The time spent not being "The Guy"

A man once told me (I don’t know if he was wise, but he seemed to have his shit together), that the life of a Nuclear Reactor Operator is 99% boredom, and 1% shear blinding terror.




That is very analogous of the work schedule during a refueling outage. (Do you like the use of that word? I am trying to expand my vocabulary and have started using fancy words in everyday situations, much to the dismay of those around me). What I mean by that is; during an outage, you are either the one that everyone is waiting for, or you are waiting for someone else.



When it is your turn to get your work done, everyone who has ever even driven by the plant wants an update on your work, and wants to know why it isn’t being done faster. And somehow overnight, those around you become subject matter experts on what you are doing, and know a better way to do it.



Hi, this is Alice from the cafeteria, can you please tell me when you are going to be done with cable terminations?






We should be done by 23:00






That’s UNSAT, you need to be done in 6 minutes.






What? We are way ahead of schedule, and you charge me a different price for the same lunch nearly every day, why are you even asking me?






Who do you report to?



This is what one of my past co-workers used to call “being the guy”. Whenever your work came up on the schedule, you were “the guy”. No one wants to be “the guy”.



The flip side of this is when your project is not affecting anyone else. When this happens, you could walk around with a vuvuzela and a tambourine, and you would not be able to get anyone’s attention.



Hey Alice, I think that my grilled cheese sandwich is on fire, can you turn around and flip it






What part of “you aren’t on critical path, go fuck yourself” didn’t you understand?




What amplifies these two extremes is the speed at which you transition from one to another. There is no spring or fall. It’s like driving a sports car 140mph right into a brick wall. One day the plant manager knows your name and where you went to school, the next day your own supervisor is too busy to hold the door open for you



I luckily find little ways to entertain myself during the down time. Don’t get me wrong, I do all of the things I should do during my down time. I get all of my reports for what I have done so far in order and I get everything that I need for our next window ready. I even make half assed attempts at helping others



Hey it looks like you need a hand with that?



Yeah that would be great



Oh crap, hold on a second, my boss is calling, I will be back in like 2 hours…



But your phone didn’t ring…..



But in between all of stuff I should be doing, I also find little things to do around the plant to pass the time and break up the monotony, so I don’t snap out of stress or cabin fever. Here are the top ten things that have gotten me through the past 2 ½ weeks



1. Noticing when others have not locked their computers when they leave, and changing their wallpaper to glamor shots of Adam Lambert

2. Paging people to urgently call random extensions (This was Jerm’s idea)

3. Walking around extremely wide eyed, like you have just witnessed something life changing, not acknowledging anyone around you

4. Standing facing into the corner of the elevator in containment

5. Leaving sticky notes on peoples computer screens that say “Call extension 357 !!! Extremely Urgent!!!” (our extensions are 4 digits)

6. Making truck noises when I walk, especially squealing tire noises around corners

7. Emailing my own email, then responding back to myself over and over talking about a trivial issue, then forwarding the chain to someone to get their input

8. Leaving sketches and calculations on the white board in my office that have glaring mathematical errors

9. Standing in my door way, with my door cracked just an inch or two, and if anyone notices me, closing it door immediately

10. Going to ask the other night shift engineers questions by going into one of the cubicles adjacent to theirs and popping my head over the wall, then leaving and coming back 5 mins later and doing the same thing from the cubical on the opposite side… Repeat back and forth as needed to get them to acknowledge what I am doing.



Luckily there are only two weeks left…

My Name is Robert Paulson

So the Nuke plant that I am working at has just started (about a week ago) it’s refueling outage. So my gingerific officemate and I take turns manning our office around the clock. Jerm and I Native American leg wrestled, I lost, and got stuck with night shift.




For those of you that have not had the pleasure of being involved with a nuclear refueling outage, you really don’t know what you are missing. This little industrial marvel is when the plants flips off the light switch, throws all of the spent fuel into Niagara Falls, or jams it down “Ol Faithful, or whatever they do with it (this is not my department), and replaces or rearranges the remaining fuel. Also, they fix or update old equipment, or just for practice take out equipment that is perfectly ok and put it back in. All the while, Greenpeace gets to sit on the boarder of the site and burn fistfuls of the plants money until it comes back online.

