Dear readers,
I have lived in my imagination the valiant fight of technicians and engineers against the nuclear chaos in Japan. I have lived part of my life with this special brand of men and women, since I once served as a project manager at a nuclear power plant, a happy period of my life in 2005 & 2006. At a nuclear power plant in the post Three Mile Island era, any form of risk was chased down relentlessly. Once I drove into the Cook Nuclear Power plant with a rear tail light out. One of the engineers followed me to my parking spot and pointed it out to me. I had it repaired immediately. It could be reported. If I felt a condition caused an increase of risk, I could take my time and document the condition through an online database. When I documented a condition, I got calls and praise from my supervisor and my director. You see, all cars entering a nuclear power plant base are subject to search, the cars searched selected randomly. My car was tagged and searched twice in a week, and I inquired into the system to randomize the selection process. Were dice used to create a selection list?
Speaking about random selection, when one arrived at the check station, one could be randomly selected for "fitness for duty" inspection. A database existed for this random selection. Yep, that meant march down to medical and drink enough water until one cold produce an adequate sample. It also could mean inquiries into ones sleep patterns. It was duty to sleep enough and even recreate enough to be freshened and alert for the next day. One sample indicating drug use meant permanent banning from the industry.
Weekly, we sat down together as a work team, connected by phone conferences across the nation, for a weekly safety stand-down. We reviewed all the safety incidents, which were all documented. Which were infrequent. Which often raised a huge stink when even the possibilty of an accident lurked. We also read aloud from a nuclear document of many chapters, its name escapes me now, a document that covered all the thinking and planning required to truly investigate the nature of safety. I loved to read aloud from this document, which had the tone of the Canticle for Lebowitz.
I had the pleasure of planning, reviewing, peer reviewing, re-planning work packages to be submitted to a master schedule. I had the pleasure of seeing those tasks executed on time, not starting before plan and not finishing before plan and not finishing after plan. Every work package at a nuclear power plant is planned months in advance and reviewed and peer reviewed nine ways to Sunday. What happens if time runs backwards is not that far out a question.
Time is not running backward yet this morning. It will run forward in a quantum leap of one hour when I return to Michigan.
Canticle for Lebowitz:
No comments:
Post a Comment