CHEAP BIDS… HOT WORK… DEADLY MATH Lineman Bull$hit™ Academy Let’s start this new series exactly where it belongs… At the scene of the lie. Not the lie told after the incident. Not the lie buried in the report. Not the lie polished up in a boardroom and passed around like corporate wisdom. I mean the real lie… The one thing this industry has been dragging behind it for years, while pretending not to hear the chain rattling. Here it is… A whole lot of energized work is not being done because it is necessary. It is being done because the math got bad long before the crew ever showed up. That’s it. That’s the disease. And if this industry had any real stomach left for truth… we’d admit right now that one of the biggest root causes behind unnecessary exposure is the unholy marriage between unit pricing and lowest-bid cowardice. The Lie Starts on Paper Before the truck ever rolls… Before the briefing… Before the rubber gets checked… Before a man ever puts his hooks, sleeves, or gloves on… The lie has already started. It starts in the bid sheets. Unit sheets. Cost models. Procurement packages. All those neat little boxes where linework gets broken down into tidy categories for people who never have to actually do it. Pole change-out… Crossarm… Insulator… Transformer… Cutout… Dead-end… Reconductor… X units… Y dollars… next item. Looks clean. Looks efficient. Looks manageable. Looks like the kind of thing a power company can hand off to a contractor and say… “Give me your best number.” That’s where the bullshit walks in. Because linework is not clean. It is not predictable. And it damn sure is not uniform. One pole is roadside on firm ground with room to breathe. The next one is jammed in a backyard, boxed in with fences, telecom, trees, mud, bad access, traffic, and pissed-off homeowners. One piece of work is straightforward. The next one is one bad decision away from lighting a man up. But the paper treats them the same. That’s the first betrayal.

SAFETY SUNDAY THE LINE BETWEEN SURVIVAL AND STATISTICS March 8, 2026 This one comes directly out of a conversation happening inside the Best Practices Classroom in the Lineman Bull$hit™ Skool community. Some of you may have seen me post about this before. Maybe you’ve heard me say it on a jobsite… or at a summit… or standing next to a bucket while we’re talking through the work. But with some of the videos circulating lately… and with a few incidents we’ve seen across the trade recently… …it needs to be said again. Because in this trade… Lessons don’t get repeated because we like hearing them. They get repeated because someone forgot. And when someone forgets… …the price gets paid in skin, bone, and funerals. THERE ARE TWO KINDS OF LINEMEN There are two kinds of linemen in this trade… Those who truly understand Insulate & Isolate… …and those who have simply survived long enough to wish they had learned it sooner. I’ve been around this arena long enough to see both... Long enough to bury brothers who trusted luck when they should have trusted best practice. Long enough to watch crews gamble with inches like the line gave a damn about their confidence. Let me say something that every lineman should understand deep in his bones… The line has never cared. Electricity is brutally honest. It does exactly what physics demands… every single time. And the moment we drift outside the protection of Insulate & Isolate… …it doesn’t hesitate. Not for a second. THE TRUTH WE DON’T SAY LOUD ENOUGH Insulate & Isolate isn’t a suggestion. It’s not a “program.” It’s not a safety slogan. It’s not something you do when management is watching. It is the spine of live-line work. No I&I… no work. No debate. No excuses. No, “this will only take a second.” You can bluff your way through rigging. You can fake confidence during switching. You can bullshit your way through a storm call long enough to look like you belong. But you cannot outsmart electricity.

They’re calling this one historic… We call it a Sunday... Blizzard warnings. Whiteouts. Heavy wet snow loading everything from primaries to your shoulders. Wind that’ll shake poles and your confidence if you let it. Crews are rolling right now. Some of you are already 12 to 16 hours deep in a windshield … about to step straight into 16 more in the bucket. Here’s the part nobody says out loud … The Storm Isn’t The Most Dangerous Thing You’re About To Face… YOU ARE. Your ego. Your fatigue. Your “I’ve done this before.” Your quiet willingness to shave one step because it’s cold and miserable. I know … because I’ve done it. I’ve stood in that wind. I’ve felt that pressure to move faster. I’ve wanted to prove I could handle it. I’ve let pride talk louder than process. That’s some Lineman Bullshit… Historic Weather Does Not Change Physics Snow doesn’t make voltage softer. Wind doesn’t make induction polite. Cold doesn’t make gravity negotiate. But storms do something else … They expose whether your standards were real … or situational. If your tailboard shrinks because it’s freezing … it wasn’t a standard. If your testing gets rushed because “we already know it’s dead” … it wasn’t a standard. If your grounding becomes memory-based instead of verification-based … it wasn’t a standard. It was convenience. Journeymen You topped out. Excuses expired. Storm mode is not hero mode. It’s responsibility mode. You don’t get to assume. You don’t get to gamble. You don’t get to be the cool, calm cowboy who “just knows.” You test. You verify. You back each other up. Because when visibility drops to zero … your discipline better double. Foremen and GFs This is where you earn your title. If your crews feel more pressure to restore than to verify … that’s on you. If you let fatigue go unchecked because “they’re tough” … that’s on you. If you allow shortcuts because everyone’s miserable … that’s on you. Storm response doesn’t need speed. It needs control. And control starts with you having the backbone to slow it down when every outside force is screaming go.

