Epilogue to yesterday's little rant....

Question: 'How did The Gold-plated Nobody survive among Engineers and Engineering Technologists without any similar qualifications himself?'

Answer: 'Very carefully, thanks...' 

I was a major curiosity in the head office of that government-run electrical utility, not just because I couldn't produce a sheepskin or a certificate as a registered Technologist, but also because they had never before been up close and personal with anyone having any real 'hands-on' experience in the daily operations and maintenance of working hydro-electric power stations. Their whole experience, individually and collectively, had consisted of remotely learning of problems, inadequately described or misunderstood, coming to them by teletype or radio telephone from sites in the Arctic which most of them had never personally seen nor visited, and which most had difficulty visualizing.

I was hired by Joe, the Manager of Hydro Stations, to be an interpreter for him between the on-site plant personnel up north, and these desk-bound engineers and technologists at head office, so that when a problem arose, I could give these guys a power station operator's perspective on probable causes  and cures, and help them to visualize the equipment we were dealing with up there. And I didn't need an Engineering or Technology degrees for that. All I needed was a few soft-leaded pencils, some good drawing paper, and a few of my own collected Engineering Handbooks, along with the training manuals I'd used at Ontario Hydro years before, to learn the trade.

I took six or eight months at the beginning, as Joe had instructed, to just take time to thoroughly familiarize myself with their methods of record-keeping, so that I knew where to find information on any location and its equipment and the history of its maintenance, and then I was ready. They had a rather old-fashioned system, using dozens of three-drawer metal filing cabinets, in two rows, back to back, lined up next to a passageway through this open-format office space, consisting of individual little cubicles with low divider partitions, with an Engineer or a Technologist in each cubicle, working on individual assignments, all of which were running six to nine months behind schedule. And my friendly little Chinese boss, Joe, was hoping that maybe with me there answering questions, we might get some of these pompous asses back on schedule again. They had a saying, those guys, that went "Relax, it's all pensionable time." And I got popular replying, "But you're not retired yet, you British reject! Time marches on, trampling everything underfoot! You included."

One particularly obnoxious and terribly British Mechanical Engineering type did everything he could to sabotage anything that I was pushing through in the form of floor plans, wiring and cable duct layouts, or etc. for upcoming new projects scheduled for the next summer's working season up north, and he quite openly challenged me to do something about it. I let him enjoy himself for a while, and then one morning when I wasn't too busy with Gus or the Secretarial Pool, or the two Mexicans in our Drafting Department, both great guys, I stopped by his cubicle at the rear of the floor, next to a window overlooking the back alley, and made some small talk. He liked to lecture on yachting, and he had one, kept in the lower Ottawa River somewhere, and after the latest on that, I asked "How are we doing on the piping drawings for the new plant layout at that upgraded diesel plant in Cambridge Bay?" He replied, "When I think that's any of your concern, I'll let you know."

I tried again, "Excuse me, Bill, but perhaps there's a little misunderstanding here. Joe and I were talking a while back, and I mentioned that everybody in the office here had a pet project except for me. So Joe asked me if I wanted one. And I said, "Yes, Please!" So he gave me Cambridge Bay, to organize all the material purchases, the equipment purchases, the cables, the wiring, the pipes, the building envelope, the foundations layouts - everything! And I'm being an absolute pain in your ass because I need to know where you're putting those pipes in those trenches in the concrete foundations, because I have to run my electrical cables and wiring all over that stuff too, and I need to see where we will have conflicts with crossovers, etc., etc., etc. - and I hope that's not going to be an inconvenience for you." And Bill, the pompous Brit, looking down his nose at this 'ruddy colonial ignoramus' said "I'm busy here! Try not to bother me for a few days about that." (I'm not half Irish for nothing!) So I leaned over his desk, looked him in the eye, and asked "Have you looked out this back window lately at the alley down below?"  He smiled and asked "Why?" I replied, "Because I'd like you to see where you'll land if I don't have that piping layout drawing on my own desk by next Monday morning at the absolute latest! And this is NOT a request! Understood?" He turned a little shade paler, and asked, "Are you actually serious?" And I said, "I'm so goddamned serious you're lucky I haven't thrown your pompous British ass out that window already, you insufferable son of a bitch! Now move your ass! Every one of you Brit dog-fuckers around here is running six to nine months behind schedule on your assigned projects, and taking two hour lunch breaks, and acting like you're on vacation, and Joe isn't happy with that. And I want Joe to be happy. I intend to have my assignment come in on schedule, over your dead body, if necessary, just so there's no misunderstanding here. Now I invite you to confirm all this with Joe himself, if you're stupid enough to do that. Otherwise, you'd better get your thumb out of your bum and your mind out of neutral, and start doing something productive around here, before some hostile Canadian goes ape."

I got my drawings before that next Monday, and I got my project done on schedule, and the day Joe got word from up north that my project had just been successfully completed and commissioned and in service, he held a little meeting of our happy little group, at which he said, "Ray's project is the only one around here in living memory that was completed on schedule as planned, and I'm congratulating him for his nice work. And I'm reminding the rest of you that if Ray can do it, then you certainly should, especially with all your better qualifications."  That dig about 'qualifications' really cracked me up.  After the meeting, and the others crawling back to their cubicles, I asked Joe, "Can I take you downstairs to that restaurant on the street level and buy you a nice big steak, Boss?" And Joe laughed and said, "Nah! that stuff'll kill you! Let's go for a tall cold one instead!" And I said, "Your wish is my command."