Thomas
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF VICKIE THOMAS may see her starting work at 6 a.m. or finishing up at midnight. Thomas is in her eighth year as a print operator for Printing Services. During the busiest times—before the start of the fall and winter semesters—the printing machines run 18 hours a day.
Although there are few women in this field, Thomas, who studied applied communications at Camosun College, began running an offset printing press at age 18 and worked in a commercial printing firm the next year. At UVic, she and other operators rotate job stations running the Digimaster, a high speed digital copier that can print 6,000 black-and-white copies per hour; a digital colour copier for full-colour copies; an offset printing press, which is cheaper for high volume printing and can print two colours at the same time; a scanner, which converts hard copy to digital files; a collator; a folding machine; a guillotine cutter and a shrink wrapper.
“Everyone tries to make it sound like their job is the most urgent,” she laughs. “Now we are hearing terms like ‘urgent rush’ and ‘absolute rush’—it’s hard to tell which job is more important.
“It can be a hard job with lots of standing and lifting. I’m tired at the end of the day when it’s been very busy and noisy. I keep in good shape, though, and use custom-made hearing protection,” she says. “I wore a pedometer for a while and did 10,000 steps, no problem! It feels good when you have completed a quality job and met an ‘urgent absolute rush’ request.”
The industry has changed drastically over the past 20 years, with advancing technology as well as environmental consciousness. “It’s not like it used to be, where all the garbage went into one big, mucky barrel,” she says. Paper and plastic are recycled, spent ink is sent away for recycling and photographic chemicals are treated as hazardous waste.
Thomas is the mother of two sons, the elder of whom just finished his history degree at UBC and moved home pending law school. “It’s invigorating living with a grown-up son,” she says. “He’s an extravagant cook. We never have just a bagel!”
Thomas enjoys taking photographs, and several of her photos hang on the front wall of the office. She is also taking courses for a business administration certificate through the CUPE 951 professional development fund to expand her job skills at the university.
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