Bartlett Techs @ Oyster Creek

[wlrun3@aol.com]

During an outage a few years ago, I hung a sign at my checkpoint in the TB bldg (lots of folks wanted stuff out there) it said:

It is not my job to release material from the RCA
It is my job to ensure that NO radioactive material is released from the RCA.

I didn't have as much problem after that.   

   ...what is the practice at VY for radon daughter products...

   

[retired nuke]

   ...what is the practice at VY for radon daughter products...

   

Has to be verified by isotopic analysis - we can use the HPGe or fast scan WBC for identification, but not quantification...If it doesn't fit in there, it's just RAM.

[Already Gone]

Holy Birdsh!t Batman!

Touch a nerve or two did ya, Melrose?

FWIW, I stopped trying to coach the RP techs on site a long time ago.  It doesn't do any good.  You will find that any other profession or trade on site - just about any site - will listen to you, thank you, and either try what you suggest or ignore you.  But, they will listen intently, and thank you politely either way.

HP's just don't do that in a lot of cases.  The house techs are usually pretty good, but not so much the contractors.  Doesn't matter if they are Bartlett or Atlantic.  They would rather argue with you that they know the job and you don't.

Seems that they fail to recognize the vast numbers of former RP's who are working in other capacities in many nuke plants.  I think they assume that everyone who is not working as one right now has never worked in RP in their lives and don't understand the extremely technical nature of their work (is there a tongue in cheek emoticon?)

I have seen an HP/RP type totally blow off an SRO (who was a former Sr. HP) who was trying to give a helpful heads-up to the guy.  All he got in return was rudeness.  I have had an RP tell me that I don't understand how a meter works, so I shouldn't touch it. ( I was just trying to keep it from being stepped on. GEEZ)

There just isn't any point in trying to talk to them any more unless you know them personally -- and most of the RP's I run into whom I know personally don't need any help from me anyway.  So, I don't bother anymore.  Tough as it is Melrose, you ought to give up too.

[Melrose]

 
I hear ya BC, actually been wondering if you've seen the thread.  You noticed though, the conversation stopped, for the reasons you stated, rather than listen or show signs of intelligent rhetoric, they mass together like Cuban buzzards knocking banana rats outa trees, insulting and skewing facts in hopes of inciting more posts. 
Kudos to a couple of the latest posts though.. very well thought out and smartly expressed.
Thank you for rekindling my hopes of intelligent life existing on this site.

[wlrun3@aol.com]

Has to be verified by isotopic analysis - we can use the HPGe or fast scan WBC for identification, but not quantification...If it doesn't fit in there, it's just RAM.

   ...isn't there a method covered in the prodedure that allows expedient evaluation at the RCA egress control point...

[RDTroja]

Note the OCC in this quote.  Obviously this is a tie that doesn't know what is going on here.  The techs are having to spend 10 to 12 hours in the RCA covering his work that he can't schedule right because otherwise there would be enough techs in the plant to at least get the Federally mandated amount of breaks, but have to spend most of that break travelling to a break trailer that is at the extreme end of the plant just to have a supervisor tell them that they are needed in the plant and their break or lunch will have to wait, and then have supervisors (one in particular) try to switch around techs without consulting the lead techs about what work is going on, but yelling at them for having techs standing around IN THEIR WORK AREA waiting on jobs that have been scheduled, briefed, and are just waiting for the craft to come back from their union mandated break, but can't go on break themselves because there are a dozen or more work groups that might need help in that space of time.
It is also obvious that this person has never been a tech covering real work, because he would have a little more understanding about what a tech with tape and a frisker can do to get a shoe out, and that the tech is taking his time that he could be on break to try and get a worker's shoe out so they don't have to go home in flipflops and can get back to work.  Yes, the shoe is still in the RCA not because the tech is inexperienced, but that the shoe just isn't coming out without major surgery to cut the tread off, in which case the shoe is trash anyway.  I challenge this tie to try and do the work of a tech under the conditions that we are facing.  I'll switch my jumps in the drywell any day for his coffee and doughnuts in the OCC.  I probably push more paper than he does anyway, so it will be a nice break, and I won't even have to deal with a tenth of the work crews that I have to deal with now.

I have started typing a reply to this thread a couple of times only to quit when I couldn't find a way to do it without sounding condescending enough to get dismissed as another 'tie' as roadhp so eloquently put it (I don't wear ties to work.) Unfortunately I also have to repeat myself once again to make a point. But here I go again...

