1999-2001 Sullivan Park

I was at Corning Glass’s Sullivan Park Research facility for almost 2 years. It was a fascinating place to work. I started in the clean room. As the name implies, it was to be a sterile environment that would enable the scientist to develop products without fear of contamination. Most of the piping was stainless steel, either welded or put together with mechanical fittings. It was very precise work. At the end of the project, when everything had been tested, we were labeling the pipes. Some of the pipes were going to be filled with gases that were deadly if inhaled. I was up a ladder putting on labels as my foreman identified each pipe. One of the scientists opened a valve to a line that had not been capped off properly. The temporary cap blew off, alarms started ringing, and chaos erupted. After it was all over my foreman asked me how I managed to get out before he did since I was up a ladder. “I have 2 babies at home, just knowing that makes me move like lightening”, I replied. Since that project was complete I was transferred to another crew under the leadership of Bud W. A lot of people didn’t like working for Bud. He was a stickler for doing things right. He expected people to work along steadily. If there was a problem getting something done, he wanted to know why. He was also very religious. At one point I told him that he was actually putting people off religion by preaching so much. He was always so happy that I felt that was testament enough to having God’s love in your life. I think he agreed with me because he never preached to me. What he did do was make me a foreman in charge of a two million dollar project. I was called into Mike A’s. (the Superintendent) office at the end of the day. Mike and another GF told me Bud wanted me to be foreman. They asked if I thought the guys would listen to me. I knew it was really up to them. If a guy refused to work for me and they said okay and put him in another crew; that sent a message. If they said okay and laid him off, that sent a message as well. As it turned out it was a moot point. I had no problems with my crew. I had between 8-10 workers on any given day. It was supposed to have been a 40 hr a week job, but there was a huge delay at the beginning that put us on 60 hours. All the underground had been installed before I took over. Due to the chemicals being disposed, special plastic piping called Fuse Seal was used. It is a socket joint that has wire in the fitting. You slide the pipe into the socket; hook the wires to a machine which melts the two plastics together. Well, we had gotten a bad batch of fittings and there were dozens of leaks. Bud and I worked 24 hours straight trying to get a satisfactory test. After consulting with the manufacturer’s rep it was decided to pull out all the piping and start over with extra heavy CPVC. There I was, my first day as foreman, ripping out and reinstalling what had taken a month to put in. Once that was done, we had to install process piping to over 30 labs as well as heating and cooling units, plus all the sanitary lines. It was a complex project that took 6 months, but we came in on time and under budget. It really gave me a chance to prove myself. I loved coordinating with the other trades. I felt like I could do anything after that job. At the end, I walked into Mike’s office and tried to hand in my white hat. I didn’t want to work so many hours with my girls still so young. He wouldn’t take it. He promised me that I could work 40 hours for as long as possible. Instead of having my own crew I was given a rolling tool cart. My job was to coordinate with the scientists for their special needs. If I needed help, I could have a people assigned to me once I had set the project up. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Unfortunately my mouth got me laid off. They had discovered lead in the paint in some of the areas of the plant. They held a meeting to tell us that we were all going to have our blood tested to see if there were any problems. I made the mistake of asking if we were going to have the results mailed to us since we were temporary employees. The contractor took that as a lack of faith in them. I didn’t mean it that way, and my fellow workers were glad I had asked. Three days later Bud had to hand me my layoff check. I thought he was going to cry, but I was okay. My BA had another job lined up closer to home that was just fine with me.

1999 Toshiba & Separation

At the end of 1999 I asked for a layoff from the pipe shop at Cornell. My youngest daughter was over 3 years old and still wearing diapers. I felt that I was being a terrible mother because I was working so much I didn’t have time to toilet train her. My mother-in-law watched her during the day. She also watched another little girl as well who was much younger. I really felt she wasn’t doing it right. In reality, kids toilet train when they are ready! After a few months with both of us being frustrated as I tried to push her into big girl panties, she decided it was time. She went from diapers all day and night to never wearing them at all. I went back to work feeling much better about my role as a working mother. What I didn’t feel good about was my role as wife. While there are always two sides to every divorce, my side was that I felt like I was caring for three children. I paid most of the bills for the house including insurance, taxes, mortgage, groceries, clothes, and feed bills. He paid the utilities. I did all the cooking, cleaning, laundry, and shopping. He cut the grass with the riding lawn mower I bought. Our fights about little things began to escalate. He seemed to think I should be able to do everything his mother did around the house with no help from the “man” of the family. I was working 60 hours a week and was exhausted. In May, I asked him to move out for a trial separation. When he refused, I was forced to file for a legal separation. It was a really tense time. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to pay the utilities that he used to cover. But I found that without him in the house my expenses actually went down. I had more free time as we had worked out a shared child custody arrangement. My employer agreed to let me come in an hour late twice weekly, so that I could bring the kids to school and child care in the morning. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In the spring, before the separation, I had been working at the Toshiba plant installing a new line. It was a great job, clean and relatively easy. I was partnered up with my old friend Cora Lee who was the first female in our local. We were installing stainless steel lines to some sort of robotic machine. They were connected using a technique called Pro-Press. Basically it was a socket joint with an O-ring inside. You put your pipe into your fitting and then place the machine around it to crimp it. You had to be careful to have everything lined up properly or you would have leaks. The machine was awkward, but not tremendously heavy. We were working along, singing, telling jokes and laughing the whole day. About 2 weeks after we started we had a union meeting. The Business Agent called us over and said, “You two are in trouble! The General Foreman called today”. I was sure we were having too much fun or not being productive enough and were about to be fired. Instead he informed us that the GF wanted to know why we were out producing the guys by three times as much. Apparently when you have a good partner and get into a good work rhythm, pipe gets installed without you even realizing it! But alas, like all good jobs it came to an end.

1998 Cornell University

For most of 1998 I worked at Cornell University again. I can’t emphasize enough about how much I love working there. Your physical surroundings are beautiful. Buildings were done in architectural styles from 1860 to modern. Oh and the greenery!!! I would spend my lunch hours walking around Beebee Lake or through the sculpture garden at the Plantations. If the weather was bad, I would go to the Johnson Museum of Art and look at new exhibits or old favorites. On the top floor, which also holds Asian Art, there are huge windows with views looking up Cayuga Lake and across Ithaca. The majority of the professors and student treat you (a common worker) with respect and in some cases awe. I don’t think it was just that I was female either. Cornell is such an open liberal environment that was never a huge issue except for some of my co-workers, but not many. I worked with some great guys! Joe I the pump guy. Smiley who was always ready to help and yes, always with a smile. Paul E the new pump guy who became a very good friend. My old buddy Tom S who was an apprentice with me. These are just a few of the guys I worked around that I knew had my back. The bean counters didn’t like you to work in pairs, but if you needed a hand there was always someone you could call for help. Some days were crazy with emergency calls from overflowing floor drains in the Big Red Barn to no heating/cooling in a Dean’s office. There was glass, PVC, cast iron, steam, chemical, and air piping. You could be fixing toilets one day and helping a grad student build a flume the next. You never knew what you were going to walk into when they handed out the work tickets in the morning. That’s what made it fun! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ What made it not fun was sometimes things couldn’t get fixed in an eight hour day. I would have unexpected overtime. With two little kids at home, that can be tough. At the time I was still married, but he really hated it when I was late. I hated missing bath and story time with my girls! Looking back this was one of the calmest times in my life. I had a steady 40 hour job that not only paid the bills, but allowed me to put some away for college educations. My house got paid off. My kids were well cared for and happy. I was done with school and the future was looking good. But as the saying goes, if you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plans. By 1999, things had changed drastically.