As such, the plant has a strong desire to get everything done as fast and safely as possible. This creates a great influx of new workers. As Jerm overheard one guy say “Every fucking carnie north of the mason Dixon line is going to be here next week”. That is funny on its own, but no one north of the mason Dixon line uses that expression, so the irony gives it that little bit of extra fun.





Anyway…



So I have been drawing a lot of comparisons between this outage and the movie Fight Club. And what kind of a guy would I be if I didn’t share these thoughts with you. A bad one… I would be a bad kind of guy….



First off, there is the obvious sleep deprivation aspect. I am the type of guy that doesn’t feel right if I don’t get 14-16 hours of sleep a night. I’m not one of those hippy types that sleeps in until noon, I go to bed roughly the same time as the average 4th grader. So switching over to night shift was not an easy transformation for me.

The first night, I did ok until about 2:30, then the guys on my crew had to wheel me around on a hand cart like Hannibal Lector. The second night I made it strong all shift. Then I stopped at Wegman’s on the way home to get lots of meats and cheeses. I was on the phone with Kali as I shopped, tooting my own horn about how awake I was, how the carnies have taken to me and want me to be one of them, and other such ramblings. As I rounded the corner to the deli, it was like I got shot with a tranquilizer dart. I dropped my phone and ran for the door like Jim Carrie running from the tribesmen in Ace Venture 2, with my arms hanging limp by my sides… I got in the car, and drove immediately into a light pole, and slept for 5 hours.



I have somewhat adjusted. But with our opposite schedules, when Kali and I talk on the phone, nine times out of ten I am in some state of unconsciousness. I fear that she suspects that I have developed a drug problem. That and I am never quite sure what day it is. It is very odd when you come into work on one day, and it changes to the next day sometime during the time you are hiding from your superiors.



The other glaring similarity to Fight Club is the….



Wait… if you haven’t seen Fight Club, stop reading this, go write “I am not a real man” 100 times, and watch it… Don’t keep reading until you do, as I am about to ruin it for you.



OK you are back.. Good wasn’t it…

The other similarity is that Jerm and I are never together in the outside world at the same time. It’s like Jerm is Ed Norton, and I am Tyler Durdan (I’m actually more like Robert Paulson but this is my story, I can be who I want), and Dale and Shaun are Marla. Jerm goes to work, I come home an hour later, then in the afternoon I leave and Jerm shows back up. They never get to see us together, and I am beginning to fear that I am a figment of his imagination.



You would think that I would be better looking if I was an image that he conjured up in his head right? So I am pretty sure that I still exist, but who knows.



But just to complete the whole Fight Club thing, I am going to march into my bosses office later this morning, and kick the shit out of myself and demand a raise.



I have to wait until Jerm gets here first so I have a way to get home….

If you are reading this, i am already dead

I feel as though I need to get this out there, though I may be putting my life in jeopardy by doing so (Dunt Dunt Dunnnnnt).




Some of you may not be aware that the greater NYC area has a real life, authentic serial killer, just like you see in the movin picture shows.



Kali was down in NYC this week visiting her sister, and she wasn’t aware that a mass murderer was picking off craigslist whores at an alarming rate (any rate is alarming I guess, depending on who you talk to). At first I was a little worried about this, because Kali fits the profile of the stereotypical whore. But now I am not so sure if I should have been worried about her, or whether I need to be worried about my own safety.



I won’t beat around the bush anymore. I think I know who the NYC serial killer is. I believe it to be none other than my officemate and roommate, Jeremy Bronson.



Do I have any proof of this? No. Do I have any real reason to even consider this to be plausible? Not really. But I still believe it with every fiber of my being.



There is only one small thing that planted this idea in my head, and like Leo’s wife in Inception, I have little doubt that it will grow and grow in there until I jump out of a high rise window.



Jerm has begun bringing large chunks of meat though airport security on a regular basis. He first asked me if I thought he would be allowed to bring a bone-in pork shoulder through TSA. A normal person would have asked why. I didn’t question it, I just figured that it would end with me getting pork, so I told him absolutely. He tried, and surprisingly, he was allowed.