15th February 2026 Let’s quit pretending... The most dangerous thing on storm or normal work isn’t always the wire… the switching… the busted gear… or the voltage you can see. Sometimes it’s the man holding the ticket. Because fatigue is an invisible energized conductor… and this trade has been flirting with it for decades like it’s a badge of honor. We don’t call it what it is. We romanticize it. We glorify it. We build whole identities around it. “I can run on two hours.” “I’m built for it.” “Sleep when you’re dead.” Cool story… until you bury somebody. If a hand shows up drunk with a 0.08% BAC, you already know what happens… He’s done. He’s off the job. He’s a liability. Rightfully. But let that same hand stay awake long enough… work long enough… drive long enough… push through the night long enough… and suddenly we clap for him like he’s a hero. That’s Lineman Bull$hit. Because fatigue impairment has numbers… and they don’t care about your pride… After… 17 hours awake, your brain is functioning around 0.05% BAC. Impaired. 21 hours awake, around 0.08% BAC. Legally drunk. 24 hours awake, around 0.10% BAC. Severely impaired. So let’s translate that into plain language. If you’ve been awake 21 hours, you’re “legally drunk” without a bottle in your hand. And if you’re leading crews and acting like that’s normal… you’re not a leader. You’re gambling with people’s lives and families. Here’s another truth the tough guys hate... Your body runs on a clock. Circadian rhythm. And that clock does not give a damn about your outage map… your mutual aid agreement… your “we’re almost done”… or your ego. There’s a window late at night into early morning where the human system drops to its lowest. That’s when reaction time falls off a cliff. That’s when attention starts blinking. That’s when microsleeps show up… and you don’t even know you had one. Eyes open… brain offline. Now stack that circadian low on top of storm tempo. You’re out there doing energized work in the worst cognitive condition you can be in. That isn’t “storm hardened.” That’s stupid… and it’s preventable.

Once you top out… we stop checking you. Here’s what we don’t say out loud… In this trade, topping out is treated like a lifetime clearance. Once you’re a Journeyman, the questions stop. The verification stops. The friction stops. Not because it’s smart… Because it’s uncomfortable. We don’t want to offend experience... We don’t want to challenge confidence... We don’t want to be “that guy” who slows things down. So we assume... We assume the hand still has it. We assume fatigue hasn’t crept in. We assume repetition hasn’t dulled judgment. We assume confidence still equals competence. And assumptions are cheap. They don’t cost anything… until they cost everything... We say we respect experience. But real respect would be holding experienced hands to a higher standard… not a lower one. Instead, we do the opposite... Apprentices get watched. Apprentices get checked. Apprentices get corrected. Journeymen get left alone… Even when their body language says something’s off. Even when the job feels rushed. Even when the plan is thin, and the pressure is thick. And when it finally goes bad… When a seasoned hand makes a “rookie mistake”… Everyone acts shocked. But nobody wants to talk about how long it had been since anyone actually verified the work. Nobody wants to talk about how many times we let “he’s good” replace “prove it.” Nobody wants to talk about how many close calls got brushed off because calling them out would’ve been awkward as hell. That’s not trust... That’s laziness wrapped in tradition. Judgment isn’t permanent. Skill isn’t static. And confidence, left unchecked, turns into arrogance real damn fast. If the only people being evaluated are the least experienced ones… Then, the most dangerous assumptions in this trade are wearing Journeyman tickets. That’s not Brotherhood... That’s abandonment... And every time leadership chooses silence over verification… They’re not respecting their people. They’re rolling the dice with them... BETTER... NEVER RESTS...