Blue Sky Mines Inc.
In the past I have written about stuff that happens where I work. We are a giant pipeline company with assets in the US and Canada, moving all sorts of liquids and gases, including crude oil, gasoline, and natural gas. We are ginormous. I won’t use the real name of the company, but I will borrow from 80s Aussie band Midnight Oil for an alternate name: I shall refer to my employer as Blue Sky Mines Inc.
“And nothing’s as precious, as a hole in the ground…”
Tonight: arrogant engineers who tell me I am not seeing what I am seeing.
I work in a NOC- a network operations center. We watch everything: communications, servers, satellite links, anything that has to do with keeping an eye on thousands of miles of pipeline. There are some problems I can solve here, and some things I refer to on call engineers for them to solve.
What I cannot stand is when I describe a situation to an engineer and he tells me ‘that doesn’t make sense’, or ‘that can’t happen’, or ‘it should work’.
That last one is the worst: ‘it should work’. The refusal of engineers to believe that software they have put into place can occasionally have a little glitch. I agree: ‘it’ should, but it isn’t right now, you pompous over-educated gasbag, so stop what you’re doing, fire up your laptop and dive in.
Now, not all engineers are like this. There are a few here at Blue Sky who take me at my word when I describe a situation to them. But there’s too many that start right in with ‘it should work’. Aggravating. This is what I get for not going to college.
Back to the mines…