Since that first day, he has done it multiple times, and is now known by the TSA personnel as the guy who brings big chunks of meat and bone though the x-ray. I fear that this is how he gets away with it. He is killing people in Rochester, cutting them up in chunks (that when baked for 8 hours at 225 degrees, are just as tender as can be), taking them on airplanes right under everyone’s nose, and dumping the parts on Long Island beaches.



Now you know as much as I do. A simple theory indeed, but one that has completely changed the way that I interact with him.



Because serial killers a lot of times are referred to by using all three names, I have started calling him Jeremy Matthew Bronson at all meetings and public events. No one knows why. When they look at me funny, I raise my eyebrows and slightly nod in Jerm’s direction, then give the slash the throat sign with my thumb, wink and smile crazily.



I have to sit in the office with Jeremy Matthew Bronson 5 days a week, for roughly 8 hours,minus the time that we spend going to the vending machine, or the coffee pot, or the Bat Cave. The Bat Cave is the bathroom on site where we like to poo. Its dark, and out of the way, and you are much less likely to have someone come ride sidecar with you following a night of overeating Sak Tai food.



The way our office is set up, my desk faces the door. This is great for passers-by not being about to see what I am up to. Unfortunately, it also means that I have to sit with my back to JMB (I have started using this moniker for him as well. Its shorter, but far more confusing, because when I say this, no one knows who or what I am talking about. The way of the nuke world is to use TLA’s (see previous post). The more TLA’s you know, the higher up the food chain you move. So no one will ever admit they don’t know one. So when I say that I think we might have a huge issue with JMB that we all need to be concerned about, the management just agrees and forms a committee to complete a risk matrix on whatever a JMB is… all the while, I am in a duffle bag in his trunk because no one would admit that this is not a common usage TLA, and means nothing to them).



Anyway, I have to sit with my back to him all day. It’s like playing faceball. You know that something bad is about to happen to you, but you can’t see it coming. So I made a little trip to the bike shop, and bought two very large rear view mirrors that I have attached to both sides of my computer monitor. They give me a fairly clear view of what he is doing, however due to the size of my head, there is a dead spot (how Freudian). This requires me to continually rock my head from left to right to see him when he is directly behind me… No one will come anywhere near our office.



In any normal situation, when someone had to share an office with another who may or may not be a mass murderer, they get to go home and get some much needed down time after they punch out. Not me. I get to walk out with, get in a car with, ride home, eat dinner, bathe with, and then cuddle up next two my tormenter. It is an around the clock nightmare.



There are some signs in our home life, that also have lead me to believe that I am sleeping with the enemy. Charlie has been acting even more weird than usual.



I haven’t talked much about Chucky. He is our house hound dog. He is much like Lenny from Of Mice and Men. He does not know a great deal yet, as he is still a puppy, and his growth has vastly outpaced his ability to control his body when up to speed. Coupled with his retard strength, he can be a bit of a handful. I often get on top of him and try to smother him with a pillow, but I just end up getting dragged around the house like those rodeo guys that get their boot stuck in the stirrup. I end up with compound fractures, and Charlie doesn’t even know we were fighting. I’m afraid that it will one day turn into a Sling blade type ending, with him waiting for the police over my lifeless body. But I can only have one irrational fear of being murdered by one of my loved ones at a time, so I will get back to Charles at a later date.



The only thing that outshines Chucks tongue length, is his sense of smell. If anything is out of the ordinary, he will barrel it over, or rip your arm out of socket if you have him on a leash. Lately, he will not leave JMB alone. At first it seemed out of place, and raised my suspicions. Then one day I came in and found JMB rubbing raw slab bacon all over his naked body while sitting in the kitchen sink. This too was a little odd, but it did fully explain Charlie’s behavior, so I could no longer prove that Charlie held the key to getting this fucking psycho put away for life. I think I may be dealing with a criminal mastermind.



I have no doubt that JMB will eventually read this. And it will bring the situation to a head. I just hope that that doesn’t lead to him carrying my head through the Greater Rochester International Airport. But I can’t take going on like this with him any longer, I just want to get it over with.



In closing, I will leave you with the words of Jerry Springer. Take care of yourself… and each other. And if you see a crazy eyed ginger, that smells of sweet savory bacon, for Christ sake, turn and walk the other way.