If technicians are "having to spend 10 to 12 hours in the RCA" there is a problem. but the root cause is the technicians, not management. There is no way that I would work as a technician without getting breaks on 12 hour days and you shouldn't either. Management is going to ask (and when they ask it often sounds like 'require') you to do whatever they think they need done. They don't care if it is reasonable or not, they are going to ask for it. YOU get to decide if it is reasonable or not. As long as they find someone willing to kill themselves for the good of the company, they are going to continue to ask. Don't do it. For yourself and those that come behind you, don't do it. If you ever want to get treated as a professional and get paid what you are worth, you can't be a doormat. Unfortunately, if you let yourself get treated like a doormat that hurts the rest of us, too. It is OK to say "No, I can't do that right now, I need a break" particularly if the job is trying to decon somebody else's shoe. Naturally, if you abuse that statement you will have a problem.

I am not saying it is OK to be lazy or to refuse to do a legitimate amount of work. I am not saying to pick and choose which jobs are acceptable to you based on what you like or don't like to do (although there should be limits on what a professional HP does.) I am saying that if you let yourself get treated badly it will get worse. I walked away from a good job because I refused to be treated exactly the way you are describing. It was not easy, but it was the right thing to do and no one will ever convince me otherwise. I had to leave a place I liked working and pass on my first teaching opportunity to make my point, but I did it. I was working a week later.

I don't know who you are or what your background is, so I don't know how you have been treated in the past, but I can tell you this with no hesitation: If you are not getting breaks it is your own fault. If you work in a place that abuses you, that is your fault, too. You are in the process of making it worse for yourself and the rest of us. Management will usually treat you as badly as you let them... in a way it is their job. It is your job not to let them. Give them an honest day's work. Be a professional and demand to be treated as one. Be willing to walk away from situations you find intolerable. And keep your standards high enough to keep yourself satisfied and happy with your job. Everyone will benefit if we all do it.

I know who Melrose is and I know that he has plenty of experience as a technician. If he hasn't done the same work under the same conditions, perhaps that is because he would not allow himself to be caught working under those conditions. While I am sure your intentions are noble, you are not doing anyone any favors by working or acting like you are... well, you are certainly doing management a favor, but they really don't appreciate it.

[stownsend]

He obviously was struggling with the release of a contaminated shoe, using the tape, the pancake probe, the whole bit.  He just wasn't cognizant enough to realize the pancake doesn't fit into the tread of the shoe. 

Did he explain to you that the probe doesn't have to be in contact with the inside tread. If the probe is less than or equal to one half an inch and less than the station limit of corrected counts let it go.You wouldn't do a frisk where you would contaminate the probe would you?

[Already Gone]

You see? You are doing the exact same thing that I was talking about.  Did anyone tell you that Melrose is an ANSI 31. Senior Health Physics Technician?  Did anyone tell you that he doesn't need you or me to tell him how to use a pancake probe?

All he was trying to do was help out a tech who obviously didn't have a mastery of his job and equipment - and all he got in return was a smartass answer.  An answer that 1. assumed that Melrose didn't know as much about RP work as the DOE reject he was trying to help and 2. assumed that holding down a chair in an HP breakroom for a bunch of years was some sort of substitute for technical competency.  An answer that on both counts was totally wrong.

The "tech" wasn't using the probe to survey the shoe, he was obviously using the back of it to press the tape into the sole - and it won't fit into the tread to get the tape up into there.

Am I the ONLY person to have read that and understood that part?

The damned point he was making here in the first place is that some of these underqualified people who are passing themselves off as HP techs are too stubborn and full of themselves to accept a little help from someone who is just trying to make things a little easier for them.

If a tech wants to struggle for an hour trying to decon a boot with tape on the bottom of the tread - when the contamination is stuck up inside the tread - fine.  But he better not be bitching that he never gets a break.  If the @s$h01e would have listened to Melrose -instead of talking back to him - he would have had time for a game of cribbage and a doughnut.

[Laundry Man]

BC,
'he would have had time for a game of cribbage ", darn during my time as a house Rad Engineer at the Creek no one ever told me a game was going on.  Maybe I would have stayed .
LM

[Already Gone]

If you were a house rad engineer, there's your answer.

Cribbage requires the ability to do math and get a correct answer.  If you can't count, they won't let you play. 

[RDTroja]

If you were a house rad engineer, there's your answer.

Cribbage requires the ability to do math and get a correct answer.  If you can't count, they won't let you play. 

If you were a house rad engineer, there's your answer.

Cribbage requires the ability to do math and get a correct answer.  If you can't count, they won't let you play. 

