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Dirty Jobs Done Dirt Cheap

Oh the sights you will see.
Looking for a job? Here’s my offer: You’ll be required to be on-call 24/7, sometimes you’ll get paid for that, sometimes you won’t. I require you to have a vast array of skills with a decent aptitude in each. Mechanical, electrical, and plumbing are a good start. However, I really need those skills and the ability to work in a lab while having a working knowledge of basic chemistry and biology. Analytical skills and the ability to think critically are also incredibly important. The ability to work with emerging technology, automation, and computer software is a must. In addition to that, I’d like you be able to work well in teams or alone. The alone part is very important because you’ll often be left in charge of troubleshooting, repairing, and replacing thousands of dollars worth of equipment by yourself. You’ll likely have very little support and the best part is that you’ll be doing it at odd hours. While everyone else is home eating dinner, you’ll be pulling a portable generator to a pump station. Remember, I said you’d need electrical skills. They come in handy when remembering the proper sequence of manually transferring line power to generator power. It’ll also come in handy while troubleshooting the hundreds of control panels you’ll be working on at the pump stations or the plant. And don’t forget the M and the P of MEP. Those both come in handy if once you transfer the power to the generator, the pumps do not pump. Maybe you’ll have to pull a pump and check that the impeller is clear, or maybe you’ll be tearing piping a part to get at a clogged check valve. One never knows what awaits them at a call out.

What happens when a sensor fails and cake ends up outside of the full dumpster? You spend a full day shoveling it up by hand and with a Bobcat.
That’s the best part of this whole deal, you get to pull pumps that pump raw sewage. I forgot to mention this job is at a wastewater treatment plant. You may be a bit reluctant at first because not too many people are willing work around sewage, and that’s understandable. You may be thinking you’ll get paid more to deal with the sewage, but the fact is, in most cases there isn’t any additional pay. It’s just a part of the job. You’ll just accept the fact that you have to deal with human waste and bloodborne pathogens on a daily basis. And since people flush everything from “flushable” wipes to needles, make sure you wear proper PPE. Most people have no clue what goes on after they flush the toilet and those that do don’t really care; it’s no longer their problem. It’s frustrating to have to pull wipes that aren’t actually flushable (thanks to our government not really regulating the companies that mislead the population) and don’t biodegrade. Don’t worry though, it’s not like you have better things to do like preventative maintenance. That will get put off for years because you’re always putting out fires the previous generation of operators weren’t able to get to because they too were constantly putting out fires and not able to actually do preventative maintenance. And even if they could have, it’s often a battle getting the equipment and tools you need to properly do your job because the last thing Americans want to do is actually pay for services they themselves would never do.
Let’s talk about the schedule you’ll be working. You could be working weekly rotational shifts, monthly, quarterly, whatever is the worst for your circadian rhythm is what we are offering. How are you supposed to plan anything when you’re on-call, working weekends, and even sometimes 7-days straight? Well you don’t, silly. You just accept the fact that you’re increasing your all-cause mortality and losing all the precious time with your family. There are also licenses we require you to keep and maintain. We might pay for that, or we might not, it depends if we actually value you bettering yourself or not. Oh, and the starting wage is about $25 an hour. Sound like a deal? Great, welcome to the wastewater treatment industry where the flow never stops and you’re going to be working all of the hours, all of the time.

You’ve never really lived life until you have to rake pounds of rags off a manual bar screen.
If you would reject that offer, guess what, you’re not alone. It isn’t an appealing job for the vast majority of the population. And that’s a huge problem. And in spite of the sarcasm in that fictional job description, most of it is fact. Sadly. I’ve lived every scenario above and then some. I’ve worked 12 hour shifts 3 days a week on nights, and I’ve worked shifts where I worked weekly rotations, most of which were 12-16 hour shifts rotating between days, mids, and nights. I’ve worked months on end with no time off because everyone retired and we had no one to fill the shifts. I’ve pulled generators to stations at all hours of the night and literally had to babysit one station all night because the entity I worked for had no sort of bypass pumping to keep the flow going until we could get the pumps working. I’ve worked a 16 hour shift while having a fever the entire time because there was literally no one else to cover that shift and the superintendent wasn’t willing to cover it. You might be thinking to yourself, I bet he got paid pretty well for all that overtime. Not really. I did all of that and never broke $100,000. You may think that is foolish, and I would tend to agree. I could make more money elsewhere and not have to work nearly as long or in the conditions that I’ve worked in. But here’s the thing, in spite of all the things I’ve been through in this industry I actually really enjoy it. I enjoy the challenging nature of it and I enjoy the concept of working at something bigger than myself that will outlast me. But I don’t enjoy the pay and I don’t enjoy the fact that most Americans are completely ignorant of the hugely complicated problem that is the infrastructure and treatment of water and wastewater.
The fact is this: we need to invest more in our infrastructure and that means paying the men and women who do the jobs you don’t want to do better wages. Let’s be honest, even if you give people the above job description in a much more professional manner, they don’t want to work in this industry. Not when they can go do something else on fixed day shifts that doesn’t involve sewage. And the fact that I’ve sat in meetings and had discussions over and over on how to attract employees in every conceivable way EXCEPT increasing pay is absurd. It is really simple folks, just as we need to invest in the nuts and bolts and pipes of infrastructure, we need to invest in the people who maintain and operate these systems. We need to offer more than PTO and pizza parties. We need to pay operators more, even at the entry level if we ever expect to get the younger generation to do these jobs. This isn’t about me as I am finally in a spot where I have a nice salary and a nice schedule, but it took me over ten years to get it. My daughter turns eleven this year and there is no amount of money that will give me the time I missed with her back.

Have fun operating plants that are in this condition.
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