I drop bombs like Hiroshima

Since I cut out my overzealous use of alcohol in order to better prepare myself for this year’s Tinman, I have found that I sleep much better on Sunday nights. It is funny how staying up until the wee hours of the night on Friday and Saturday and “pouring that belly wash inta ya until ya don’t know nothin” (as Pete Murphy would say) will keep you up on Sunday nights when you are sober, have a hangover, and know that even if you fall asleep at 10, you are still only getting 6 hours of sleep. But no booze = sleep like a fat baby.

So last night, I was enjoying my newly founded restful Sabbath slumber. That was until thunder and lightning descended upon the hamlet of Colton with all of God’s furious vengeance.



I don’t know if I was half asleep… actually I do know that I WAS half asleep, so some of my recollection of this might be slightly off.. but I have never head thunder quite like last night. It wasn’t that it was overly loud. But it was nonstop. It just seemed to rumble on and on forever.



It woke Kali up too, and she said “What is that”….



I responded, as sweet as pie, “Thunder I assume”



Kali – “What if it’s not?”



Me – “What else would it be?”



Kali – “Bombs”

Me (with a quizzical look, as she said bombs with a seriousness that seemed like this was really an option) – “ummm. I a….I doubt it is bombs”

Kali (As she rolled over and fell back asleep) – “Allllright…. but if its bombs…..”



And with that she was out….

I stared at her sleeping for the next 3 hours, like the chick from Paranormal Activity.











She said “alright, but if its bombs”, the way your mother would agree to let you do something that she knew better about, but wanted you to fail in order to teach you a lesson. Like letting you watch a scary movie… “Allllright…. But if you have nightmares, don’t come crying to me….” Or letting you do LSD before school “Allllright…. But if you think your face is melting off during Home-Ec, just remember I told you so.”

The worst part was, I never got the “I told you so part”, all I got was “if its bombs……” What was I to do, if in fact, Colton was being shelled with artillery? ? Should I wake her? And if I did, was she just going to rub it in my face that she was right? I don’t know if I could take that. Plus I would probably never get back to sleep in time to feel rested for the drive in the morning. Should i go get under my desk the way that our parents were taught when they were young. "ummmm. teacher? there is a B52 flying over the soccer field, it looks like it is going to carpet bomb the school". "Just get under your desk and cover your ears, you will be fine"

Eventually the thunder (or bombs) let up, and I drifted back to sleep (or went and got a butcher knife and stood in the closet for 3 hours due to our house being possessed, could have been either, we didn't have a camera going).

but I asked Bruce as i was getting gas this morning, and he had heard about a storm, nothing about any bombings… So I guess we are in the clear for now, but who really knows.

In the arms of the angles.....

As you may or may not know, Kali and I are now home owners. We had wanted to get a dog for a few years now, but were always waiting until we had a place of our own.


Now that we have a place, we realized two things. The unending joy that one feels when they own a pink and purple home, and also that we are not home enough to have a dog. We didn’t want to but the kind of dog owners that keep their dog hog tied in the closet all day while they are out gallivanting around town.

Maybe someday when we are both on the dole, we can get a pooch, but not right now. So, we have decided to become cat people. I let Charlie know that we were going to be getting cats. He said, why would you want cats, they get hairballs and make faces like this;

Then he said, plus, they can’t play bar games, shut up about the damn cats and let’s play some foose.

After he beat me, he made me promise not to bring up the cat issue again.

So I have been looking around at some options. I looked at the Lollypop Farm website, and sent a photo of a cat that I thought looked cool, to Kali. She responded with a concern about used cats, based on the fact that I got her a cat back in the day from the animal shelter, and it turned out to be a drug abuser and an anti-Semite. I responded with the following;

Are you really going to condemn me for something some other cat did to you??? Look at me ! Really??

One thing led to another, and soon I was adding captions to all of photos of the used cats at Lollypop Farm that are for sale and lease, and sending them to Kali at work so she could look and see if she wanted to save any of poor souls from the kitty gallows.

It went a little something like this

a…. Yo…. Whats up sweetie…. Maybe you’s and I go grab dinner? Whatta ya say?

I ate his liver with some fava beans and a fine chianti

I know what you are doing, get back to work, we aren’t for your amusement

They make us pose for these pictures like 5 hours a day. I have a job, and a family… get it over with.

