I've been abstaining from this thread for a long time now, but I have to give plus karma to Dave Warren for his last sentence. It's absolutely true that you can't tell what's going on if you are not actually there. I am STILL unconvinced that my refrigerator light ever goes out. I can guess with relative confidence, but I could be wrong.
I also give credit to darkmatter for identifying his story as "opinionated". The person rendering the opinion may have a totally different perspective from that of someone in the office or Bruce Bartlett.
Justforthefunofit, I came up wit a different way to describe both of those very same piles given exactly the same descriptions. Here goes:
Pile number one; Techs who don't go out of their way to get noticed, neither famous nor infamous, willing to go to sites other than their own personal favorites - therefore unfamiliar with the area, require the SC to actually "coordinate" instead of just handing out checks and carrying a meter he never turns on, consult with supervision to make sure they are meeting the plant's expectations rather than playing "cowboy" with job coverage.
Pile two: The Terrell Owens group of HP's who never let you forget that they are the house's chosen few for the high profile jobs. They have every job on their resume that they ever walked past on their way to the pile of PC's where they slept for the whole outage. Never show their faces until it is time to take credit for something - since they are so rarely seen they are considered "low-maintenance" by the SC who only has to interact with them once per week. (they always manage to come out at check time)
Naturally, neither one of these descriptions may be any more or any less accurate than the descriptions given to them by the aforementioned SC. I just made them up by imagining that someone had asked not only this SC but one or more of the other techs who also knew them.
Then again, darkmatter's descriptions may be right on the money, but other factors may have ben considered. From an employer's point of view. If you think you are in the "wrong" pile, maybe you can try to figure out why. Just remember a few things that may be more important to the employer than those already discussed.
Knowing that a company makes the same amount of money from an "average" tech that it makes from any other, the tech who actually works more for the company is more valuable. A tech who goes where the need is greater is more valuable. A tech who stays until the layoff is more valuable than the one who must leave before the cavity is drained. A tech who is willing to work at a crappy plant is more valuable than the one who calls the office and says "I'll work for you here but not there".
Of course, the most valuable tech of all is the one who is on the phone right now, asking for work when a spot opens up somewhere and you have nobody else to fill it. If he says "yes, I'll go" he's worth his weight in truffles.
Do you tend to work for a particular company only when they have the plant you want, or do you go wherever they need you?
Do you tend to drag up at the earliest opportunity to go to another outage (possibly for someone else)?
Are you a really good tech who is dragging along dead weight in the form of a husband, girlfriend, son .. etc.?
Are you a really good tech who commits to a job and then backs out because you got a really good offer later? Do you tend to do this often?
Depending on your answers, you may be in the "wrong" pile when you feel that you don't deserve to be. Just take this little nugget of wisdom from the source of all wisdom, The Godfather. "It isn't personal. It's business."