Ahhh.. but its not just math and counting. You need the secret code, too: Fifteen-2, Fifteen 4, Double Run Royal... and the ultimate 19 point hand. Very technical stuff.

[Already Gone]

Actually, 29 is the ultimate hand.
19 is impossible in cribbage - and I am totally clueless as to why it is impossible.

Maybe I ought to be a Rad Engineer.  Come to think of it Melrose is a Rad Engineer.  Which is probably why he had the time to help this guy - he couldn't play cribbage.

[RDTroja]

Actually, 29 is the ultimate hand.
19 is impossible in cribbage - and I am totally clueless as to why it is impossible.

Maybe I ought to be a Rad Engineer.  Come to think of it Melrose is a Rad Engineer.  Which is probably why he had the time to help this guy - he couldn't play cribbage.

Ummm.... my point exactly. I couldn't find the sarcasm emoticon, either. Did that make a whooshing noise as it went by? 

[Already Gone]

You only count five cards and the scoring combinations, via those five cards, makes a 19 impossible.

29 = 4/5's and the right Jack!

RG

This is where my OCD is going to take over.  I am now going to be compelled to get a deck of cards and go through every possible combination of 5 cards - runs, double runs, doubles, triples, 15's, the whole bit - to prove that 19 is not possible.

Gee thanks guys.

[Rennhack]

This is where my OCD is going to take over.  I am now going to be compelled to get a deck of cards and go through every possible combination of 5 cards - runs, double runs, doubles, triples, 15's, the whole bit - to prove that 19 is not possible.

Been there, done that.

Now... about those Bartlett techs at Oyster Creek...

[stownsend]

This is where my OCD is going to take over.  I am now going to be compelled to get a deck of cards and go through every possible combination of 5 cards - runs, double runs, doubles, triples, 15's, the whole bit - to prove that 19 is not possible.

Gee thanks guys.

After 49 years of playing cribbage I swear on my dogs wife's life that 19 is not possible.It's the old saying when you have no points in your hand to say you have 19.Everyone knows what you mean.If they don't I try to get them to wager a small amount on the game.

[Laundry Man]

If you were a house rad engineer, there's your answer.

Cribbage requires the ability to do math and get a correct answer.  If you can't count, they won't let you play. 

I can count, divide, multiply, heck I even remember some calculus.  I just don't think we had had time to hide and play.
LM

[Already Gone]

Hide?
These guys don't hide.  They don't have to hide.
Did you hear the bitching about spending 10 hours in the RCA?
Considering that an RP's job is in the RCA, and they are on site for 12.5 hours (getting paid for 12).
Let's count these cards.
12.5 -0.5 for lunch = 12
12 - 0.5 for dinner = 11.5
11.5 - 0.5 for breaks (2 at 15 min each) = 11
Thus, one could reasonably determine that 11 hours inside the RCA is what is expected.  That is how much time the owner of the boot has to spend in the RCA every day.  And he is standing there waiting for this RP to quit eating up his very short break time trying to decon the damned thing and then bitching about how it cuts into his break time
But if RP's are in for a minute over 6 of those 12.5 hours, they are ready to drag up.
So, let's count the cards in that stack.
12.5 - 1 hour for meals = 11.5
11.5 - 6 hours in the RCA = 5.5 hours of cribbage time.

We have had it easy for so long that we really have no concept of what is difficult any more.

If you think that math is cockeyed, figure that ANSI 3.1 qualifications are routinely figured at 50 hours per week even though we never spent more than 36 hours in any week actually working.

Mike, how'd you like that segue back on topic?

[Rennhack]

Mike, how'd you like that segue back on topic?

Good enough.

[Laundry Man]

Actually back in the day we played a heck of a lot more Hearts than anything else.  Sorry Mike.
LM

[RDTroja]

Hide?
These guys don't hide.  They don't have to hide.
Did you hear the bitching about spending 10 hours in the RCA?
Considering that an RP's job is in the RCA, and they are on site for 12.5 hours (getting paid for 12).
Let's count these cards.
12.5 -0.5 for lunch = 12
12 - 0.5 for dinner = 11.5
11.5 - 0.5 for breaks (2 at 15 min each) = 11
Thus, one could reasonably determine that 11 hours inside the RCA is what is expected.  That is how much time the owner of the boot has to spend in the RCA every day.  And he is standing there waiting for this RP to quit eating up his very short break time trying to decon the damned thing and then bitching about how it cuts into his break time
But if RP's are in for a minute over 6 of those 12.5 hours, they are ready to drag up.
So, let's count the cards in that stack.
12.5 - 1 hour for meals = 11.5
11.5 - 6 hours in the RCA = 5.5 hours of cribbage time.