1997 Wegman's Ithaca

After a month off, another job opened up at the Wegmans Store in Ithaca. It was being built right next to an existing Wegmans that apparently was built improperly so that it was sinking into the swamp area of South Ithaca. This job was one of those ones that look like it should be a great job but due to the personalities on the job it really wasn’t. There was one guy who was just so whiney! We called him the bitter fitter. We all wanted to work 4-10’s, but he wouldn’t let us as it was working contrary to the contract. There was another who was such a pervert. One day he left a wire sculpture depicting two figures having anal sex at my seat at the lunch table. I picked it up and tossed it in the trash without comment. We called him the BugFucker. Naturally I was partnered with him to install hangers. Wegman stores take enormous quantities of refrigeration piping. The hangers have to be pitched plus the roof is pitched. With hangers being about 8’ apart, you had to cut each hanger about 2” different than the one before or after. This concept was beyond this guy’s understanding, so he would cut “about” measurements that would wind up way too short or way too long. When I got frustrated he would say, “What does it matter? It’s all time and material. They pay us to do it again.” He was one of the few fitters I ever worked with that truly set a bad example for the union. He also rammed me one time while on a lift and laughed about it. After that I refused to work with him. A week later, the foreman came over with my paycheck and handed me two. I thought I was being laid off, but he said that it was the BF’s since obviously I had been carrying him for weeks. Too bad he made me give the extra check back! We started to fall behind, but the guys refused to work overtime. So my boss had to put a second shift on for a few weeks. I quickly volunteered, just to get away from that crew. Six guys were hired. Five came down from Syracuse. One came up from Elmira. Larry B was really a welder, but still a good guy and mechanic. At his request, we started car pooling. At least twice a week we would end up closing down the Alpine Inn. Usually it was just us and the bartender. Ken was not pleased to say the least! For probably the first time, I was definitely the best worker on the job. I had worked so many Wegmans that I had more experience than the others. I was able to work faster with fewer mistakes. The last night everyone was being laid off except me who was going back to day shift for the last few weeks. There wasn’t anything to do on the job, so the boss told us to take a long break at the Eagles Club which was within walking distance. The break lasted about 3 hours. When the boss didn’t join us, the other guys asked me to go over to find out what was happening. As it turned out the big wigs had come down from Rochester. There stood my boss with no crew! He was not happy with us, but it wasn’t our fault. I met that boss again on another job. We laughed about it or at least I did. I stayed there until the day they opened. One of the fun things about my job is that I get to go into all these places and point out my work.

1997 Buckbee Mears & Babies

I was finally ready to go back to work. Both my girls were doing great. We had been able to go on field trips to the zoo, to the natural history museum and planetarium in Rochester and to visit Nana in Florida. While my mother-in-law was able to see my girls on a regular basis, my mother had moved to Florida with husband who wasn’t able to travel much. The job available was at Buckbee Mears in Cortland just over an hour from home. They were working 6-10’s. I knew it was going rough on all of us. Every morning, I would be up by 5, feed the horses and kids, pack my lunch, gather all the kids stuff and head out the door by 530. He would drink his coffee and have breakfast, then load the kids into the car, and drop them off at his mother’s house. At night he would pick them up and be home two hours before me. I usually had dinner ready to go, so all he had to do was warm it up. I would get home, eat, bathe the kids, read a story and go to bed. On Saturdays he didn’t work but I think he preferred it when his mom watched the kids. One Saturday I called on my way home to see if I needed to pick anything up. Apparently Ken was going to let me get home, so I could make dinner. Instead we met at a local restaurant. I had been bragging how my little one was walking at 8 months. When Ken arrived, I said set her down and she came running across the room to her Mommy. Only then did I realize he hadn’t put her shoes on! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The job itself was interesting. Grant W was my foreman, very smart and easy going. It was a lot of process piping, so everyday was something knew. I was partnered with Joe F who had just had a major brain injury and was on massive doses of various drugs to keep him under control. He still was likely to blurt out something wildly inappropriate, but I took it with a grain of salt considering his history. It wasn't until I worked with him years later that I found out he is always like that! At one point they decided to put us on two shifts and asked for volunteers for nights. Grant took me aside and told me he knew I had a new baby and I was exempt from night shift. I thought that was really nice of him, but there was another guy on the crew who had a 6 week old. They asked him to go on nights. Rather than explain that he was in the same situation as me, he did it, but whined about unequal treatment. The job only lasted 7 weeks but it made a nice jumpstart to my finances!

