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Three Things We Didn't Talk About....


Dave Fleming

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Women Politics Religion

Ayup, I am talking about small yards here not the 1000+ man places.

Before work it was pretty quiet with perhaps a few mumbles about traffic or the weather or the current projects. Watchman had the coffee pot on and it was a very welcome thing especially in wet rainy weather.

Break time might be about boats worked on in the past, what you had for dinner last night, how the kids were behaving or for some baseball or football.

Lunch was pretty much the same just nice and quiet and with some scattered conversations. We all ate in the same room it was big enough to scatter out a bit. Folks would gravitate to certain others eat and sometimes share food together. All the while tossing comments across the room about this and that.

See you had to get along with everybody because you didn't know from day to day who you were going to be working with besides your partner.

Getting along was the most important thing.

Oh sure there would be some nimrod who would come into the yard when the rush was on. Fellow from the out of work list at the Hall. All kinds, from the know it all to the slacker to the sneak. They didn't last long.

No real cold shoulder but definitely a chill surrounded them.

They knew it and knew also that they were on a short term work assignment. So you might hear from one of them something like, 'well ya know I am just here filling in my time til that big job over at Gilhooleys opens up. Yeah I will probably be leadman on one of the crews and making more than scale too.'.

Little did he know that most of us were making above scale!

(scale= the wage for a shipwright specified in the Union Contract as a

minimum per hour rate. Nothing prevented an employer from paying

more than scale and many did.)

Ayup, couple of weeks and the push was over and nimrod got his final check. Packed up his tool chest and was out the gate. Words were passed to the effect..."bet he cashes that check at the nearest saloon before he even signs up on the list at the Hall".

And more than likely true.

The big places were different and I plain didn't care for working in them unless it was the Loft or Mill.

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Yup, I try to steer the conversation away from thoses three things as well. Not always successful, but I try. :)

Conversation lately has circled around internal politics, as there is a lot of things happening. Little we can do, so go with the flow! At least that is the approach I take; now to get my folks to take the same approach!? :roll:

Talking of politics at work is unproductive, and unfortunately (as you pointed out) can make a shift almost unbearable.

Take care! :)

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No... I don't thiink it does..

Sorry about that, Dave just struck upon something that is happening for me at work presently. But this can also be a lesson here, as what to and what not to post about.

It does resound upon Frank's post regarding what is acceptable and what is not, I believe. ??

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We don't have an "on topic" rule, so the occasional post about something that doesn't seem to fit is OK. Especially in the Main Forum (the B&B Yacht Designs forum is the only one where the topic has to fit the purpose of the forum).

"On Topic" rules were originally created for newsgroups and BBS where you had to consume bandwidth to download and read the messages. In the world of limited on-line time and 2400 baud modems, it made sense. Today, in the world of unlimited Internet access and forums that allow you to see the message headers (so you don't have to "download" the message), those rules don't make practical sense. They apply some places to make sure each and every post is "on topic", and that's fine for those types of forums. Our Main Forum isn't one of those places, so as long as the "One Rule" is observed, anything that is on our minds is OK.

The users here are like a work-group, and I think Dave's message is more on point than it appears. The three things he says they never talked about at work, because getting along with each other was the most important thing, could be applied here to help observe the "One Rule". But that would make "Two Rules", and we all know there's only One! So you can apply it "internally" if you like.

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