Intrasigent rule-bound companies

I had the semi-distinct pleasure of being tasked to observe some pile driving for the past two days.

Rather than take some days off to work on my major home-reno project that has been limping along for a year, and which is taking up about 70% of the main floor of my house, I got to watch some pile driving. For a pipeline company. