Scoop
Lieutenant Junior Grade
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2002
- Messages
- 1,158
I know everyone has had a bad job sometime in their life. Something like cleaning restrooms and plunging full toilets to grinding asbestos break shoes, and sweeping the asbestos off the floor without breathing equipment (both jobs I have had).<br /><br />My worst was working for a small heat treater. I got hurt 6 times in 6 months. Sometimes, you could not see 10 feet because of the smoke from oil being burned off in the temper furnaces. I got glass in my eyes twice from the blast peening machine. Not to mention having to hold small parts in one hand and blast peen the parts clean with the other. There were always holes in the gloves. Sand blasting your hand is very uncomfortable not to mention it helps develop your colorful language skills. <br /><br />I came in one day and the clocks were blown off the wall, the electricity was out. There had been a quench oil fire that went 40 feet in the air and spread out across the ceiling.<br /><br />When they first trained me, they mentioned that if you ever open an oven to put a load in or take it out and it is black in there, duck. The furnaces we were loading used processed natural gas inside the oven. This gas was ignited by the extreme temps in the oven creating a burning atmosphere inside the oven. At the opening of each oven, it had what was called a flame curtain that would burn off any excess gas that escaped. When the oven inside was black, it meant the gas inside had not burnt and that you 250 or more cubic feet of unburnt gas that was going to be ignited by the flame curtain. One day, I was helping one of the owners. We were standing behind the oven when we opened the back door. The inside was black. I ducked just as the gas ignited. It was a heck of an explosion that went over my head. It was a huge thump.<br /><br />Another night I was working and our gas pressure safety switch went off on our natural gas processor. We called the owner and he said he would walk us through the relighting of the processor. He said, flick this switch, then this, then check this gauge, then light the processor. We came back on the phone and told him it was done and there was silence for a second. The owner blew a big sigh of relief and then told us if we had made a mistake we would have blown the whole place and ourselves to tiny bits. Yet he felt it was okay to walk us through it over the phone.<br /><br />During the hot months, the temp in the place exceeded 125F degrees. You would come out of the place because you could come out of the place into 97 degree weather and it would feel like you just walked into an air conditioned room from a desert. My first day there, I called my wife. I had been drinking water and felt like I was going to puke, pass out and was dizzy. She brought me a gallon of Gatorade which I faithfully drank everyday after that during the summer<br /><br />We had to load fuel injector parts by hand into baskets to be loaded into the furnace. These parts had glass sharp pieces of steel that would imbed in your fingers. When you looked at your fingers after the loading, they looked like the back of a porcupine.<br /><br />We had to handle wet, oily and hot parts, yet only got one pair of cotton gloves a week. They would have holes after the second day if someone did not steal them and you would burn your fingertips the rest of the week. Also, when they got wet and you had to handle 300 degree parts, the water would conduct the heat to your fingers. I dont know how many times I had to drain the infection from under my finger nails. We also had some parts we had to pull out the ovens at 1725F degrees then put them in a press so they would not warp when cooling. This was done with a pair of cotton denim gloves and a regular pair of channel locks. I did not have any hair below my elbows while I worked this job.<br /><br />It was a heck of a job, but I know there have to be a lot of bad jobs out there that people have had just to make sure you provide for your family.
but always real greasy although I did actually like it. Worked in machine shop/delivered heavy parts, always had fish oil on me and left arm was always tan from driving during summer, got to unload flatbed by hand in summer in L.A. humidity and heat! Dripped all day, would go thru 2 shirts a day. Thats about it , I like what I do now, travel all over U.S. and get salvage sites up(Communication tech.)still do LOTS of lifting and when not traveling, plan sites and some helpdesk work. 
