That shift where everything went wrong and then right in the same week

I had a stretch last Monday through Thursday that I still think about. Monday started with a fitting that was off by almost a quarter inch on a drum for a chemical plant out near Gary. I spent three hours chasing it down, re-measuring everything, and finally found the issue was a small warped plate that got delivered wrong from the yard. By Tuesday morning I was ready to just scrap the whole thing, but then the foreman came over and showed me a different way to tack it up so the stress would pull it straight. That fix saved the job and actually made the fit tighter than the original plan. Wednesday was smooth, almost boring, which felt like a gift after the headache. Then Thursday a guy from the fab shop came by and told me they'd be using my fix as a standard for future builds. I guess my question is, have any of you had a job that looked like a total loss at first but turned into something you were proud of?

2 comments

2 Comments

felix_bailey4512d ago

A job that looked like a total loss turning into something you're proud of? That's just a nice story you tell yourself to feel better about wasting time. Monday through Thursday on a drum for a chemical plant sounds like you got lucky with a foreman who bailed you out, not some brilliant personal win. If the plate was warped from the yard, that's a receiving problem someone should have caught before it ever hit your hands. You lost three hours on a mistake that shouldn't have happened, and the fix was something the foreman showed you, not something you figured out on your own. Calling that a proud moment is just spinning a mess into a medal.

eric_ramirez6712d ago

Funny you say that @felix_bailey45, because I had a buddy who was a welder on a bridge crew a few years back. He spent two full days grinding out a bad weld on a girder that his partner rushed through, and the foreman came over and showed him a different technique to blend it in. The final joint looked better than the rest of the section, and the inspector passed it with zero notes. He didn't brag about it, but he was damn proud that piece didn't need to be cut out and redone. Have you ever seen a real bad job turned around like that, or is it always just luck?