94-96 Cornell University

From late 1994 until the end of 1996, I worked exclusively at Cornell University in their shops. First I worked for 5 months at the Residence Life Shop. What a cool place that was. There were two or three of each trade, carpenter, electrician, laborer, plumber and pipefitter, as well as the shop foreman who was an old timer plumber. We worked together maintaining all the living quarters at Cornell. That included the dorms, as well as the cooperative houses, special living houses, (Native American, music, environmental), campus apartments, and some of the Greek housing as well. If you have never been to Cornell, you don’t know what you’re missing! Some of these places are absolutely stunning, some crafted with custom woodworking, waterfalls, and elaborate studios or labs. In the environmental house, they were allowed pets, so you never knew what would be lurking in a terrarium or cage. You also were working closer to the students than you would in the academic buildings. One time, I was repairing a shower handle in a tub. The resident was so fascinated by how it worked that he stepped into the tub with me. I quickly stepped out. Later I laughed thinking how I would probably be the first female to ever get fired for inappropriate interactions with a student! Unfortunately my older sister needed a hysterectomy and I volunteered to go to California to help her afterwards. I spent 10 days there, taking care of her and my nieces, but when I returned, they laid me off. Lessons learned—ask for a layoff before any vacations, because they will just lay you off afterwards! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I was rehired in the pipe shop two months later. I was assigned to Jose R., really great guy, good worker and mechanic, with a heavy Puerto Rican accent. He would assign me to small construction projects, like lab remodels or relocations. I liked working with the scientists to figure out what services they needed and then figure out how to get them there. Many of them would show me what they were doing, like making micro-slices of sheep’s retinas and why it was important to have continuous air flow to the anti-vibration pad under the microscope. In late October, I had been trying very hard to lose the baby fat from my eldest, but had stalled. I talked to one of the trainers (as I repaired his heating) who recommended that I do different workouts and offered me the use of their row boats which are in pools that have moving water to really make you sweat! As it turned out, I was pregnant, so back came the weight! By the time I was 3 months along I had gained back 30 lbs. I had to resort to wearing overalls. In the beginning of January, I told Mark R. I was pregnant, but that the doctor said I could keep working up until my 8th month. I though he was okay with it, but I didn’t know that his wife had recently miscarried. I worked along for the next week or so, until one day we had a winter flood. I was working alone in a penthouse. I had a beeper, but had to find a phone to return pages. I had talked to the shop a few times requesting a pump that I needed. At noon, my husband had called the shop to tell them our home county was in a state of Emergency. At 3, they sent over the apprentice to tell me to go home and not to even stop to punch out at the shop. By then the roads were nearly impassable. About 2 miles from home, my car finally couldn’t go any further. Using a nearby house’s phone, I called my neighbor who had a 4 wheel drive. He informed me that my husband was home. Until then, I knew nothing about what was going on. This was before cell phones were in common use. Well, I able to get a loaner car while mine was being repaired and went to work on Monday. I asked Mark if they were going to provide me with a cell phone or if I had to buy my own. His reply was, “If you don’t like it here, you can leave” Rather than argue the point, I went upstairs to customer service where I asked if Cornell had an agreement with any cell phone companies as I wanted to buy one. Mark’s secretary overheard me and she told them about me not getting contacted by my husband during the emergency. I didn’t think anything of it, but the next thing I knew Mark is firing me and telling me to pack my tools and get the hell out. Somehow, he got the idea that I had gone over his head and complained; which I hadn’t. Once I got him calmed down, he realized that and I went back to work. For three days--until I was handed a layoff check. This is how long it takes to get a check cut at Cornell. Shaking my head I took the check, not knowing if I would ever work there again. Also not knowing if it was the cell phone or baby that made them do it. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I had my beautiful little girl in July, and by October, I was back working in the pipe shop. I was assigned to work with a sprinkler crew pulling on 2’ pipe wrenches and hauling up 3-4” pipe. One time I was in a lawyer’s office and the wrench slipped hitting my chest causing milk to spurt. Breastfeeding and pipefitting don’t mesh well. After 3 weeks, I had enough and asked for a layoff. I stayed home until she was 8 months old and I think we were better for it.

TVA Watts Bar & Bechtel

So far I have been writing this blog as a memoir. By describing events that happened long ago, I am sure some looked different through the rose colored glasses of time. Today I want to describe the job I was just on at the TVA Watts Bar Nuclear Plant in Tennessee. I had gotten myself into a bit of financial difficulty by paying off my daughter’s student loan as a graduation gift and therefore depleting my savings account. I did this because the company I was working for had picked up a big project in Corning. I was going to be working steady for the next year, or so I thought! When the project was delayed, I found myself unable to pay the dual mortgages and bills that I can normally cover with unemployment and savings. I am old enough to retire, I am tired. I didn’t want to have to work out of town while my baby was a senior at high school. There is too much to do here, but away I went. MY BA Brad W. is totally awesome. I call him; he looks around and finds me a job. This time it was for a lower wage/benefit package and was only guaranteed for 48 hours weekly, but it beat UIC. Since it was supposed to last 3-4 months I decided to go to Sarasota first to fix some things there before the winter rental season. After a week there, I drove back up to TN. I had called around and found a cabin on Watts Bar Lake at the Piney Point Resort to rent for $550 monthly. That was the best part of this whole trip. Due to the last minute nature of this trip and the uncertainty of the duration, I had my dog Jamie with me. I had found a clean, quiet, comfortable place to stay. Jamie was able to be on his cable all day and then run with the camp dog after I got home. They would swim, play tug of war and chase squirrels until exhausted. The other good thing about the area was really good BBQ places. I mostly cooked at home, but would treat myself to a weekly dinner out. I would get take out so that one dinner lasted 2-3 meals. About the job…not so good! I had issues with the way things are run at Watts Bar. I am an experienced Nuke worker. I am good at following the rules, adhering to procedure, and am never afraid to stop if unsure to clarify any questions or ambiguities. As usual, initial training took a week to get through. My friend/fitters, CL and Mark G were also there. It is always nice to have someone to talk with about the strangeness of a new place. I found I had a really hard time understanding what people said. It wasn’t just the accent; I love the sweet Southern drawl. It was that the majority of the men had a mouth full of chew. Between the spitting and the garbled words I was clueless! The next week I went into the plant and was assigned to a crew. Our job was very simple. We were to weld into place the bumper pads that would guide the bumpers on the four steam generators, so that when the system started up and the generators expanded due to the heat, it would still be properly aligned. I had always worked maintenance, not new construction at nuclear plants, but still I couldn’t believe how different the procedures were at TVA. Normally everything is laid out to eliminate worker/human error. At TVA…not so much. Normally your foreman assigns duties and responsibilities daily. We had a crew of six who pretty much did whatever they felt like doing. Some disappeared for hours at a time. Mostly we sat around waiting for QC or our field engineer to give us necessary information to do the job. The drawings were terrible, old and hard to read. There was one drawing for all 4 generators, even though they were not identical, so that in each case you had to re-identify each bumper pad. There also had to be a certain measurement between pad and bumper to allowing for expansion. This wasn’t communicated to us until after we had taken down the pads, which weigh between 500-1000 lbs. each, so we had to pick them up again to get measurements, and then lower them again to clean and prep for welding. It was decided, after days of sitting around, that 75% of the components would have to be brought out of the plant and machined to fit specifications. During my third week I was sent to get rigging qualifications. TVA/Bechtel mouth the nuclear safety rules, but the guys in the field just aren’t following through. When I learned we were going about things all wrong, I went back into the plant to do it right, but no one would listen to me. They would do lifts without pre-planning on the lift or safety. There would be no barricades to prevent people from walking below the suspended load. It was absurd and dangerous. I finally refused to put my name on any more lifts. I simply assigned myself the duties of safety monitor, so that if things went wrong at least no one was below us. It was only a matter of time once the components were sent out to be worked on, but I was laid off after the 5th week along with many others. I am still mad at myself for leaving without telling these people what I think of their plant. They offer you an exit interview, but how do you express in a few words that their whole mindset and procedure is geared to frustration and failure. No one had looked at our project for over 20 years while the plant’s future was uncertain. No one knew that the specifications were so far off that major reworking would have to be done. Despite knowing that preheat for welding had to be done, no one made arrangements for it. No one made sure rigging was being done properly. These fitters I worked with really did want to do the job right, but that isn’t going to happen when the contractor is just there to make money. They hire and layoff monthly because they are paid a bonus on each new hire. When your workforce is just numbers to the contractor, it creates an atmosphere of apathy. Responsibility flowed down to the worker who had nowhere else to go with it. The Supervisor would push to have things done no matter what, so the guys I worked with just did it and hoped they wouldn’t get caught. If they pushed back, there would be sighs of disgust and comments about incompetency. Supervisors talk safety, but don’t follow through with it. Once again, best day on the job…my last one!

