Snipers . . . and Wannabes

This afternoon we ran out of work so Mack, my supervisor, sent me to another ship on another pier to deliver a required Hotwork Notice form for that ship's Fire Marshall to sign. On the way back to my car a sticker on the back window of a pickup truck that was parked on the pier caught my attention. "Sniper," it said. "No need to run, you'll only die tired." Well the truck was parked next to a DDG, a ship of the same class as the Bainbridge, the ship involved in the rescue two days ago of the merchant marine captain taken hostage by the Somali pirates. That crisis was resolved, as we know, after Navy SEAL snipers killed three of the pirates.

So I wondered if the truck with it's bloodthirsty message might belong to a Navy SEAL sniper assigned to this particular ship. I walked around it looking for clues, and quickly noticed, not any identifying Navy markings, but a parking lot tag and door placard identifying it as belonging to some guy who worked at one of our competitor shipyards. He also had stickers that said "POW-MIA," "NOBAMA, 2008," and "Who's our president - - the answer's a no brainer." This guy wasn't a sniper, he was just some right-wing wannabe. I didn't wait for the owner of the truck to appear, but it wouldn't surprise me if he was some guy in his 50s, overweight, a heavy smoker, with diabetes and a heart condition. Of course, the description would fit a large number of shipyard workers.

That's not to say that I'd put it past a real Navy SEAL sniper to put a sticker like that on his truck. I'm sure there are some who would. I mean, in this voluntary military service there are probably quite a few who get into something like the SEALS and into sniper school because they want a chance to kill somebody legally. Which reminds me of an apprentice we have in our shop, who they say was discharged from the Army for being mentally unstable. I've had a little contact with him, working in his vicinity, and he hasn't done anything crazy. In fact, he seemed quiet and mild mannered. Of course, those are the ones who always turn out to be the killers.

Today I passed an Army recruiting station. Only it didn't say Army Recruiting Station. It said Army Career Center. Yeah. If your want to make a career out of chasing Taliban around the mountains of Afghanistan. I suppose if your career goal is to be sniper and shoot Somali pirates there's a Navy Career Center somewhere. And if you flunk out of both you can always get yourself a macho bumper sticker and stick it on your truck.

Obama's Going To Give It To Us Anyway

For the past couple of weeks Starner has foregone his morning harangues, but he must have taken some stupid pills, because this week he's back with a vengeance. The ship came out of drydock on Monday. This is an important milestone in one of these major repair/overhaul evolutions, as it means the work to the underwater hull is now complete. Drydocking a ship is a very expensive proposition and the Navy gets upset if it doesn't happen on time. (In this case, it was some days late, but I'm not sure how that will pan out, because at least some of the delay was caused by the need for some unforeseen repairs to one of the struts that holds the starboard propulsion shaft.)

Anyhow, here is a representative quote from Starner's tirade this morning: "This ain't no joyride. The fun and games is over. We got a ship to get out. I don't know about you, but I like my job here. We gotta get this ship outta here. I been doin' this shit for 25 years, ever since I graduated high school." He was joined by Ronnie Wilson, who lectured us again on absenteeism, especially on weekends. Yesterday he told us that last weekend, of 39 people scheduled to work, only 20 showed up. They also told us that 10-hour days were now mandatory, but when I left at 4 pm (after 8 hours), they had marked 8 hours on my time card. Go figure.

One of those who did stay over today was Joe, ever willing to be the yes-man. At about 3:30 I ran into him standing around shooting the shit with a couple of contractors who've been helping him. Echoing Starner, I said in jest, "What are you all standing around bullshitting for? We've got a ship to get out." Joe answered something to the effect of "what else have we got to do, we're working till 6?" So I said, "You're just going to steal the taxpayers' money, huh?" "I do it every day," Joe replied. "Obama's going to give it to us anyway," one of the contractors put in.

Crazy

"Things are starting to get crazy around here," Starner, my nominal supervisor, told me one day last week. "They're always crazy here," I replied. "We were supposed to have finished Sunday," he said. I didn't comment on this. I assumed he was referring to the aluminum part of the work our yard is doing, the repairs and "mods" to the ship's aluminum superstructure.

Even though Starner is practically useless - - he checks with me first thing in the morning, then disappears for the rest of the day - - at least he's no longer disrespecting me by assigning me to jobs that aren't up to my skill level. As for craziness, they've been trying to work the job seven days a week, 10 hours a day - - bringing some people in two hours early, while others have been working over two hours in the afternoon. I could do this if I wanted, but I don't. (Forty-eight hours a week is pretty much my max.) I don't know what these people do with their money. Most skilled workers in our yard gross over 40k per year on straight time. If they're married, most of their spouses work, also, often earning more than they do. Together, that's a pretty good family income. I guess they waste their money on a lot of stupid shit.

