Working on the KVG Gas Compressor
Mar. 14th, 2011 08:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sathorBuilt in the 1940s, it's a pretty massive hunk cast iron and steel, but it's rather beautiful in its own right.
I'm in the machine shop until the end of shutdown...if I'm lucky, I'll stay in there as a helper at my current pay rate until I bid on a job. TBH, I don't really want to be anywhere else for long. I love it in there. It reminds me of spending time in the garage with my dad as a kid...I never realized just how much I learned, and how acclimated I became to the atmosphere and the tools from those days.
Half of the cam shaft weighs about 200-250lbs. It took me and the other red hat helper to turn it over as we polished off surfaces with a grinder wire brush. I also did some gasket making and some other various duties today.
Where else are you going to find a job with that kind of variety? Someone want to explain that to me?
This is like heaven. I swear on it. We'll see if it lasts.
What would've been the benefit of becoming a high school teacher or professor? Getting to teach mostly disinterested students material that I am interested in seems hardly fun. In fact, it seems downright horrific. Besides, it's my belief now that most intelligence and even skill or mastery comes as a natural result of early-life experiences and how one was raised. Not the education systems.
What about the benefit of becoming something like a psychologist? Listening to the problems of other people (which happens in day to day life, and at work, anyway - you listen to coworkers, you talk to each other, you help each other out, you make each other laugh.) Healthy relationships and friendships are the key to being well balanced in life, if you ask me. And having a job you can tolerate that doesn't skimp on stress relief via physical labor and learning new things can't be a bad thing.
I'm seriously blown away that I never realized before how awesome some jobs are. Particularly this one. It's the perfect match for someone like me, who likes to be able to focus on a task at hand, have a variety of tasks that can be performed any given day with great variation day to day, plenty of human interaction, and plenty of opportunities for new experiences and furthering knowledge and skill.
Obviously musicianship contains similar positives, but it's not an industry that pays well for the vast majority.
It could be argued that educating does as well, but not in the same fashion. To be honest, I'm not sure I ever wanted to be an educator in the first place. I like learning, but teaching isn't really my forte. I'll write books, but I'd rather never have to stand up in front of a class. Not unless by some twist of fate, that can happen. I refuse to jump through expensive hoops to do it.
I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree after all. But I don't intend to stop educating myself. Not one bit.
I'm in the machine shop until the end of shutdown...if I'm lucky, I'll stay in there as a helper at my current pay rate until I bid on a job. TBH, I don't really want to be anywhere else for long. I love it in there. It reminds me of spending time in the garage with my dad as a kid...I never realized just how much I learned, and how acclimated I became to the atmosphere and the tools from those days.
Half of the cam shaft weighs about 200-250lbs. It took me and the other red hat helper to turn it over as we polished off surfaces with a grinder wire brush. I also did some gasket making and some other various duties today.
Where else are you going to find a job with that kind of variety? Someone want to explain that to me?
This is like heaven. I swear on it. We'll see if it lasts.
What would've been the benefit of becoming a high school teacher or professor? Getting to teach mostly disinterested students material that I am interested in seems hardly fun. In fact, it seems downright horrific. Besides, it's my belief now that most intelligence and even skill or mastery comes as a natural result of early-life experiences and how one was raised. Not the education systems.
What about the benefit of becoming something like a psychologist? Listening to the problems of other people (which happens in day to day life, and at work, anyway - you listen to coworkers, you talk to each other, you help each other out, you make each other laugh.) Healthy relationships and friendships are the key to being well balanced in life, if you ask me. And having a job you can tolerate that doesn't skimp on stress relief via physical labor and learning new things can't be a bad thing.
I'm seriously blown away that I never realized before how awesome some jobs are. Particularly this one. It's the perfect match for someone like me, who likes to be able to focus on a task at hand, have a variety of tasks that can be performed any given day with great variation day to day, plenty of human interaction, and plenty of opportunities for new experiences and furthering knowledge and skill.
Obviously musicianship contains similar positives, but it's not an industry that pays well for the vast majority.
It could be argued that educating does as well, but not in the same fashion. To be honest, I'm not sure I ever wanted to be an educator in the first place. I like learning, but teaching isn't really my forte. I'll write books, but I'd rather never have to stand up in front of a class. Not unless by some twist of fate, that can happen. I refuse to jump through expensive hoops to do it.
I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree after all. But I don't intend to stop educating myself. Not one bit.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-16 01:46 am (UTC)Of course, there's no guarantees I'll spend the rest of my life there. We'll see what happens.
I never looked down on jobs like this. I usually placed them equal or higher than jobs that aren't physically demanding, dangerous or stressful. People in jobs such as at the refinery often times aren't compensated appropriately for the sacrifices they make to perform an important service to society. In this case, they are compensated decently...but there are still people who make ludicrous amounts of money for little to no societal contribution. And my disgust with that still continues.
Allegheny college did accept my application. They still need my transcripts. If they gave me a full scholarship I'd drop everything to go. Guess we'll see.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-19 08:08 pm (UTC)Which you don't have to be
I could bid into a millwright position as long as I had enough seniority in the union, and have a base wage rate of about $32/h
no subject
Date: 2011-03-20 12:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-19 08:16 pm (UTC)I doubt Allegheny will offer me anywhere near what I'd need to seriously consider going. Also, college to me is essentially a ticket on an amusement park ride. It's a postponing of reality in the name of the "possibility" of something better or equal to what you might get anyway. You meet lots of people you'll never see again, you probably have an amazing sex life, and then real life eventually has to begin. I kinda had an amazing sex life from about 16 to 21. And now it's intermittent, but hey, that's alright.
And by the way, yes, even going somewhere "very" cheap like Penn State would result, in two years time, me having more total debt than the "average" college graduate's debt. The idea of studying and being in class 40+ hours a week and then having to work an equivalent amount or part time is ludicrous (and then to get my debt below that level, i'd have to take basically every penny i made and pump it into the loans.) I realize there are people who actually do that. More power to them, but I think it's ridiculous. And actually, I don't really think there are a /lot/ of people who work during college to pay their loans off simultaneously.