1994 Toshiba and Milliken

I was finally back on the work list at the Hall! While I had been off for awhile I was finally working steady. In 1994, I worked two separate shutdowns at the Toshiba Plant in Horseheads, interrupted by a two month stint at Milliken Station which is a coal power plant on the west side of Cayuga Lake north of Ithaca. Our job was to replace the coal slurry piping. Most of this system is 10-12” pipe. Some of it is fiberglass and some is carbon steel. Both of them offer different challenges. Both are heavy and awkward to handle. Rigging is difficult especially because there was so much other piping still in place. To lift the pipe you use chain falls and slings. For you non-fitters, this entails climbing way up high to hang the chain falls. Then you pull on the chain for hours it seems. I have never measured it but it can take 30 minutes of pulling to lower the chain 30’. After that you have to pull it 30 more minutes to raise it 30’! In addition to this fun, I was literally covered in coal dust. I would have layers of clothing, bra, tee-shirt, sweatshirt, coveralls; but when I got home at night I had to strip standing on the deck. My skin was still covered in grime. I would run to the shower so that I could pick up my baby without getting her dirty. I was so exhausted that after making dinner, doing laundry, and bathing the baby, I would frequently fall asleep reading to her before bed. As the saying goes, the two best days of a job are the first and the last. I was thrilled the day I got laid off from there. Toshiba was much easier physically. There was still a lot of climbing but they had catwalks overhead that really helped getting around. It was also much cleaner. The challenges were more mental than physical. Some of the piping was metric and used a different International pipe thread compared to American (NPT) thread and standard sizes. We also worked directly with Japanese engineers which sometimes caused comical situations. One time I was sent with another journeyman up a three section scaffold to change some piping. I looked down to see the engineer arguing with my foreman. Apparently he had to explain to the engineer that when they asked for two “men” to do a job I counted as a “man”. The engineer was appalled that he had offended me. The next day he insisted I take some beautiful gifts from Japan as an apology. Mostly the Japanese seemed to really enjoy their time in the US although many missed their families and the food they loved. Some of our members had a hard time understanding them, but I figured their English was much better than our Japanese.

1993 Cornell Pipe Shop

I was finally working at the trade again, although I was laid off the first 5 months of 1993. I had a 2 year old daughter who was being taken care of by her paternal grandmother. This woman is a saint! She has always taken care of children and seemed to have 2 or more underfoot at all times. She was also taking care of her mother in law who was very ill as well as checking in on her own mother who lived in the house behind her. In between all this, she cooked and canned and knitted. I don’t think I would have been able to stay working if I hadn’t had her support. I didn’t get another job until May of 1993. It was at the cheese factory in Campbell again. It lasted about 6 weeks and to be honest wasn’t really memorable. Some jobs are just jobs. Immediately afterwards I was hired on for the Cornell University pipe shop. My old foreman, Mark R, had requested me! I love working at Cornell for the pipe shop. Everyday is different. The buildings at Cornell are either super new and hi-tech or incredibly old, but beautiful. Each one presents its own challenge. One job I did was to run sprinkler lines in one of the oldest buildings, Morrill Hall. Because they didn’t want to change the exterior of the building, they had built rooms inside rooms, leaving a 2 foot space around the perimeter that was not protected in case of fire. I found all kinds of old newspapers and strange objects back there! I also did some work in the Law School Building which is Myron Taylor Hall. I was working with Maynard R. an old timer who knew every nook and cranny of the campus especially the dining facilities. We would pull into the parking area behind Hughes Dining Hall every morning at 9:30. The cafeteria ladies all loved Maynard and would pile our plates high and the bill would always be $2! I swear I gained 10 lbs working with him. We earned our breakfasts, I promise. They had renovated the chilled water system in the building about 5 years before, but seemed to continually be having problems with the new system. We were supposed to cut into some of the main lines and install valves, so we could flush the system. We did that and it didn’t seem to help some of the rooms. So we started flushing each individual unit. As I looked at the unit piping, I realized that the strainer had been installed backwards allowing the system to clog more easily than it should. Well, I had to go to talk to all the engineers and point out the problem. They agreed with me. It was decided that I would get to go to each and every unit in the building and trouble shoot it. This meant flushing each coil, checking each strainer, and making sure everything was working properly. That gave me 6 months of work all in one building. I made so many people happy who had never had A/C that worked properly before. From secretaries to lawyers, they all loved to watch me work. Many were fascinated that a woman was doing the job, but most were just happy to get cool! So happy that they even drafted my will for me for free! But as all good jobs do this one ended and I was looking for work again.

1992 Three Shutdowns

We can skip over the rest of 1991 and the first 8 months of 1992 because my BA wouldn’t put me to work. I had told the vet I was working for that I would probably be going to work in construction in May or June. So he hired my replacement. Unfortunately, he couldn’t afford to keep us both. I was back on unemployment struggling to make ends meet. Finally in September I got a call to go to a one day shutdown at Cargill Salt in Watkins Glen. Talk about a rude awakening! Once again my boots were stiff and my clothes didn’t feel right. I was awkward and nervous and very unsure of myself. The plant itself is fascinating, but all the piping is ancient and dirty and so corroded that taking anything apart is almost impossible with just tools. You have to use a cutting torch. Well, I had only used a cutting torch a few times and was not very good with it, but I managed. They also had a very unique elevator. It was basically 2 parallel circular ropes with ladder rungs spreading them about 18” apart on a huge pulley. You stepped on tools in one hand, not in your back pocket, and rode it up or down to the next floor. Absolutely terrifying! Somehow I managed to get through the day without killing myself or anyone else. Next I was called for a 3 week shutdown at a cheese factory in Campbell, NY about an hour from the house. We were working 60-70 hours a week and I missed my baby. Luckily I was working as a fitter for a great guy, Jimmy W. We were socket welding stainless steel lines for an ammonia system. The fumes are noxious and both of us had headaches daily. Everyday he would greet me with a big grin and say, “Candy, little Girl?” He would play Ray Stevens tapes all day, especially “Hello Margaret” which is a very funny song about an obscene phone caller. He developed a brain tumor and died a few years later. We lost a good one there. After three weeks, I was feeling much more comfortable with the tools. I was ready to keep working. After a short layoff, I was sent to yet another shutdown at the Cornell Heating Plant. This job was to greatly influence my career. The general foreman was Mark R. We had worked on the same job at Biotech, but not really together, so he didn’t know what to expect from me. After a short time though, he decided I was going to make it. He liked my work ethics and encouraged me to learn as much from each experience as I could. Even though I was laid off when the shut down was over, he told me he would hire me in an instant any time he could. It felt so good to have someone compliment me that way. Construction people tend to be pretty straight forward about pointing out your mistakes and weaknesses and not so good at supporting each other. You have to develop a pretty thick skin and have strong self-esteem to keep going some days.

