I was thinking about young Edward Snowden recently (.. who was beaten out for Time Magazine's Person-of-the-Year by the Pope) ..
.. and who now lives in Moscow, where he has asylum, and who himself was a CONTRACTOR .. working for various government intelligence agencies known better by their acronyms than by their official names.
And I thought about how .. after I got out of the Navy (minimum 6-year enlistment) .. I interviewed at a few nuclear power plants in the NorthEast .. including Pilgrim in Plymouth ..
.. and Indian Point plant (the state-owned Country Club side) .. there in New York ..
.. on the scenic Hudson River (.. let Billy and Bruce tell you all about it) ..
.. where I later worked as a contractor .. but on the other side, on the ConEd side. The bad boy side ..
.. for a year or so .. where the ConEd boys would sometimes come to the plant to work from Brooklyn. The plant is located some 30 miles north of "the city". Very entertaining, these Brooklyn guys. I found them downright fascinating.
Life as a » Rad Whore Contractor
And their accents. Interesting how the presentation can come off as uneducated, but you can quickly see thru to their sense of highly developed street smarts .. and how to deal effectively with people .. of all types and under all circumstances. Smooth operators. Very smooth.
I enjoyed my time there in New York very much. Yes, it is ridiculously expensive to live there. But I jibed with those guys very easily. The culture. They even asked me to pitch for their softball team.
Cracking a » Stand-up RBI Triple Off the Junk-Throwing Megavar Pitcher
We kicked much ass, but got beat by the stupid Engineers [ nuclear engineers » the "Megavars" ] in the play-offs.
They had the best softball pitcher I've ever seen. He could actually throw junk underhand. The rules for pitching were that » your arm couldnt go past horizontal on the backward arc.
He was a tall, lanky dude, with long-ass arms. His pitches would come wizzing across the plate and even pop when they hit the catcher's glove.
But I cracked a beautiful stand-up triple off that dude .. out past left-center field .. and brought in our first RBI.
I simply took the first pitch to determine his rhythm .. then » crack-o. "How do you like THEM apples Mr. Junk-Throwing Megavar-pitcher?"
The harder they throw, the more easily you can turn ball-speed into hit-distance when you connect.
My point here in New York is that » I was there as » a contractor. A rent-a-tech. A purveyor of a military-grade set of skills. Not working for "the house" (directly). A rad whore. Selling my body's federally-allowed radiation-exposure for Rad dollars.
» Contractor vs House-Tech Relations
Remind me to tell you about the house-tech there who I found fascinating to talk to. Sometimes house techs have a shitty opinion of contractors .. because some contractors are pieces of shit. So you have to feel out each one individually.
But there was a guy there who I often had lunch with (there in the site cafeteria). He was not only smart, but also articulate, with a strong, opinionated personality.
At work, I am attracted to competence .. and competent people often have strong, opinionated personalities.
Generally, during a refueling power-outage, house techs move into management positions (.. such as supervisors and administrators) .. while contractors do the actual (radiological) work.
He came from a police family and told me fascinating stories. I totally stretched my lunch breaks whenever I ate with him. The time just flew.
I am referring here to non-technical, non-nuclear discussions. Stuff that I would call » personal. I mean, you are learning about the real person behind his technical qualifications. And yes, he was technically proficient. So I had nothing against him there. If you went to him with something, you knew it would be handled right proper.
Regarding technical aspects of the job .. contractors are generally given the hardest, shittiest jobs .. so they generally have more experience with really nasty shit. Radiological shit. Involving how radiation areas. High dose. High exposure jobs.
You are there (almost by definition) there to > burn dose. The feds give you both quarterly and annual limit.
I have a respectable lifetime exposure. Enough to make any Rad whore proud. So when the Bug came out okay .. I sighed a little sigh of relief. Said a little prayer of 'thanks'. You know.
But this is not really what I want to talk about. I do not want to talk about "whoring myself out for cash" (as lauren says).
Tho it is not possible to draw many hard-n-fast conclusions .. when comparing your house tech to your contractor .. seing that many utilities hire contractors to become house techs .. and they only hire the best. They can have their pick.
So they do indeed have quality people. But contractors go from one nuclear plant to another .. from refueling outage to refueling outage .. where all the really nasty (radiological) work is done.
While house techs only see a few months of outage (12- or 13-hour work-days, 6-days a week) every 18 months or so. While a nuclear plant is up-n-running .. while the reactor is operating .. this tends to be boring (8-hour work-days, 5 days a week).
But the thing about being a contractor before becoming a house-tech .. is that » you understand contractors. So you know better how to deal with them. (As a supervisor or an administrator.)
If you treat your contractors shitty .. they will stop coming to your plant. Or worse » you will only be able to get shitty (less-experienced) contractors.
An experienced true-stud contractor is worth his weight in plutonium .. because he has seen the same job done many different ways. So he knows what works and what doesnt. (And he can even tell you WHY .. if you ask him nicely.)
And generally speaking .. better pay buys you a more-skilled technician. Which can make your (house-tech) life much easier.
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••• today's entry continues here below •••
But before I went-a-rad-whoring around the country, I first came this }{ close to having an entirely different life .. because there were no contractor nuclear jobs available in December when I got out of the Navy.
The outage seasons are fall and spring. Which I did not know at the time. I knew only that no contractors were calling .. only utilities .. which I was visiting and where I was interviewing.
