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.

One of my first lessons was the fact that even people trained, licensed, or certified do some stupid stuff. I had to inform this professional that yes, electrical tape is cheap, but is your life only worth $.99? We solved this problem very quickly. The scary thing is he wasn't the only one.

I started in the EE98J program in October 2017...,(please allow me to explain myself... I'm just starting the lineman , pre aprentiship @ the local community college...I don't even have the "right" to even talk...and I hope to always have this reverence, but here am I and here it goes.) His name WAS Aiden McCullough. 22yo. Not even old enough to have lived. (It feels like ripping open an old wound talking about this...it hurts my heart.) What happened was, a semi truck flatbed trailer had 4 spools of 500KCmil weighing a couple of tons ea. Anyway, they unloaded the first one which had chocks. Every spool was required to have chocks, but only the first one did... The second one began to roll and the 1st year, inexperienced appreciate went to "stop" the spool. Milo Trujillo was the first one there...(God rest his soul, but that's another story.) He told me, "1st years have no sense"... I mumbled some BS and then he looked at me directly in the face, and said, "1st years have no sense." They said that anyone could go to the hospital and "visit" so I did, but when I got there, he was dead. The nurse asked if I wanted to say goodbye, but I declined. Now I'm going into something deeper, harder, scarier and I can't even explain to myself why. After reading some of these stories I realize there's no shame in quitting, but there's an "obligation" to stop work if something seems off. You have to know that a job, or a position isn't worth loosing a life. That's what I got.

August 1979 West Central Florida. The crew I was working with had been tasked to install GOAB switches in several feeders to make ready for a substation clearance in mid September. This station had to be de-energized to roll the transmission phases into the station. This station would not tie hot to anything else we had on the system. The site we would work that day (Friday) was a little different than the switches we had been installing. We had two energized dead ends that had one span of wire that needed to be installed. We would make up jumpers on one end of the span and install fuse switches with solid blades on the other end. The night of the station outage someone could come to this location and close the solid blades with an extendo stick. This job came up mid morning as a filler job to finish the day with. It was added into our daily job brief to install another GOAB. The GOAB switch was not ready so we backfilled the remainder of the day with this job. My world was filled with distractions that day. It was August in Florida. Wife was 8.5 months pregnant with our first born and the night before she was in false labor. It was pay day and we had to pick up our check that day and get them to the bank before it closed. Direct Deposit was not heard of back then. It was Friday, a beer or five with the boys that afternoon. And did I mention it was hot. We got to that jobsite about 11:30. Lead said lets go ahead and eat lunch and then we can do this job. I had worked with this crew almost 2 years. I considered everyone family. Some were like distant cousins but none the less family. We were a 6 man Feeder construction and maintenance crew. And rarely did our shirt tails hit us in the ass. Had tons of experience to draw from with two of the lineman representing almost 50 years of experience. I was the one of the least experienced guys on the crew being a second year apprentice and 3 year hand. After lunch was done the lead tells us his plan. Pull out three phases of 4/0 aluminum. Don't need a neutral in this span. We will have a bucket with 2 men to frame the dead end and soft side the wire.

The story is posted in THE BATTLEFIELD OF THE MIND Classroom. https://www.skool.com/lineman-bullshit/classroom/182302e9?md=61dc0fc3a2db4154b5d1d16ce7419b39