1991 Pregnancy and the Pipefitter

By September 1990, I was 5 months pregnant, but not really showing. I had wicked morning sickness that lasted all day. I couldn’t eat anything without losing it shortly afterwards. You haven’t lived until you have puked into the urinal of a portapotty! There were no working toilets in the building and while my boss had told me I could take the job truck down to the corner store, I usually couldn’t make it there in time. I also christened a few floor drains. The job was working 5-9’s, so every Monday morning I would make the 2 hour drive from home. I would actually drive with a bag stretched across the steering wheel because every time I saw road kill, I would lose it. In the Rochester Local, they have a tradition that if there is a local guy on the bench and a traveler working, the local hand has the right to bump the traveler. One Thursday my boss came to me to tell me this was the case. As the last traveler on the job, I would be getting laid off on Monday. I had a scheduled doctor’s appointment on Monday and would’ve been late, so I asked to be laid off Friday instead. I also told him why I had so many doctor appointments. Then I approached the Steward on the job. “We have a problem with my pay.” I said. “What do you mean?” Said Bagsy (Pat B) “Don’t first year apprentices get 50% of scale?” “Yeah, but you’re a journey man” “True, but I’ve been carrying a first year in my belly the whole job!” Being an Italian family guy, he was thrilled and delighted for me. However, when I went to go climb into the lift to do my job, he was all protective and concerned. I assured him I was only one day more pregnant than I had been the day before and everything was fine. The next day the whole job took up a collection for me and then took me out for a “Peggy got fucked” party. In their own way, these guys can be so sweet! In contrast, the next time I was pregnant, five years later, my foreman laid me off AFTER I told him, but that is a story for another time. So there I was 5 months pregnant and unemployed. My doctor, who was a wonderful man, said I could work up until my 8th month as long as I didn’t climb ladders or carry anything over 20 lbs. Well, there is no light duty in pipefitting, so I applied for NYS disability. Try explaining to a beaurocrat that No I can’t work right up until my due date. I don’t sit at a desk. I have a hard, very physically demanding job. I wasn’t very successful because the day I came home from the hospital all government help stopped. Luckily I was able to pick up the odd bartending job, and was on the WIC program for formula. I had developed toxemia and had to have my daughter by c-section 3 weeks ahead of schedule. Talk about squeezing a nickel until it squeaked! My BA,Roy D, who didn’t like women in the trade in the first place and definitely didn’t think mothers should work, put me on the bottom of the hiring list, even though I hadn’t worked in our local for over a year. I didn’t work in the trade again until September 1992. I was able to get a job working for a veterinarian as I am a NYS licensed Vet Tech, but the money wasn’t as good and I wasn’t adding anything to my pension or healthcare accounts.

Webster Wegmans Fall 1990

So apparently my inability to keep my mouth shut had cost me a job. Unfortunately, I never did learn how to let a boss tell me to do something incorrectly or unsafe. Sometimes it is just a personal preference how to install pipe, but other times it’s just wrong. It is a pleasure to work with or under someone who is knowledgeable, but is still willing to talk out the job. My business agent told me Jim S-ski had told him that I was being laid off because I was leaving early, which I did twice because I had things to take care of before night school and I told my foreman who obviously didn’t tell Jim. Also that my partner Rick C, who he also laid off, was stealing from the company. That was a lie. I was still driving most days to work. Rick never brought a lunch pail, so if he was stealing he was putting it in his pockets! Contractors get away with making rash and unfounded accusations, but not pressing charges. It’s like fighting a shadow! Plus they never fire you, they lay you of due to lack of work, so sometimes you don’t even know they think you did something wrong. To be honest I took advantage of not working for the first time in years and proceeded to enjoy life. I had started dating my 2nd husband Ken. We spent weekends renovating his family cottage on Keuka Lake. In May 1990, he moved into my house. I set the ground rules by having him pay a share of household expenses. He paid the electric and phone bills which totaled about $300 month. In retrospect, it was quite a deal, room and board for $75 a week. I paid for all the groceries, the mortgage, insurance and taxes. I also went off birth control. I was 32 and wanted children, but not a husband! There was no work locally according to my BA, Roy D, but he sent me up to another Wegmans in Webster. This is in Local 13’s jurisdiction, so the pay scale was higher plus we were working 45 hours weekly. The extra money was greatly appreciated and desperately needed. My mother happened to have a cottage near Sodus Bay about 15 minutes from the job, so I was able to stay with her during the week. The job itself was great. I had experience brazing and knew the piping system from my first job. The guys were great and treated me well. I never told anyone, except for one guy, that I was pregnant until the very end. I only told him because he kept asking me out. Even after I told him, he kept asking. Some guys really can’t take No for an answer. I really thought it was a nice way to bookend my apprenticeship with Wegmans as my first job as an apprentice and as a journeyman.

