February 23

Today I went to take a tour of the facility and start to understand what we do while we are there.  When touring the facility, I realized they have a lot of space and a lot of products that they need and want to sell.  These are not sold often and they only get 150 customers a day half of which are dropping items off.  They have the store front section and the repair sections and the other products in the back.  These items are stored in bins, some of which are labelled and some of which are not labelled. They have people from Trace working on taking apart computers and obtain some specialized items that can be sold or melted back into metals to gain a profit. Many of the items they will not fix unless there is enough money in it for them.  It seems to have a bit of an organization system but it is a little unclear and we only spoke to the one employee, Danny, who showed us around and told us a little more about what they try to do.  They have a new program that needs to be a bit more developed because it is fairly new and they do not have many of the aspects place.  They have lots of older products and get from the three customers I saw have an older crowd. 

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February 28

Today I went into the e-waste center and I went straight to work in the testing lab.  Jed and I worked on two of the devices there and worked to fix the money counters that they had.  While I was working I found that it was hard to find the tools that we needed to be able to fix the money counter.  We had to ask to find supplies for cleaning the first money counter that we were fixing and it took them a while to find the correct supplies that we needed.  I also found that we had to go ask them about the criteria and what we are the volunteers had to do.  I also found that they had many different power codes which were not easily sorted through but the one we needed was already out.  We found that both of these items worked but the first and newer money counter would only accept bills that were in a decent condition but we couldn’t test this theory because we did not have the resources to be able to do this. Then after fixing these items we were told to find a guy from the back to give us a little bit of background on how each other these things was to be organized once the center received it.  When we went back there one of the workers told us how he was either very busy or very bored in the back.  Also that they used to cut the cords off adapters but they no longer do it although they have the time and they now get less money for each of these items. There seemed to also be confusion on how much the items would cost and how they could maximize the amount that they would get from the company that they sold them to.  

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March 2

Today I went again to the testing room and spent all of my time at the center in the testing room.  I worked on three objects: weigh scale, electric stapler, and document scanner.  This time they had more compartments on the top of the bench that were being organized and they had a center table that was easy to work at while standing and was carpeted but it also had many outlets for the power supplies to be plugged in.  With the weight scale it was an easy fix but I had a hard time filling out the sheet because they ask for the price and we were told to use ebay to be able to find the price but it took a while to search and find the item but this item was working when I received it.  Then I moved onto the electric stapler and I found that this was also working but it took me a while to find a piece of paper that I was able to staple.  Then I moved onto the scanner.  This is when I had a very hard time finding the correct power supply that would fit the DC 6V plug.  After about 15 minutes of looking I was able to find one that would fit.  I tried to plug it in but it didn’t work so we took apart the power cord and turn it into a lead to make sure that the power cord was still working and we found that it was so I decided to look up the manual and after a little bit of time I suggested plugging it into the computer and it turned on and I was able to scan something into the computer.  Then I put the label on it and I put it back on the shelf.  They put the items that they test back on the shelf and the only thing to tell them apart is that fact that one has a label.  It is also hard to find all of the information about the product and it wastes lots of time having to look it up.  I find that their systems has many things that are unnecessary and take extra time.  

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March 14

Today we went to the E-Waste Center and were again put in the testing area. This time we were testing different receivers because they had just gotten a large number of them in.  We tested three of the receivers, all of which turned on, but had many other problems that we had to face.  The area in which we were working was “more organized” than it had been the last time that we went to the center. Many of the unlabelled containers had been labelled and the sheets for the documentation were cut into smaller pieces so they would fit in the drawer.  Many of the drawers that had been previously empty now had things in them but we did not need them so I did not have time to explore what was in them (mental note for next time).  I found although they had seemed to be more organized they still had many problems. For instance when we were trying to find certain cables and cord it was not easy to find them. Another one of the problems was that we had to go between the computer and the device and it took a lot of time to go to the computer search go back and have to remember what to do.  Another issues was that there wasn’t a lot of space to do the work that we need to and it seemed that everything we were doing was taking up a lot of space.  The space to work had many things because one of the projects was very big. Still a very inefficient use of space with little organization of the items and many that we had tested in the first time we came were still on the shelf even though they had been fixed for a few weeks (maybe this is due to the lack of shelf space).  The lack of space also makes it hard to find items that are meant to be tested and I had a problem with not knowing where to place the receivers after we had finished working with them. We did not have much luck with any of the receivers and some of that was because we did not have the proper tools to use when we were trying to test them.  We couldn’t easily find many of the things we needed and it took us the whole time to test these ones but we did not make much progress.  Definitely needed more time to look at these things.  

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March 23

Today went we went to the electronic recycling center we tried to do something different. We instead walked around and looked at the store front and acquainted ourselves with that part of the ERC. Then after looking around and noticing the different tags and how some of the tags were small orange stickers and others were the sheets of paper that were filled out during testing we decided to take a look around the back.  We went into the place where all of the items are sorted and the computers are taken apart. We talked briefly with one of the members of the TRACE center and the accompanying worker.  We talked about computers and how the job was hard to begin with but after a while she got used to working and taking apart the computers. She has really enjoyed getting to do this job because it gives her technical skills that she would not receive otherwise, she also finds that she knows a lot more about the computer.  The team of them working when asked said that they split them apart to make it easier for the ERC to sell them for parts. Then we went to the store and looked around while waiting to interview Tiana the female worker.  She is a student here and she talked about how she got started and how her boyfriend, who already worked here told her.  It seems that they do not have a very good system for marketing and many of the students at USD do not even know about this place. She does a lot of jobs the main one being the bulk buyer, which means she helps to get buyers to buy in bulk. She also works at the front desk helping with the orders that come in.  She helps the people fill out paperwork and then bring it to the back. She also helps put the items online to help sell them. She said if she was in charge she would want a better space to work in and she would want them to be paid more and inspire the staff a little more.  Then she showed us the paperwork and talked about how they keep a tally of all of the people that come in the store but they miss people sometimes. Then we spoke with Adam another worker at the front desk. He started very recently and said when he started out it was confusing as to where everything was but he learned by doing and they he got the hang of it. He talked more about bringing it to the back and sorting the items and how it can be hard and it isn’t super organized. He also said that he didn’t get much direction when first working here but that he likes it and all the staff is super nice and he has learned a lot in the past few month. He said he would change the organization but he really enjoys the staff and getting to form such close relationships with these people is very nice. Then we spoke with Arthur who is trying to get more people to come and work because they do not have nearly enough workers to keep up with all of the things that they have to do.  Today was a good day much more observational. Also improvement to the testing space but eBay piles were a mess and they want them to be more organized.