I will be indisposed for a time.
Not that so many would notice; I’m just saying, all the same.
I have a seminar to attend and a certification exam that I’m taking.
This certification is for the American Petroleum Institute (API), and the certification confers a couple of other certs from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).
It represents about a 28% increase over journeyman scale, which is nice; but the conditions are so much better. I’m going to be sending out resumes as a field engineer anyway while I'm waiting for the cert to come back; but we’ll see what happens.
I’ll be in a place that I don’t know for a week while I attend the seminar. Good and bad in it, I suppose. I would rather be home.
It bugs the living sh!t out of me when I say that I have to go on the road and people pretend that it’s something that I want to do.
It’s like I say that I'm going to St. Paul to have open heart surgery, and they exclaim, "How wonderful!" because all that they have the capacity to hear is, "I’m going to St. Paul," and therefore they have no regard for the surgery.
I remember this distinctly, as I was preparing to go to the shutdown at the refinery in McPherson, Kansas. I had written a correspondent about this, and she replied something along the lines of, “How wonderful! How exciting! How adventurous!” as if there were Japanese tourists in busloads bouncing all around the place saying, “We have come to take most honorable pictures of your wonderful refinery!”
No, it’s not like that.
I could have just as well said, “I’m going to go lose my hearing in this refinery over here,” and the response of, “How wonderful!” would have been much the same.
Really, I can think of things a lot more adventurous than losing your hearing.
It doesn’t matter if it’s a good place or a bad place— I’m going to be spending 13 to 14 hours a day in a refinery. In fact, I wouldn’t even be aware that it was a bad place unless someone broke into my car in the parking lot.
It could be anywhere, and it doesn’t matter.
To me, there are only two places: home and not-home.
Of course, I’m pretty good at making the best out of a bad situation; but I see no reason to purposefully seek out bad situations, simply so that I can make the best out of them.
The work itself is inherently dangerous. There was a pipe that blew up the other day during a steam blow-down. There have been two men that have died at this site.
For one of those men, that was his first day on the job. He had been out of work for five months, and had just come to that site. For his family, their days of rejoicing turned to sadness when they carried that man out of the gate, less than five hours into his first day of work.
The other fellow made a mechanical error. He was crushed to death, and he was in the hospital for about five weeks before he finally died.
When I was in Milwaukee, there was a fellow pinned under a piece of pipe. It took about 20 minutes for them to get the rigging together to get it off of him.
In the same place, there were about five carpenters that died during an explosion. They were allowed to go into a hopper and begin work without it being properly prepared. Coal dust is highly explosive, and it only takes one spark.
No, I’m no thrill-seeker. I’m a professional.
I’m no high-stepping globetrotter. I’m a journeyman.
I’m not some college kid out on spring break. I’m an honorable man, and I stand or fall according to reputation. I’m one of a fairly small group of elite men.
I’m in the business of making the world a better place. And often I question why. I have no reason to care about the place, and it’s always filled with sadness that I go.
But I would rather not live in a place with an industrial site sitting at the end of the driveway.
Still, I long for a 40-hour work week, and to be at home.
Maybe, someday.
Not that so many would notice; I’m just saying, all the same.
I have a seminar to attend and a certification exam that I’m taking.
This certification is for the American Petroleum Institute (API), and the certification confers a couple of other certs from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).
It represents about a 28% increase over journeyman scale, which is nice; but the conditions are so much better. I’m going to be sending out resumes as a field engineer anyway while I'm waiting for the cert to come back; but we’ll see what happens.
I’ll be in a place that I don’t know for a week while I attend the seminar. Good and bad in it, I suppose. I would rather be home.
It bugs the living sh!t out of me when I say that I have to go on the road and people pretend that it’s something that I want to do.
It’s like I say that I'm going to St. Paul to have open heart surgery, and they exclaim, "How wonderful!" because all that they have the capacity to hear is, "I’m going to St. Paul," and therefore they have no regard for the surgery.
I remember this distinctly, as I was preparing to go to the shutdown at the refinery in McPherson, Kansas. I had written a correspondent about this, and she replied something along the lines of, “How wonderful! How exciting! How adventurous!” as if there were Japanese tourists in busloads bouncing all around the place saying, “We have come to take most honorable pictures of your wonderful refinery!”
No, it’s not like that.
I could have just as well said, “I’m going to go lose my hearing in this refinery over here,” and the response of, “How wonderful!” would have been much the same.
Really, I can think of things a lot more adventurous than losing your hearing.
It doesn’t matter if it’s a good place or a bad place— I’m going to be spending 13 to 14 hours a day in a refinery. In fact, I wouldn’t even be aware that it was a bad place unless someone broke into my car in the parking lot.
It could be anywhere, and it doesn’t matter.
To me, there are only two places: home and not-home.
Of course, I’m pretty good at making the best out of a bad situation; but I see no reason to purposefully seek out bad situations, simply so that I can make the best out of them.
The work itself is inherently dangerous. There was a pipe that blew up the other day during a steam blow-down. There have been two men that have died at this site.
For one of those men, that was his first day on the job. He had been out of work for five months, and had just come to that site. For his family, their days of rejoicing turned to sadness when they carried that man out of the gate, less than five hours into his first day of work.
The other fellow made a mechanical error. He was crushed to death, and he was in the hospital for about five weeks before he finally died.
When I was in Milwaukee, there was a fellow pinned under a piece of pipe. It took about 20 minutes for them to get the rigging together to get it off of him.
In the same place, there were about five carpenters that died during an explosion. They were allowed to go into a hopper and begin work without it being properly prepared. Coal dust is highly explosive, and it only takes one spark.
No, I’m no thrill-seeker. I’m a professional.
I’m no high-stepping globetrotter. I’m a journeyman.
I’m not some college kid out on spring break. I’m an honorable man, and I stand or fall according to reputation. I’m one of a fairly small group of elite men.
I’m in the business of making the world a better place. And often I question why. I have no reason to care about the place, and it’s always filled with sadness that I go.
But I would rather not live in a place with an industrial site sitting at the end of the driveway.
Still, I long for a 40-hour work week, and to be at home.
Maybe, someday.
2 comments:
Hi Shakespeare’s cousin
The best to you as a journeyman whilst at the site – don’t forget to post a few notes of your experiences if you are able.
Thank you, Lindsay.
I have some photographs that I will post later in the week.
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