But working these hours always brings the same result - -people "laying out" even more than they normally would. Elmore, for example, worked the previous Saturday and Sunday for overtime pay, then laid out Monday and Tuesday (straight time pay). His son came in Monday but laid out Tuesday.

And we have the usual chaos. Most of the day Starner made his "crazy" statement, I spent waiting for a welder. One of the welding supervisors promised me a certain welder after he finished another job. Then the other welding supervisor took him and put him on something else. So the first one promised me I'd have a welder first thing the next day. But then he didn't come to work the next day and the second welding supervisor wouldn't honor the other's promise. For efficient production the shipfitting and welding needs to be coordinated and organized rationally. Where I work that rarely happens.

Yesterday I had a welder, but he couldn't weld because the riggers had removed from the ship the bottles of shielding gas for the wire-feed (MIG) welding machines used in the aluminum work. They did this in preparation for taking the ship out of drydock. But that's not happening for several days at least. So then they put a rack of bottles back on, but it turns out it was the rack of empties. I finally got the job done today. Who pays for this disorganization and inefficiency? The taxpayer, of course. Mr. Obama, are you reading this?

Lead Man From Another Planet

The most curious of the supervisors on my job right now, in terms of my relationship to him, is Hilton Dines. Hilton is a slim black man who makes me think of Barack Obama on speed. He is light-skinned, with green eyes and Caucasian features and he speaks in a refined and educated manner, although his bursts of machine-gun fire speech are staccato and telegraphic. He clearly doesn’t look or sound like he comes from the ‘hood. I don’t know what his background is, but I’ll bet it’s a military family. Under his hardhat he almost always wears a sweatshirt with the hood up. You also often see him wearing a cartridge-type respirator even when he’s out in the open air. When he takes this gear off, however, you see that his shaved head is strangely shaped. He might be the brother from another planet.

During the 5 years I was a QA inspector, I knocked heads with Hilton several times. Once, they had to call a special meeting with him and me and some of the brass from the QA and structural departments just to try to mediate between us. Given this past history, it should be no surprise that the first time I was assigned to work under Hilton after I came back to the structural department I thought maybe he might take the occasion to settle an old score with me. Much to my surprise, however, he was friendly and treated me with respect. I respect him as well, and not just because he respects me, although that’s a big part of it. Even though he’s much too hyper, he at least spends a lot of time on the ship, where a shipyard supervisor should be, and he’s conscientious and not corrupt. I don’t mean corrupt in the sense of taking bribes or anything like that. I mean that he doesn’t use his position to create an easy niche for himself or to manipulate overtime to maximize his own income as many of them do. And even though he’s on the ship a lot, he leaves you pretty much alone and when he talks to you it’s like the two of you are intelligent collaborators. He doesn’t come and tell you a lot of stupid shit you already know.

I hadn’t worked any overtime in a couple of weeks, so last Saturday I volunteered to come in, and because my own job wasn’t working, I worked for Hilton for the day. It was probably the best day I’ve had since I came on this ship. We have removed the king posts -- retractable masts used to support cables that hauled supplies to the ship during replenishment at sea. (Supplies will now be delivered by helicopter.) What I was doing on Saturday was filling in one level of deck in what used to be the trunk that housed the forward king post. Even though this section of deck was small, about 5 feet by 5 feet, we were putting it in in three sections of plate, in part because the deck changed thickness here from 7/16 inch to ¼ inch, but also because it wasn’t an even plane here, but had a knuckle offset of about 10 degrees. This meant that the T-bar stiffener that supported it underneath also had to have a knuckle. Now 19 out of 20 shipfitters would have done the obvious and usual procedure, which would be to fit the plate sections in the deck, then piece in the T-bar underneath. But if they had done that they would have found themselves in trouble, and likely ended up with a mess, because when I trimmed the center plate section to size and fit it temporarily in place, I saw that it had a bow in it. Unless they straightened it first with a temporary stiffener on top, they would not have been able to correctly fit in the sections of T-bar underneath. And this process would have been very time consuming. I chose instead to first make up the T-bar with the proper knuckle in it and fit that up first. It would then be easy to fit the plate sections on top of it. Because of the location and various obstructions, it wasn’t easy to pick up the correct angle from the existing deck, but I came up with a simple solution using a piece of scrap steel angle I found lying around. My burner and I made up the T-bar and tack welded it together. I checked it and the knuckle seemed perfect or close to it. It needed 1/4 inch trimmed off to fit, however, and we had run out of time. Hilton wanted night shift to finish the job, so I marked off where it needed to be trimmed. I was afraid, however, that night shift wouldn’t understand what I was doing and would screw it up. But when I came in and checked it on Monday, they had the whole thing together right and it looked great. Did anybody notice or care? I did, and that’s all that matters to me. Hilton was happy with the job, although I don’t think he fully appreciated the genius involved in my work (ha!).