 47th year

I woke up early, before Masha, and brought gifts and flowers to bed. She was pleased. By 8 a.m. I had taken Leia to kindergarten — they had a fall-themed matinee today. Unfortunately, I could not go; only Masha could.

After kindergarten I drove through Alekseyevskaya, picked up Dima B., and headed to Smena. We arrived at the facility at 9:30. They assigned us an employee who was supposed to organize the tour of all the sites. Initially only two sites had been planned — the incubator and the young-bird house — but in the end we also managed to get to the production lines with adult birds. On the way to production, we stopped by the Smena store and I bought three trays of eggs, ninety eggs total. One tray as a gift and two for us.

I was extremely satisfied with what we saw. All the business processes fell into place, and it became clear what had to be done and how. In general, it is impossible to create convenient, functional systems without a solid understanding of business processes — not just from paperwork (we already knew the theory), but in real operating conditions. At a real production facility, you immediately understand the actual working environment, how much time an operation really takes, where the equipment is located, what equipment is used, and so on. I was also very impressed by the way the company handles biosecurity. I do not think I have ever washed that many times or changed clothes and shoes that many times in a single day. At the entrance they disinfect phones and shoes, then there is an intermediate changing area before going outside; outside you walk in different shoes, not the ones you wore indoors. When you enter a building, you change shoes again, remove all your clothes including underwear, socks, rings, chains, and so on. You wash thoroughly with soap, including your hair, change shoes again, and put on clean scrubs. Before entering each bird line, you change footwear again. Special mats soaked with some disinfecting substance are everywhere; they say it can peel the skin off your feet if you accidentally get it wet. On the production floor, we saw everything from loading and unloading to grading and sorting. Very interesting. I really liked all the employees — everyone looked at us with interest and gladly took part in educating us. When leaving each site, everything happens in reverse order, and when entering a new site it all starts again: changing shoes, washing, changing clothes. In one day I showered four times, changed shoes about fifty times, and changed clothes eight to ten times.

I got back to Moscow around seven, picked up Leia, and ordered dinner. We had thought about going to a restaurant, but Masha’s lectures ran late. So we celebrated her birthday at home while listening to a lecture in the background. Very late at night I ran to the pharmacy to get medicine for Leia — Masha is worried she might be coming down with something; she has a slight cough. On the way, I had a brief talk with Misha.