As unemployment neared its 13-week limit, I decided to take a position with Northeast Utilities at their Millstone plant (.. about an hour up the road from New Haven, where I grew up).
But at age 24, the idea of going thru the same gate every day of my life .. til I retire (or die) .. seemed too easy. No challenge. No variety. No juice.
I could see that the boss guy there liked me, and it was obvious that everybody listened to him.
I even answered an add in the local paper and agreed to rent a whole finished basement (very nice) in this lady's house .. in a very nice neighborhood. (She was getting divorced and needed the extra cash.) Ten minutes from the plant.
» Friday Morning Brecky with the Folks
Three days before I was supposed to start at Millstone (as a Chemist), I stopped by to say hi to my folks, who lived 2 minutes from Grandma's place, which was right up the street, where I was staying.
[ Gram always had something good to eat, usually more than one good thing. So everybody naturally wanted to stay at grams. Plus she had plenty of room up there. ]
It was about 9:30 on a Friday, and it was dad's day off and the coffee is going in that cheap aluminum stove-top percolator. I offered to cook the bacon.
Returning from the Navy, from seeing some of the world, my dad seemed surprisingly provincial. Almost as tho he had shrunk two inches. Mom was still getting dressed.
Mom comes out and says to dad, "Did you tell him about those people who called yesterday?"
I look at dad, who at times, in the past, over the years, had exhibited signs (oddly enough) of being jealous of me, of competing with me .. maybe for mom's attention. Almost petty. I really dont get it, even now. Weird yes, but there you have it.
Not always, no. And both my parents were very young when I was born. Mom was only 19. "We made a lot of mistakes with you, honey," mom told me much later.
Anyway, dad said something dismissive with a slight wave, such as, "Eh, I told them he'd already taken a job."
Now for dad, the secure employment of a electric utilty like NorthEast Utilities (which is not going to go anywhere anytime soon) is » as good as it gets (employment-wise).
I did not say anything that could ruin an otherwise beautiful morning .. but I think how it would be nice if dad let me make my own decisions.
"Who was it?" I asked.
"I forget," he says. "You already have a job." [ .. like » "What would you want that for?" ]
He can't remember. So I don't even know who to call.
My mouth falls open in disbelief, but something wont let me say what I want to say. (But I could feel it was coming.)
He must've notice the expression on my face cuz he suddenly says, "I wrote it down," and he goes to look on the desk where the phone sits. But he cant find it.
The bacon starts to burn. As I'm flipping the bacon, he says, "Here it is." And announces the name of the company .. and (ooh, baby) it's the name of the contractor that I always wanted to work with .. that I had heard about back when I was still in the Navy. They seemed the more professional of the bunch.
You know, they post ads in Navy publications saying things like » "Come work for us and make obscene amounts of money." Yes I exaggerate, but not as much as you might think.
» Dad Thought I'd Lost My Mind
So I call the number. They have a position for me. At a nuclear plant down in southern Pennsylvania. This is a Friday .. less than three days from my start date at Millstone (on Monday morning).
And the recruiter/staffing dude who I am talking to is very understanding. He knows that I have taken a job. A nice job. What a pickle.
And I ask, "Uh, when would you want me to start?"
Dude, the guy does not hesitate at all. He says » "Can you be there Monday morning? At 7AM?"
As God is my witness, I checked my watch as if studying the time. I would have to BE THERE (in Pennsylvania) by Sunday night .. in order to start work Monday morning. Today is Friday at 10AM. That gives me 2½ days.
"I can do that," I said. On the spot. [ Dad thought I'd lost my mind. ]
"This is only a 4-to-6 week job," the staffing guy said, "but we can keep you busy after that."
Something inside said, "Thank-you, God."
He gave me the name and address of a hotel there in Pennsylvania and said, "There are other guys staying there who work at the plant. Find them and follow them down to the plant Monday morning."
So Sunday nite, I arrive at the hotel. It was already dark. Mid-March. Very cold. I asked the lady behind the desk for the room-numbers of guys on the same (business) account.
I was totally digging this, let me tell you. I knock on one of the doors where I hear loud rock music playing. The music goes silent. The door opens slowly. A fragrant, aromatic cloud billows out from behind a fat head with two bloodshot eyes.
"Who is it?" I heard a second (invisible) person call from inside. The dude with the bloodshot eyes definitely looks suspicious, maybe even paranoid. I obviously look much too clean-cut for his comfort zone.
I tell him what I'm there for. He accommodates but his shifty eyes suggest that he thinks I'm a narc or something. I could see right away that the professional bar here was not being set very high.
Now if mom hadnt mentioned anything .. I likely would have spent my life at Millstone .. in a totally different lifestyle. And when I think of the Bug, I know I made the right decision. =)
But yes, life would have been much easier at Millstone. I think. Certainly more simple.
And dude, I had to get a whole-day physical as part of the employment process for Millstone. That was the first time I ever got the prostrate finger thingie. (You know.)
That was certainly a new sensation. As I pulled up my pants, I thought, "These people are certainly very thorough."
Today's entry to be continued...
Oh. Mandela died. My focus went there. I will have to return to this entry later.
The future, I suspect, will be about gifted people educating themselves (.. now that we have the tools to do so) ..
.. and not leaving this to government bureaucracies .. but rather » boldly going beyond.
Rad note » This column made me think of today's entry. See if you agree.
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