We have had it easy for so long that we really have no concept of what is difficult any more.

If you think that math is cockeyed, figure that ANSI 3.1 qualifications are routinely figured at 50 hours per week even though we never spent more than 36 hours in any week actually working.

Mike, how'd you like that segue back on topic?

Troy --

You are usually pretty good at math but I am going to dispute some of your premises.

For starters, the time counted toward break (at least for a union worker, and usually other craft workers, too) starts when they are back out of the RCA... travel and dress time doesn't count for the break. (Shoe decon probably does.) So you have to about double the lunch and dinner and about triple the breaks. Also the last half hour is 'clean-up' or turnover, or prep to leave or whatever you want to call it. That gives 12.5 - 1 - 1 -.75 -.75 - .5 = 8.5 hours actually in and working. And that is if the job is ready and there are no briefs and the other crews are there and and and. So maximum of 7.5 hours is more realistic. Probably less on average.

As for all the time an HP has doing 2 in and 2 out is actually on the job for 2 hours each time. So, working up this time, we get 6 hours in + turnover which ranges from 0 to 15 minutes depending on the work (times 3 jumps) is maybe 30 minutes. If you did any surveys or air samples or other documented work, there is 10 to 30 minutes each time (or more) for paperwork when you come out... another hour total. Then there are briefs, collect supplies, source check an instrument and other miscellaneous work that eat up probably 30 minutes minimum each day, sometimes much more. So there is 8 working. Plus you have to add to work time (or subtract from cribbage, but that is not on topic) how long it takes to get dressed and travel to the work site which easily takes 20 minutes each jump to get in and maybe only 15 to get out. So, lets say 30 each jump total (probably more) for another 1.5 hours which totals 9.5 hours spent on the actual work part. If you actually go get a meal or two (or heat yours up and eat it while not in the card room) take away another hour. Grand total of 12.5 - 10.5 or 2 hours out of your 12.5 left to relax and recuperate. Granted there is often more, but there is also often less.

Having said all of that there are still lots of techs (mostly on non-containment or 'project' type jobs) that get lots of time. But the concept that 2 in and 2 out means 6 hours of work and 6 hours of play is just plain bogus and always has been.

[stownsend]

You also have to remember Troy is brainwashed from that utility right above NYC that feel the HP schedule should be 4 in, 2 out and 4 in, then go home.While the two out is get your 30 minute unpaid lunch at 10 am and we'll give you a survey to do so your not sitting around. By the way go home after the last 4 hour jump because we don't want to pay you for the last two hours.But while your in go do surveys in a posted remediation asbestos job and if you complain two days off for you.Good ol "Shannon" days.

[Laundry Man]

Steve,
Remember hearts in the old respirator fit booth room.  Aah the day when he was a supervisor.  Did see him out at SONGS when he was/is? with the NRC.
LM

[Already Gone]

Shannon gave me a day off for sleeping in containment because I was too busy talking to a generator jumper to snap to attention when he showed up at my CP.  The egg on his face was priceless when I came back two days later and he had to pay me for the time off.  Turns out that the whole headset conversation was recorded, and he had to check it.

Saw him 20 years later at SONGS.  Five minutes into containment and he lost his PED - destroyed it actually.

But we did 3 in 3 out back at the IP2 days.  And there were a lot of guys well into their third beer at Johnny Ritz before they went off the clock for the night.

Roger, you are totally deluded if you think that even a noticeable percentage of techs work a schedule like that.  All that stuff that you say they are doing to prepare for or finish off from their time in the RCA is done the other way around.  They leave the CP early to write up surveys, and relieve late because dressing out took them too long or they had to pick up a meter on the way in (waking up 5 minutes before relief time had something to do with it too.)
The firm part of the schedule is the 2 or 3 out, and everything else works around that.

But, the problem as I have stated it is that you and all the good techs are working too hard to notice that a lot of techs are already back at the campground during that final 2 or 3 hours out at the end of shift.  You don't notice that they showed up late because you weren't going to split right away anyway.  You don't notice that they are cutting out early because you got too far into what you were doing to notice that they left you a mess to clean up.  You just clean it up.

Your statement that the 2 and 2 is not 2 work and 2 play is entirely true.  Now, just go convince the techs of that.

[Bonds 25]

And the proper way to handle deconning the boot.....throw it in the RAD trash...let the site buy him some new ones.