Hello,
5 years ago I started at a company after doing a few career changes (early 30's me) trying to find my place in the working world, and I stumbled into a third party food storage position, and quickly showed an aptitude for Food Safety and red tape. (previous work experience in culinary and legal helped)
I was moved into a HACCP position within 5 months, and provided with an online course to become a HACCP Coordinator, and left alone (literally alone) to manage our one HACCP plan, and grow the plan to cover our other locations and assist some select customers with their plans, which helped expand my knowledge immensely as they had much more experience and Science degrees, with my interest in science and following programs and "rules" I was a shoe in and fell in love with Hazard Identification (form 5-9)
5 years later, the world of Food Safety is changing in Canada and the programs we follow are becoming less and less prescriptive (FSEP was easy to follow- they told you what to do!) Now, we fall under SFCR and now need to have a Preventative Control Plan, and FSEP is a thing of the past and we are trying for SQF, which we all know is quite onerous, and we are not where we need to be.
I am responsible for ensuring 6 locations stay complaint, we have some locations with an Establishment number for meat storage and others with SFCR Licenses, and trying for SQF.
They are considering hiring a SQFA supervisor to go above me (although I do this role- technically) or hire a consultant, as I have no one to turn to but this community when I have questions. When I ask for help, I am told I need to prioritize better, and only do what customers need, and I feel like I am drowning in work and we have another location coming in 16 months.
I love working in this field, but I need help.
I am starting to feel like an outcast of the company and they tell me what is going to be done when temperature issues arise, and that my job is just to support Operations and keep the company complaint. I no longer deal with temperature issues in rooms, operations does that with our refrigeration contractors, and I am left out of it.
I have never done this job in another setting, and I am starting to feel rather (lack of another word) "bullied" into doing what will make us look good, and not needed, and "my job is not to do root cause analysis" that is for other ppl, like operations and warehouse supervisors, I just "report" facts, then get dumped on when those facts look bad.
Has anyone else been in a similar position? How did you handle it? How did you grow and be/become the FSQA person you are today? or did you just say "SOD this" and quit and found a new position or career?
I have looked at doing classes in Food Safety, but in my province there are not many to none available and FSQA are hard to come by.
Thank you for reading my vent/rant, and any advice or similar situations I would love to hear.