Thursday, July 14, 2016

Boy, Do I Know That Feeling


I'm pretty much working five 10's lately, plus being on call and they aren't shy about calling me at two in the fucking morning either.

We are short handed, over worked and under paid.

SNAFU.


I can't even remember the last time I got off work on time and there is no sign of them getting someone for the maintenance Graveyard shift that has been non existent for a year and a half now.

They would have to hire four people to fill all the positions enough to make a full crew.

I just got home and I am fucking tired man, Friday can't get here soon enough.
Even better, I think it's next week I start pulling twelves for a week.

Oh boy......

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

um, what do you do slave/worker/voter do?

curious

Wildflower

Phil said...

I help keep one of the biggest metal heat treating plants in the country keep running.
They can heat treat parts up to four feet across or six feet tall.
They are not blast furnaces, we have two different ways of doing it. The process makes the parts denser and removes impurities in the metal.
One method uses vacuum, the other uses pressure from heating up argon gas inside a pressure vessel.
The heat causes the gas to expand and creates pressure, up to 25,000 psi at 2200 degrees fahrenheit.
The heat softens the metal and the pressure squeezes impurities out of the metal and makes it denser. Some of these units are almost three stories tall and some of their parts are made out of stainless steel twenty inches thick and five feet across.
We do a lot of jet aircraft engine parts, medical implants and even howitzer parts for DoD. A lot of the parts we get are made out of titanium.
We use enough electricity in a month to light up a small city and it's dangerous as fuck working around this joint because of the liquid argon and the electricity everywhere.The liquid argon is at -145 degrees and then it gets pumped all over the plant at high pressure so there are stainless steel pipes and joints everywhere and there are 480 volt motors everywhere, 480 volt heating elements, transformers and everything else a large plant has to make all this happen.We use a shit ton of molybdeum and incolnel parts that can withstand the high heat and everything else is stainless steel. Oh, and everything is heavy, very heavy, as in tons.
Overhead cranes to move everything around, even some of the wrenches I use weigh ten pounds apiece.
I have to climb all over this equipment like a monkey, get in some very dangerous places and have to do a lot of confined space work.
It's very physically demanding which is why I'm so tired at the end of the day. I'm a skinny old man now and this shit just kicks my ass sometimes.Oh, I forgot to mention all the walking back and forth around this place all day too, about 3 to 4 miles a day on average.
Long hours make tired people get careless and that is when shit gets dangerous.

Anonymous said...

ah the maintaince monkee

wanna banana?

Wildflower

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