My operations management debarcle

Well, I really blew operations management, this was the first time I have ever failed an assignment and I'm not happy. I had to work away on a remote gold mine during an assignment period, that is bad enough normally as I was in for breakfast at 4:15 in the morning and returning home at 7:30 in the evening, the days were long and I was tired. It wasn't for that long though, it's what happened next that hurt. It's starting to sound like excuses now as plenty of people work long hours and are still able to pass.

During my stint away I developed a kidney stone, this is never great at the best of times but when in a remote area and faced with a two hour drive to the nearest medical facility, the ride can be somewhat uncomfortable. After receiving some morphine and anti-inflamatories to settle the fun down, the 90 minute ambulance ride to the regional hospital was somewhat more relaxed. Further compounding my woes, my employer just left me up there and told me to find my own way back at my expense - very poor form.

But this is where it got tricky, it took a month to work out exactly what was wrong with me and to organise surgery - that's way too long. Naturally I was juiced up the whole time and in some pretty interesting pain, a couple of trips down to the emergency department yielded no benefits as they believed I was imagining the problem - absolutely useless. Now during this period of blockage to my left kidney, my eGFR was measured at 47, that's equal to stage 3A chronic kidney disease. If you drop to 44 then you are at 3B - that isn't good.

I had to keep working during this period and when I wasn't at work I was down the doctor, medical centre or hospital getting scans. I would bring my text book, readings and tablet or laptop with me and study whilst sitting in the waiting room or hospital bed. This was not quality study time and I missed going online and missed many of the presentation recommendations as required by the lecturer, he really savaged my assignment - but no excuses.

After the surgery I headed off overseas a week later while the second assignment was planned. This involved group work and I am afraid I didn't contribute to the team as well as what I should have. Regardless, I feel the group made a reasonable presentation and I hope the marks from the second assignment will compensate for the poor marks from the first disaster.

I feel bad for not contributing to the standard I normally I expect of myself yet I shouldn't as I have carried a number of people during group work in the past, maybe it was time to bank some interest. The group assignment scored a high distinction and my combined scores allowed me to pass the unit with a 67% mark, better than I expected even if I had hoped for a distinction.

I am from an operations background, this unit should have been easy for me, instead I struggled and my confidence was severely dented. This is not the outcome I was expecting and I really didn't pull my weight during the team phase, finding out I now have chronic kidney disease certainly didn't inspire me in the short term either - just a waste of time and money really. But time to put this past me and move on to the next unit with hopefully a better result.