Their trying to trick me, I know they are!
What's the best advice for taking an Oral Board?
My advice, let them know you own them! Usually the three, or more, people sitting in front of you, have set the stage, but you set the performance! If you happen to have a diversed knowledge base in the Nuclear Industry, you can actually have some fun with these. I actually answered one question at a DOE board, with an instrument that didn't exist! One board member stopped me and offered their version of similiar instrument used on their site. We later joked about it when they looked for the instument on the web and couldn't find it! They said it sounded like a really good instrument and wanted to use it in their program! Oral Boards are your knowledge based reactions, combined with their written guides. Althought there procedured may have a couple of speed bumps you have to memorize, they simply want to see your responce if you get in over your head! All Oral Boards play out the same way, start a job, cover a job and react to something out of the ordinary, or what appears out of the ordinary!
After you get the scenerio, start to disect it.
Start the job: Who, What, Where and Why? Go to the board, I suggest the largest board available. Write down the information you think you need, the more the merrier. Write down the equipment you need. Write down who is doing the job and why. Request the past history on the area and prior evolution experience, ( A Biggy ). Everybody likes to see the documentation as well. If it is on the board, for all to see, it has been addressed! If you choose to write nothing down, prepare yourself for a lot of questions! Watch the board members, I guarantee they are writting stuff down!
After you think you have it all, think again, " Action Levels"? Did you hit any? Dose, Contamination, DAC, Airborne, Special Notifications?
Cover the Job: ALWAYS you first! It's a good ice breaker. Even in the real world, the tech should always be the first to scope out any site prior to allowing any workers to enter. Tell the board your going to get a visual overview with the crew supervisor and make sure everything is as it should be. Better to deal with a couple of people in a less than favorable situation, yourself included, that twenty workers! Use other resources in the area, what's out there? CAMS, ARM, Whatever!
When Things go Bad, or appear to go Bad: STOP in all cases! Stop everything and everyone. Assess the situation and remember the action levels! Anything above them will require an immediate retreat. Your retreat should be to a safe distance, but stay within reason. Home is probably safe, but a little to far! Use your available resources, your work crew is number one! Put them at a safe distance and have them assist in providing controls until the troops show up. They can also make a notification to your supervison and ask for assistance. After you have established the immediate necessary control, repeat AFTER, notify your supervisor an inform him of the details. One good thing to remember, those resources you checked on the way in, CAM's, ARM's and Whatevers, you also checked them on the way out, didn't you? They will give you a good idea of how bad the situation is and if it is getting worst!
If the scenerio goes bad, the amount of time used, should only encompass your response to a safe condition, not the time required to recover from the event. One scenerio I had many years ago, dealt with a dropped CO-60 source. 100 Ci source, sitting out on the floor. The proper responce was to exit the building, secure the building entrances, with whomever I could find, and make the proper notifications. It ended there!
Sometimes your response will be required to an event outside of your immediate control, Fire, Site Announcment, Site Alarm, Local Alarms, ect. Some of these will put you into a dash for the door! If you remember to fall back to a safe distance, establish a contolled perimeter and make the notifications, you'll do just fine!