( From Black Cat) This white cat is racist, that’s why I sit so close to him… look how mad he is.

(From White Cat) I hate black cats.

No one will adopt me because my right ear is so much smaller than my left one…

I’m actually a kitten… I am screwed.

Hey mehn…. Jew wanna know something? That cholo really is a cat mehn… crazy!

Go ahead, adopt me… see if I don’t tie your family up and burn the house down by Thursday

Oh…. Didn’t ugh… didn’t see ya there…. I was… aughh.. poopin

I have scoliosis…Sarah McLachlan won’t even use me in commercials.

(From Brown Cat) I’m afraid to move… is that grey cat still behind me????

(From Gray Cat) Shhhh.. don’t tell him I am still here

I don’t even know what I am… some kind of small horse? A teddy bear???

But seriously folks, if you would like any of these fine animals, please contact Lollypop Farm of Rochester. And have your pets spayed or neutered.

Put your pants on, and get off my desk!

One part of working in a Nuclear Plant, is that at any given time, you have a 60% chance of being in training of some sort. Of the remaining 40% that you are not in training, about half of that is time that you are supposed to be in training and you have forgotten about it. The 20% that is left over you can use to fill out documents to explain why you missed the training you should have been in.


It keeps us all very knowledgeable, but does somewhat hamper one’s ability to get actual work done.

This week has been a heavy training week (so to speak). Most of it is CBT (that is a TLA for Computer Based Training for all you non-nukers), (TLA is a TLA for Three Letter Acronym). It should be fairly painless and go quickly, but I spend a good portion of the time arguing with the proctor of the testing over why I think I was right about questions that I got wrong, and why, as I am a black man in American, the testing is biased against me. It makes the time spent exciting for everyone, waiting to see when she will snap and tell me to GFM (that is a TLA for Go……).

Part of my training today was to get a physical exam to determine if I am physically fit enough to wear a respirator. Some work that we will be doing during the upcoming outage may involve types of radiation that require us to were a SCUBA suit. This makes me very excited. To quote Jeremy “If I get exposed to high levels of radiation, I want them to give me cyanide pills, not iodine pills. He was standing a little close to the microwave last night, so I slipped a little in his ice tea. (He missed training today, and will have to spend the rest of the week filling out paperwork).

So I went into the nurses office for my physical. She comes in a few minutes later, tells me that removing all of my clothing was not necessary, and tells me to sit down so she can take my blood pressure. I had been thinking about having M-Kent throw the old arm band on me if we got the chance, as in the past few months, when I drink with a hangover, my body feels like a overfilled balloon (insert fat joke). I was kinda worried that my blood pressure was to the point that if I slit my wrist, I could shoot blood across the room and incapacitate bad guys like spider man.

She put the band on my and pumped it up. When the pressure reached its greatest, 100% concentrated Franks Red Hot began seeping from my arm like a wet sponge that got squeezed. Just kidding, turns out that my blood pressure is fantastically low. She told me that and i replied with wide eyes “Really??? Wow”.

Nurse – “You seem Surprised”

Me – “You don’t know me that well”

Nurse – “I just saw you naked and laying on my desk”

Me – “Touché”

Following that she told me to take my shoes off so she could get my accurate height and weight. I immediately grabbed the questionnaire I had filled out and crossed out 6’3-175lbs.

Turns out that I am 4’-8”. This took me by surprise, I thought that I was much taller. Just goes to show that you never have a very objective opinion of yourself.

Then the meat and tater’s of the exam was to test my lung capacity. After multiple failed tests, she finally convinced me to stop sucking on the tube, and to blow into in.

Nurse – Ok, blow into this tube.

Me – Now do I put my lips up to it like a trumpet? Or wrap my lips around it like aaaa…….

Nurse (With a confused GFY look) – Not like a trumpet.

Fair enough…

Turns out I can blow a lot.



Bring on the REM!

Observations of a sorry little fellow with rambling nonsense

I was going to wait until i had a handful of WDT comment wars saved up and then post them all at once, but this guy might snap and burn the building down if i keep pushing him, so i wanted you all to be in on the grounf floor of his breakdown.

http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/article/20110324/NEWS05/303249942

P.S.Kali, Dobber, and Dobber's wife... (i told them all i would mention them. There ya go.