In the Mines This Week? Where's Norm?

There have been no posts for several days. When it seems I've "gone away" for a few days, or a week or so, the assumption may be that "Norm is on vacation" or is asleep.  That is usually not the case.  Sometimes things are quiet, or I decide to give the reader and myself a rest. Other times, I'm away on business matters.

This was one of those times when I was away on business. "Business" is a broad term. In my case. I have some unusual skills and I'm probably the only miner living in BLMH. That's a "miner" as in "with pick and shovel", although those are not the tools of my trade. Why I'm considered to be a miner is a long story. Suffice it to say that to be in a heavy industrial work environment requires special skills, training and awareness. These types of environments are present in steel mills, refineries, petrochemical plants, power generating facilities, pyroprocessing plants and mines. White collar workers may require specialized training and awareness so they may perform their tasks in these facilities. Upon completing certain types of training they register with our benevolent government and then become miners.

Engineers and programmers may become miners because it's necessary for someone to enter these facilities with the skills to understand and comprehend the industrial processes and the myriad technologies involved. I'm one of those people. The work I do is necessary so other skilled personnel can manage and operate these facilities. The industrial facilities may be quite large, spanning square miles in some cases. It's a challenge to enter one, stay out of harm's way and avoid getting lost. Making a mistake, being in the wrong place or not heeding audible warnings can be deadly. 

Most of these facilities include thousands of intelligent devices and computers from small micro controllers and intelligent sensors to "mainframes." They include machines of all types large and small to carry out the digital decisions, and vast communications networks spanning a variety of wired and wireless technologies. They also include various "human machine interfaces" or HMIs so that human beings may interact with the computers and process controls and make the necessary decisions to supervise the automation. All of this, from sensors to final control elements are assembled into distributed process control systems with various levels of automation. Human beings are an integral component of these systems, but operations is conducted from centralized stations usually adjacent to the processes being controlled. 

I'll be unable to post for a few days because I have a schedule and little time to complete a task at one of these facilities. The current task will only require a week or so. In the past I have had more serious schedules and I've traveled extensively to get to these special factories. They don't build them in cities. They do build them close to the source of raw materials.

Watch Our Smoke
There was a time when a sign in front of such a factory may have said "Watch our smoke." Some years ago such a sign actually existed near Hagerstown MD. It meant there were jobs and employment inside. That sign was gone before I entered the work force and is now something of lore. Smoke became a bad thing and most factories have become something undesirable, and with their closure the jobs have gone elsewhere. Oddly, not all smoke has been banned and we continue to manufacture those "cancer sticks" called cigarettes in this country. The governments puts warning labels on a pack of cigarettes, but tobacco is such a money maker that it is permitted. A lot of people own stock in cigarette and alcohol producing companies because they pay such wonderful dividends, and the government loves the "sin tax."

Back in the 1990's this country, cheered by the population and stoked by the politicians turned it's back on manufacturing and went down the rabbit hole we call the "service economy."  I once heard former Mayor Richard M. Daley of Chicago make a speech that included the phrase "We don't need manufacturing." Perhaps, but critics such as myself knew that those factories did provide good jobs. Nevertheless, the war against the blue collar worker was waged and the blue collar's lost. Now those $40,000 a year jobs are gone, replaced by high quality jobs at Wal-Mart, or in an Apple store or at Starbucks. The politicians have now decided that too many of those "service economy" jobs include low skill, low pay and are minimum wage. Of course, a family of four can't live on minimum wage. That's why we are one of the most educated societies on the planet. But we have also discovered that a masters in liberal arts or PhD in French Studies may not provide a matching job.

We knew there would be factories elsewhere because we would require manufactured goods. At the time I suspected it would not end well for all of us. Most of us would not become architects, software engineers, teachers, lawyers, accountants, doctors, nurses, bankers, airline pilots, retail clerks, real estate professionals, politicians or clergy.  Many of use would not acquire the specialized skills and training for the best jobs and there are also a limited number of positions and so, here we are.