1989 Divorce and NYSEG

At this point, I have to get personal. My life outside the job was in chaos. Dan, my husband, apparently hadn’t paid US taxes in over 10 years. He married me in January 1988, we filed joint taxes in April 1989; the IRS swooped in and closed our joint checking account. I have no idea why he didn’t tell me or why he put me in such a vulnerable position. I was young and naïve is all I can say in my defense. He immediately high-tailed it back to Canada where he re-married his ex-wife. To this day I am not sure we were legally married, or if he was a bigamist. I do know that his three children looked at me as his wife and their step mother. In fact, I married him because I was 30 years old, liked his family, especially his mother and sister, and of course the children. They lived with us (at different times) over the 8 years we were together and I still feel a very strong connection to them. The divorce was quick, but painful. I had to pay the IRS half the equity of my home, plus half the joint credit cards. Thanks to my mother, I was able to pay the IRS and worked out a payment plan with the credit cards. I swore I would never let my finances get tangled up with someone else’s ever again. At the same time as all this was happening, the job at the prison ended. I was immediately sent to work at NYSEG in Ithaca for a Binghamton contractor. It probably saved my life. The foreman, Lou Woods, was simply wonderful. He laid out the work to do and we did it. He always had the material and tools there. Anything we didn’t understand, he explained. He was also very forgiving of me. I am afraid that drinking problem from my old boss had transferred over to me. I stopped at McAnn’s Inn in VanEtten almost every night. The nights I didn’t stop, I would play softball with the girls from the Homestead Inn in Southport. For the first time as an adult, I had a crowd of women whose company I enjoyed. While I was drinking a lot, I also developed friendships that last to this day. I also met my future husband who played for the Men’s team. To be honest, I don’t remember much of that job, except for Rick C. and his wife. I was about 5 years younger than Rick and apparently that bothered his wife. Shortly after I started she showed up on the job at noon to check me out. I am not sure what I said, but by the time she left, we were friends. They only had one car so I started picking Rick up so she had something to drive during the day. One time, Rick told me she was having a problem with an old employer. Being a good guy, he sent her flowers to make her feel better. When I dropped him off at home that night, she came out and thanked me for the flowers. I laughed and promised it was his idea. When that job ended, we were sent to another job at Cornell. The Theory Center is a tall curving building that is located between Tower Road and a creek. We were installing the heating system which was long sections of fin tube along the walls. When copper is heated it expands. Therefore, you must allow for it in installation with either space consuming loops or mechanical joints. The General Foreman, Jim S-ski, decided that he knew more than the engineers and ignored their specification for anchors and guides and loops. Two weeks after I started, on the day of the company Holiday party (which our old boss insisted we attend), Jim decided to add the hot water to the system. The water went from 40 degrees to 140 degrees and pipe started to expand. Pipe was popping off hangers, bursting where it hit dead ends, and spraying water everywhere. Despite the total mess, or maybe because of it, I waved toodles and headed to the party. I was laid off less than two weeks later.

Southport Prison 1988-89

By the end of the Biotech job, I had been employed by the same contractor for over 18 months, but it was time to go! They were moving in professors and students within the week; I was even able to meet a few and show them around. In later years, when I worked in the Cornell Pipe Shop, it was fun to look at piping I had installed and do the maintenance on it. So there I was--laid off again! But then I was hired to work on plumbing in the addition at the Southport Prison. It was my first and last time being hired mostly because I was a female. As a state (public funded) project, they were required to have a certain percentage of minorities, but by the end of the job the fact that I was female didn’t matter. They knew I could do the job. The superintendent had what you might call a bit of a drinking problem. He rarely showed up before 9 and at least twice a week when we went to lunch, we never made it back to the job. He would hand me the keys to the company truck, so I could go back and lock up our tools and hand in our security badges. The next workers hired after me were my husband and his friends Jack H and Joe B. Luckily for the Super, they were very good at their jobs and we managed to get the project completed on time and under budget. By the end of the job a year and a half later, I was divorced and I am sure no one would have used my liver for a transplant organ! The job itself was very interesting. We installed all the plumbing from underground to the roof drains. The roof drains were a trip! The specifications had us using galvanized piping that used lead and oakum joints. This is almost unheard of today, but for you non-plumbers, it involves winding the oakum (rope like) around the pipe inside a socket, then pouring molten lead on top. After it hardens, you tap it down with a special chisel-like tool. The theory is that when water hits the oakum it swells to prevent leaks while the lead holds it in place. Working with hot lead is dangerous and difficult. Most of the workers who joined us had never worked with it before. I was designated to teach them the technique and all the tricks of the trade. Some of the journeymen did not take kindly to a “girl” apprentice teaching them anything. One disgruntled jerk spit his chewing tobacco into the lead pot as I passed it. The lead in the pot exploded, but luckily I had my back to it. My whole back was covered in a thin sheet of lead, I was unhurt but shaken. He claimed it was an accident, but I know better! I was also asked to keep track of any piping changes we made to the original plans. I learned a lot about blue prints on that job and even got to draw the “as-built” drawings. I definitely was coming into my own and feeling more confident in my knowledge and abilities. School was still frustrating. I didn’t feel like the curriculum was relevant to what we were doing in the workplace. They were very lax and we mostly sat around and talked about hunting and cars. Not exactly a good use of time for me, but I hear it is better now.

Biotech Honor and Ethics

I worked on this building for over 18 months, so there are lots of stories to tell. For the most part this was the job that let me spread my wings. I had coworkers foremen and a superintendent who were able to see beyond my gender and just treat me as an apprentice. After I stopped fitting for Joe S., I worked with another apprentice, Howard, who didn’t get it or the program. Together with the foreman, Dave T. we were supposed to install hangers as Dave laid them out. This involved climbing a 12’ step ladder and using a hammer drill to make holes into which we hammered concrete inserts. Frequently we would hit rebar which would cause the drill to catch and if you weren’t braced well the drill would spin causing you to spin as well. To say it was scary is an understatement. At one point Dave had to go do something else. We came to the end of where he had laid out the holes, so I looked at the blue prints and started to layout more holes. Howard thought I was nuts for going above and beyond our "duty". Dave came back and said that since I could read the prints, I would do layout and let Howard drill the holes. Another time, Howard and I were moving the weld fittings (which we would move 8 more times); I was going as fast as I could using the pallet jack and being very efficient. Howard would move a fitting, and then smoke a cigarette. When he asked why I was working so hard, I said, “Because the faster we get done with the bull work the faster we get back to working with pipe.” He really didn’t get it and did wind up dropping out. In my apprenticeship class, which met twice weekly for 9 months of the year, there were 3 females and 3 black and one nephew of a contractor. Marie W. was also Native American. Her father was an Ironworker and she always wanted to weld. Marie is barely 5’ and maybe 100 lbs soaking wet. Well, the powers that be, decided that she should work with controls and instrumentation. Marie knew she would hate it and told them that. They would not let her take welding, so she withdrew for a year and paid for her own weld school. I don’t think that would happen today, but at the time the local was undergoing a merger and there was chaos with no clear leadership. Or what leadership we had was definitely antifemale. At one point the DOL interviewed me because contractors had told them that the women who got in had been coerced into having sex with the BA. I knew that was BS. In my case, I had only met the BA once, with my husband in the room. From conversations with the other women I was pretty sure it wasn’t true for them either. That was the first time I had to defend my honor. It wouldn’t be my last. PS Marie is now a top class nuclear welder and is respected everywhere she works.

I love our characters!

