My apologies, brothers. I hadn’t seen this thread until iLearn gave me dope slap.
I can only describe the work in general terms. The project was aboard a warship at a relative small naval base and involved internal inspections on a critical piece of propulsion plant machinery. Basically, we were opening up and entering a piece of equipment which hadn’t been opened and entered since the warship was constructed in order to perform certain types of very detailed and technical inspections and tests on the materials and components inside.
The speed and professionalism in which the job was performed were a perfect example of how men work together at even the hardest tasks.
The work crews were split into two 12 hour shifts and we worked seven days a week. Adding up turn overs, each work shift really ran closer to 13 or 14 hours a day. The total crew was made up of over 30 men in various professional trades plus a double handful of supervisors, tech reps, and engineers who were also all men.
There were only three women on the job, all involved in some kind of paper shuffling. The two older ones were quietly competent, they’d worked for the yard for some time. The third was a new hire, just a few years out of college, and sent along to learn on the job. She was basically useless and, despite being married, spent most of her time being entertained by and flirting with various blue pill orbiters.
She’s what’s known as a “Shipyard Nine” with the joke being that shipyard nines only rate as fours on the outside as their attractiveness is inflated by the lack of other women. She also quickly became the “yard wife” of one of the supervisors. I don’t know if they were f~~~ing – and I don’t want to know – but I do know they spent what little off time they had together and on the job hung out in each others’ trailers.
The was an interesting contrast between the “old sweats” like myself and the party types, with old referred to experience rather than age. The work was physically and technically demanding even without 12 hours shifts so experienced men know to enough to take care of business off shift and pace themselves. I made sure to get enough sleep, eat properly, get in some light exercise, and so forth while others spent most of their off time partying. After a week or so of the grind, the party types learned to dial it back some.
The job itself began badly. Despite plenty of mock-up time and planning, the reality of what we’d be doing and where we’d be working caused all sorts of problems. Everything was eventually handled however and the second half of the job went all the more smoothly because of how much we’d bled during the first half.
The camaraderie and constant ball busting was normal for a nearly all male work crew. I only noticed it thanks to the reactions of the new hire female engineer.
A trio of machinists were giving each other s~~~ about a waitress at their hotel while the engineer sat there with her mouth hanging open alternately laughing and in shock. Those three men had just climbed out of a confined space so warm they had to wear chill vests along with dosimeters and special “clean” clothes but, instead of bitching about the conditions, they were ribbing one of their number about how a waitress had been coming on to him.
She remarked to me about how they were “always teasing” each other, so I explained they were busting chops and not teasing. Teasing always has ulterior motives – which is why women tease, not that I told her that. The machinists instead were busting on each other because they were all friends doing a nasty job and needed to let off steam. I further explained it was when they weren’t laughing, acted testy, and got snippy with each other – when they began acting like women, not that I said that either – that we’d need to worry.
All in all, while physically taxing and mentally grinding, the job got done, got done correctly, and got done on time and under budget because men worked together.
It’s jobs like this one that make me happy to work on the road.
Do not date. Do not impregnate. Do not co-habitate. Above all, do not marry. Reclaim and never again surrender your personal sovereignty.
OldBill 3 years, 4 months ago.