Have Skill Will Travel
It may be difficult to believe, but this is my 51st year in the work force.  If time flies when one has fun, then the explanation for 51 quick years must be because I have been in a lifelong party. Strange, I don't remember it being "fun." I began working in 1963, went full time in 1964 and continue working to this day. A few years ago, one of my physicians made the comment "When you stop, you drop." Now, I don't know if that is true. However, I have concluded, from personal observation that "When you retire, you may become strange." I have been told that I am lucky that I can work; usually by people who don't, won't or can't. Yes, there is nothing like getting up early every day and working, some times 7 days a week and sometimes continuously for 30 or more days. I think that some of us may confuse being able to work with being willing to work, or being healthy. These are not the same. I know from personal experience that one does not have to be healthy to be active in the work force.

So if working doesn't require excellent health, and certainly is not fun, then why do it? Is it simply to earn a paycheck? That may be a powerful motivator and certainly there are a lot of people in this country working in the 60s and beyond for that very reason. Earning an income is a necessity, yet, doing what I do is also about making a difference. So, since 1963 that is exactly what I have striven to do. It has been said that "living the life fantastic" is far, far better than sitting in the stands and watching others who are on the playing field make the decisions and do the deeds. It also seems that many of the fans in the stands include the complainers and critics. Most have to pay to watch. That's not where I want to be. On the playing field one gets paid to play the game. That's my opinion, and it has been since 1967 when I began my first business.

Here's a miner emerging from his workplace.

He was not in an environment that required respiratory filtering at the time this photo was taken, and so he had slipped the mask. They are uncomfortable. Various types of personal protection devices are required in heavy industrial environments. These may include hard hats, steel toed boots, eye protection, hearing protection, fall protection, respirators, special clothing and so on.

I do get into such serious industrial environment from time to time. My companies have been working in heavy industries since 1978, and I've been working in these environments longer still. I took my first business trip on an airplane in 1967. I was in my first production plant during a short trip in 1968. My companies have provided process controls, industrial automation and training. We have done this for engineers, managers and for companies who own and operate electrical generating plants, steel mills, petrochemical plants, refineries, aluminum, gypsum or produce lime and cement, and even NASA. I've provided my services in facilities ranging from a salt mine to the largest NGL Fractionation Plant in the world.

In my spare time I've provided service to others and I am currently a HOA board member. I travel when I can for fun so I can see all of those things I miss when whizzing by in an airplane or whatever, en route to the next project or problem. I enjoy the outdoors and nature. I like to hike, write, bake, cook, train others, play IT guy (that's a hobby in my spare time), to fix things and gadgets of all kinds. Financial planning and project management is something I do every day and I enjoy life with my spouse and oh, yes, I do this and several other blogs.

I have been told that industrial production facilities are oh, so  passé. Yet it seems we just can't buy enough stuff which had to be made somehow. Of course, some of us think that electricity comes out of the wall, gasoline appears magically in a pump at a gas station, Clean water simply flows to our taps and when we flush the toilet, that waste magically disappears. As for that Wide Screen TV, it came off the showroom floor at Best Buy or Wal-mart. that Apple smart phone is made by an American company, isn't it? Perhaps the question to ask is "Who is Foxconn?" the company that has employed 930,000 workers to assemble such products, but this isn't the gameshow Jeopardy.

Reality
Here is the lower level of an industrial facility. Many of these have been around so long that portions of the facility date back to the days when  rivets were used to construct the I-Beams. Some actually have components that may date back to the era of the Titanic, or earlier. The oldest facility I have ever been in had portions built in 1892.

In fact, each of these facilities represent an investment of hundreds of millions or billions of dollars. They are the culmination of decades of building, re-building and improvements.

They may include materials handling conveyors, towers hundreds of feet in height or vast underground chambers. 

Centralized control rooms may be hybrids of 1980's and 2014 technology, and sometimes appear to be a patchwork quilt:

I'll be somewhere for a few days in a facility like one of those pictured above, living the life fantastic and working.