We got into a discussion the other day at work about the characters we have in our local. Not just our local, but it seems every job I go to has some of the same generic types. We started listing them and then putting names to the type. I know it sounds mean, but it was all in good fun. 1. The Pipe Whisperer: That's the guy that either talks to the pipe as he works or in contrast he is the guy that when you ask him a question he talks so low or mumbles so badly you have no idea what he said. 2. The Snake: That's the guy (frequently a foreman) who slithers around corners trying to catch you doing something wrong. 3. The Jester: He is the guy everyone likes to work with because he always has a joke to tell and the day can fly by. 4. The Storyteller/Know it all: No matter what the subject is, this guy knows all about it and has a story to tell. The day can be incredibly long when you work with him. 5. The Professor: This guy stands at the print table all day reading every detail. They come in handy if you have any questions. 6. The Blamer/Finger pointer: No matter what, it was someone else's fault. 7. The Perpetual Apprentice: Some people are just not meant to lead, but even as a 10 year journey person, they will let their partner run the show, even if their partner is an apprentice. 8. The Wannabe Foreman: Opposite of above! 9. Mr. Clean: Perfect hair (but no hair products, really), immaculately dressed from pearl buttons in pressed denim shirt to shined boots. Even after emerging from a crawlspace they look pristine. 10. Pig Pen: Opposite of above. The clothes are dirty before they begin work. They reek of sweat and booze and cigarettes and who knows what else. I swear some have green fuzz on their teeth! Now I know this was sounding kind of sexists, but there are female types too! 1. The Mother: She brings in baked goodies, worries about everyone's health and well-being, and always has a medicine cabinet in her duffel. I admit...this describes me on some jobs. 2. The Slut who looks at every job as an opportunity for a new partner in more ways then one. 3. The Bitch: Needs no explanation, but usually has had a few bad experiences and expects the worst from everyone around her. 4. The PsuedoMale: From chewing tobacco to cussing like, well like a fitter, sometimes it's hard to tell the differences between the sexes. Basically if you can find a partner who makes you laugh, who is a decent mechanic, who leads some days and follows others, who discusses the job and doesn't dictate, you're golden!

Harassment

As good as this job was it was also the job at which I experienced my first overt act of sexual harassment. I have been asked out a few times and as I say “Ask me once it’s a compliment; ask me twice it harassment.” I also believe it’s not harassment if you like it. When men and women work together, there can be light hearted chatter. I get that. In this instance, I barely knew the man and definitely didn’t like it. It was mid-afternoon as I was walking out of the building to go get material out of the job trailer. In a narrow hallway, two electricians were coming in, the general foreman and another who was the husband of a painter with whom I had become friendly. The GF, Dave Carr, who would later become BA for the electricians, said, “You’re looking wonderful today” and then grab both breasts and gave a double honk. I was so surprised and aghast; I just stepped aside and brushed past them. I was shaking and confused and really didn’t know what to do. Somehow I worked the rest of the afternoon and when I got into the truck with my husband, I burst into tears. Wisely he told me I had to deal with it myself, but that he would back me up if needed. After a sleepless night, I went to work with a plan. First I spoke to both my steward and my foreman explained what happened and told them how I was going to handle it. Then I found the dickhead and said, “You are the GF for the electricians. You never need to speak to me. If you do, I will file harassment charges and you will never work at Cornell University again. This starts now.” Then I walked away. He had the other guy try to explain that they had had a long liquid lunch and really Dave’s a nice guy. I stood my ground. He never spoke to me again and I never spoke to him. In retrospect, maybe I could have been harsher, but at the time I handled it as best I could. Mostly the harassment I have dealt with has been subtle; awkward silences, refusals to work with me, sexist jokes, porn left at my seat at the break table, BS I could ignore. On one job I was discussing pipe layout with my foreman when over his shoulder was a full beaver shot from Penthouse. Jack H was a friend. I told him I really didn’t need to be looking at porn on a jobsite. He said it was the GF's nothing he could do about it. So I told the steward, Mark S, also a friend who said the same thing. The BA, Steve W, said, “Come on Peg, you’ve been in long enough to learn to deal with this stuff.” So I was stymied. Here are 3 “friends” unwilling to support me. Plus their solution was to not allow us into the office trailer, which made the pipefitter I was working with angry as she needed to use the phone there (before cell phones). So I dropped the issue, until a few months later, she called me to say she was going to file charges against the company for harassment. I convinced her to let me talk to the GF before she did that. When I told Billy F that the picture was offensive and made me feel uncomfortable, he apologized profusely, said he had no idea as no one had ever said anything to him. He took it down immediately. Sometimes you have to skip the middleman, I guess

Biotech and Joe 1987-88

After the bad experience I had at Cornell’s West campus dorms, my confidence was shaky and I was a little scared of my ability to handle this career path I had chosen for myself. I continued to go to school twice weekly. Brian S and I would carpool and talk all the way there and back. Brian (who is called Giggles due to his infectious and distinctive laugh) would tell me stories about his job and the characters there. One night he told me that another female apprentice was starting the next day. I was angry because I knew I had been off work for much longer than her. However, I bit my tongue and casually told her that I had been offered the job, but turned it down because it was an outside job and horribly cold and miserable. I knew full well it was an inside job at St Joe’s in Elmira. The next morning Brian called me to let me know she never showed up. So I call my BA who told me to start the next day. Not only was the hospital job great, but I was transferred to the new Biotech building being constructed at Cornell where I worked for over a year. In my personal life, things were settling down as well. I married Dan and his daughter and son-in-law moved in with us until they could afford a place of there own. The house was full of people and laughter, but it was also more work for me. The job began to be a relief to go to every day. Plus I was finally partnered up with a welder! This is what fitters are really trained to do. We do the layout, install hangers, prep the pipe ends, and generally make sure the welder keeps his hood down and welding. My partner, Joe Stone, Sr., was the best! He was a good guy who treated me like an apprentice, not like some strange creature that he didn’t know how to handle. He taught me the basics of the job, but he also taught me how to think like a fitter. You need to anticipate problems and run the pipe to avoid them. By the time we were done, I could bring in full lengths of 12” pipe by myself using chainfalls and comealongs while he continued to weld. I would figure out where our pipes would be going and install the proper hangers, usually 15-20’ above the ground. He also taught me to weld. Not only did my foreman allow it, he encouraged Joe to let me practice my welding any chance I could. I would frequently skip lunch to practice. Unfortunately any skill I had acquired is long gone due to lack of practice. I can probably still weld, but it ain’t pretty! The other thing about Joe was that he was functionally illiterate. His father had pulled him out of school in 5th grade to work the fields in their Texas farm. If anything had to be read, Joe would hand it to me and say, “You read it. You’re the apprentice.” And yet every year until he died, I would receive a Christmas card, signed Joe, addressed by his current girlfriend. He was very popular with the ladies and often said that a single rose was the way to a woman’s heart. In my case it was his smile and patience that won me over.

