Journeymen… Foremen… General Foremen… Storm work is where truth shows up uninvited. Not in meetings. Not in policies. Not in after-action reports. In the dark. In the wind. In the fatigue. At the moment, someone trusts your call with their life. Storms do not care how experienced you are. They do not care how confident you sound. They do not care what you meant to do. They expose what you allowed... And right now … too many leaders are allowing gambling disguised as tradition. Journeymen … Your Hands Are the Last Gate The moment you topped out, excuses expired. You don’t get to assume. You don’t get to rely on memory. You don’t get to say “we already checked it” and move on. ET&D Best Practices exist because people died doing exactly that. You test. You verify. You confirm the absence of voltage using layers. A Personal Voltage Detector is one of those layers. If you’re not wearing one on storm work, that’s not confidence. That’s negligence wrapped in ego. And when something goes wrong … it won’t just be on you. Foremen … What You Tolerate Could Kill Someone Stop pretending this is about personal choice. Storms are not the place for optional discipline. If your crew isn’t running PVDs, that’s not a crew issue. That’s your standard … or lack of one. You don’t need another briefing. You don’t need another reminder. You need the backbone to enforce what already exists. Your people will follow what you enforce … not what you say. Every shortcut you ignore becomes permission. Every eye you turn away becomes policy. Storms don’t forgive soft leadership. General Foremen … You Own the Outcome This doesn’t stop below you. You decide what tools are normal. You decide what’s enforced and what’s optional. You decide whether layers are expected … or debated. If PVDs aren’t baked into your storm response, that is a leadership choice. And leadership choices have consequences. ET&D Best Practices talk about defense in depth because storms remove the margin completely.

I’m gonna say this one time because this is supposed to be a place where we cut the bullshit. So I am about to throw a HUGE bullshit flag because nothing changes unless we are willing to be honest, honest with our industry and honest with ourselves. Hell this may just be another lesson I learn to just shut my big mouth and go along to get along. My first hard lesson came just recently, and it wasn’t a risk or hazard that most would think of our recognize. It’s a risk that is hiding beneath the surface of this trade - it is the risk of not passing along knowledge. I have always known the physical and mental dangers of this trade, Im good with danger and risk management. I had always been comfortable with the uncomfortable. I have just completed my apprenticeship making me one of the many “new generation” JLs you all speak of. Even I can see the lack of effort put into the “new generation” of journeyman lineman. But I’m going to ask - whose fault is it really. What I am about to say is not said because of the fact that I spent years learning this new trade I am currently committed to. It is said because I spent years dedicating myself to something larger than myself before. I am quite certain that I will challenge a lot of egos here (yes believe it or not I still see a lot of egos on this site) and I will ruffle a lot of feathers and challenge the status quo with what I am about to say, but I bears saying it anyway. I am a retired Army Ranger who spent 24 years training, practicing, learning, and quite frankly failing to become a consummate professional of my craft. I know what it means to survive in a profession where the margin of error is slim and cost of failure is high. Success comes from humbling yourself to a process that takes years for some and decades for others, there is no one clear path and having a student mindset is key. I know what it takes to become a true professional of your craft and trade. The one thing I hear over and over again is constant complaining, bitching, and moaning about this “new generation” of lineman and linewomen. I hear many of the same comments and concerns and see many of the same pitfalls I’ve seen before for many years in the Army.

Fatigue Is the Last Phase of the Storm… And It’s the One That Kills Without Making Noise Winter Storm Fern didn’t end. It just stopped being dramatic. The ice moved on. The wind shut up. The cameras packed their shit and left. (Unless you’re in Nashville) But the work didn’t. Tens of thousands are still in the dark across MS, TN, and LA. And the hands fixing it aren’t running on adrenaline anymore. They’re running on empty. This is the phase of the storm that doesn’t look dangerous. No chaos. No urgency on the surface. Just long hours, tired brains, and the quiet pressure to be done. This is where people get hurt. Fatigue doesn’t scream. It whispers. It narrows judgment. It shortens patience. It convinces good hands they’re still sharp when they’re not. It turns “I’ll slow it down” into “I’ve got it.” It turns job briefings into checkboxes. It turns cover-up discipline into muscle memory instead of intention. It turns silence into the path of least resistance. And nobody feels unsafe… Until somebody’s bleeding… Or not coming home. Storms don’t usually kill people at their peak. They kill people at the end… when pride, experience, and exhaustion collide. This isn’t about being tough. Tough doesn’t keep people alive. Stewardship does. Late-stage storm work is where Brotherhood stops being a word and starts being friction. It’s speaking up when everyone wants to finish. It’s slowing the tempo when leadership pressure isn’t loud… just implied. It’s watching the senior hands, not assuming they’re immune. It’s calling time when the only thing pushing you is fatigue and ego. Every Journeyman on this storm is teaching right now. You don’t get to opt out. You topped out… that made you an instructor. If you rush, you teach rushing. If you stay quiet, you teach silence. If you step in, you teach survival. Fatigue doesn’t excuse shortcuts. It exposes who’s willing to carry the weight anyway. A Moment for Those Already Paying the Price Before we talk about finishing…

This one is for my peers, my Brothers. For the Journeymen. This is also a warning shot across the bow for: The safety and training professionals who claim stewardship of the next generation. I’m passionate about teaching and training because I was in their boots. And because whether we like it or not… every Journeyman is already teaching. We don’t get to opt out of that responsibility. The moment you topped out… the moment you were trusted to work without supervision… You became an instructor. Not by title… but by example. Every decision you make in the field teaches something. Every shortcut teaches something. Every time you slow down… speak up… or stay silent… it teaches something. We teach behaviors… We teach patterns… We teach techniques… And we do it whether we intend to or not. That’s the weight of being a Journeyman. I remember being a young hand sitting in rooms where the person at the front couldn’t explain their way out of a paper bag. They had the title. They had the credentials. They had the authority. What they didn’t have was understanding… You’d ask a real question… not to challenge… but to survive. And instead of clarity, you got buzzwords. Instead of an explanation, you got irritation. Instead of teaching, you got shut down. That damage doesn’t stay in the classroom. It follows people into the field… It teaches young hands to stop asking questions. To hide uncertainty. To accept confusion as normal. That’s how dangerous habits get passed down quietly. And too many of us have watched it get worse. I’ve worked with instructors who had no passion. No drive. No ambition to sharpen themselves. They weren’t there to build people. They were there to coast. To cruise. To draw a paycheck. Training became a parking spot instead of a responsibility. I’ve known training “professionals” whose depth of understanding rivaled “Simple Jack”. If you’ve seen Tropic Thunder, you understand the reference. Blank stares. Broken explanations. Zero ability to connect cause and effect.