Knock Out Punch!

Good morning world…  Right now it’s all about the job…..  I’m putting in the hours, mining for gold.  Like anything of great advantage the “gold” isn’t jumping out of the ground with the greatest of ease.  Like I tell my people, if it was easy they would have our kids out here doing it… that’s whay they call it “work”.

This morning I tasked everyone to make that knock out punch.  The 300 folks on my job have been working every day 12 to 14 hours a day (and night) for weeks on end, so it’s easy to become tired or complacent.  Now is not the time to rest, it’s the time for that final push to get this refinery back up and running.

For those that don’t know, I work for a company that overhauls refineries.  To better understand what I do let me draw a comparison between a refinery and your family car.  As the driver of your car you’re adept at understanding the controls and how to drive that car, but how many people know what the pistons in the engine look like or even the best way to change the oil?  I don’t drive the refinery, we change the oil.. and whatever else is broken.

Every 3 to 5 years a refinery has to stop operating and fix whats broken that can’t be fixed while it’s running.. and clean out the gunk that’s built up inside of stuff.  I’m the mechanic you call if you own a refinery or chemical plant that needs a motor job.  On this one… we have all the parts cleaned and welded back together …. the “knock out punch” is to tighten all the bolts and give the keys back to the owner so he can fire it up and resume making that $1M per unit per day again.  Currently we have 3 units down so as you can imagine, the customer is really anxious to drive his car again.

Next week we will be wiping the grease off the fenders, and filling it back up with fresh oil.  The effort has not been without skinned knuckles and a few cuss words… but think about it this way.  How much do you thank your mechanic for taking all your money just so you can drive your car again?  It’s a neccessary evil that you just have to do right?  Same thing for me, I’m a hard core mechanic that makes good money but I can’t expect a red carpet reception when it comes time to pay up.

Mining for gold in a harsh environment…… It’s not the “deadliest catch” but somebody ought to make a movie.

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