Fall 1986 Cornell West Campus

In the Fall of 1986 I began work for the first time at Cornell University. It was the beginning of a long love affair with the campus. There is something awe inspiring about working in such an old and beautiful location. This job was a renovation of some of the dorms on West Campus. Next time you need a visual lift take a walk around West Campus, especially beautiful when the leaves are changing. You can look north to Cayuga Lake or south towards Ithaca. Unfortunately that was the best part of this particular job. I did learn a few things on this job; like it isn’t personal. Some people aren’t going to like you simply because of what you represent. In this case not only was I a female, but my boyfriend was trying to clear into the local from his home local of Toronto Canada. I never did figure out which bothered them more. It wasn’t a long job, but it was a fairly hostile environment. On my first day I was told to go remove some copper caps and solder on some adapters. When I explained I had only done brazing and threaded pipe and didn’t know how to solder, I was told, just do it. So I lugged my B-tank up 3 flights of stairs and proceed to burn the crap out of those caps. Luckily there was a 2nd year apprentice Brian S who came to my rescue. There was still water in the systems and those caps would never have come off unless I had drilled a hole in them to let the water out. The subtle harassments continued from silences to misdirection to pointless jobs meant to see if they could break me. Our contract at the time specifically said that the contractor would provide all tools. Many members still carried their own hand tools, such as pliers, measuring tape and torpedo levels. Every day my boyfriend would insist I not break the contract by bringing in my own tools and every day I would be yelled at for not having tools. I was a very long two months. There was however one very memorable day. Brian and I were working a composite crew with the tin knockers (Sheetmetal workers) installing covers on heating elements. Since they were journey men and we were the apprentices it was our duty to throw away the huge piles of cardboard that the units came in. There was an open window on the floor above a large dumpster dedicated just to cardboard. Well, at the end of a long hard week, Brian came up with the brilliant idea to jump into the dumpster from above. Do NOT try this at home!!! But I gotta tell ya it was fun! The job ended right before Thanksgiving. I didn’t go back to work for over two months. This was a pattern I would learn to love/hate for the next 30 years.

Toshiba Summer 1986

After about six weeks off, my first vacation/layoff in years, I went to work for a contractor at the Toshiba plant in Elmira. I had taken the time off to get my house in order. I had been living in Poughkeepsie when I got the call to start my apprenticeship in March. While I had moved over Memorial weekend my house was still in boxes! I found Toshiba to be challenging to say the least. My boyfriend Dan was on the job as well as his best friend, Jack. They liked to go out for lunch(and beers), but when I went with them I was invariably late to get back. My foreman spoke to me about it in no uncertain terms. Apparently, apprentices and journeymen seem to operate under different rules. I decided no more lunches out for me, at least on this job! In retrospect, it was s a good thing I was never partnered up with Dan or Jack because it gave me a chance to see how others worked. On the other hand, I did end up with a “bought book” mechanic. That is what we call members who are brought into the local based on non-union work experience and who don’t serve an apprenticeship. They are supposed to take an exam to prove their abilities, but I am not sure this one did. As an apprentice it is very frustrating to work with someone from whom you don’t learn. I guess in this case, I was learning what NOT to do! One day we were supposed to be installing a tee in a DI (de-ionized) water line to provide cooling for one of the machines. What I didn’t know then (but do now) is that these systems are usually big loops with branches leading to different equipment so that the water is continually moving to prevent stagnation or cooling off of the water. While I could see that the nearby valve was closed, the water was being fed in both directions. A competent journeyman and foreman should have known this. However, we cut the line and water poured out, all over me and the computer desk that was under us. It took forever to find another isolation valve to stop the water. Never again will I wear white to work. I definitely won the wet tee shirt contest that day!

Getting In 1985-86

Every union pipefitter has a story about getting into the trade. Very few wander onto a jobsite and are hired, then join the union. The application and pre-selection process changes for every person. It depends greatly on how much work there is currently or in the immediate future. Having a family member in the union helps significantly. The international union can dictate numbers. In my case, it was the year of affirmative action. This was prior to the merger of Locals 109, 54 and 818 into Local 267 in 1989. At that time I was in Local 109 and there was only 1 female and only a handful of blacks and Native Americans. I don’t believe we had any Hispanics or Asians. I was living in Oswego working in the accounting department at Nine Mile Point Nuclear plant, and I was very unhappy. I had been promised that I would be taught accounting, but instead I shuffled paperwork all day long. I had given up my job as a vet tech only to discover that I was not meant to be an office drone. The ad in the Palladium Times offered good job with good pay; women and minorities encouraged to apply. At the time, my boyfriend was a pipefitter at NMP from Toronto, Canada. He would bring home his co-workers and I kept thinking, “This doesn’t seem that tough a job. I know I am smarter than these guys!” I was worried I wasn’t up to the task physically, but you only have to pick up 70 lbs officially. I was regularly picking up dogs that weighed up to 100 lbs., and I figured pipes don’t bite. I can do this! So I sent my application in and was scheduled for a Dept of Labor test. It was the strangest experience ever. First you had to prove dexterity by put pegs into holes. Right hand, then left, then both together. Then there was a written exam in which they tested your spatial ability with drawings of tools that had shaded parts. “One of these things is not like the other” I hummed to myself. Then the final part was English comprehension. To this day I have no idea how anyone passed that part. I have a BA in Zoology with English minor and I was having a hard time. I was told later no one had every scored as high on that part. No surprise since knowing synonyms, antonyms and analogies are not really pre-requisites to a good mechanic. Next came the interview. Three men asking me probing questions like-- Do you mind getting dirty? Do you ever fix things? Are you afraid to climb a ladder? Do you know any pipefitters? They must have liked my answers because I was placed 7th out of all the applicants, usually over 200. Unfortunately they only took 6 apprentices that year(1985). But the next year they called and offered me a job. Yep, we were the Affirmative Action class; three females, three blacks, and the nephew of a contractor. Our wages were the lowest in years(30%) and we didn’t get a raise for 18 months. Of that group, only one other female and the nephew made it through to become journeymen. The rest is history!

Welcome to Lady Pipefitter's Story Hour!

Welcome to my blog! Just to be clear I am very opinionated and do not always follow society's rules concerning proper behavior. I believe in the ability of people to change both for the better and worse. I believe in God, but not religion. I believe that the Bible was written by men to explain the unexplained and to create chaos out of disorder. I believe people live by the choices they make, but that very few are irreversible. I think people pretty much do what they want to do, so that actions speak louder than words. Hope the politicians are listening out there! I believe that many situations and relationships are helped with good food and wine(in moderation).

This blog will be a place where I describe the crazy world of the traveling pipefitter. The perils and pitfalls that we endure and hopefully some advice on ways to avoid them. It will sometimes be the case of do what I say not what I do. So let the adventures begin...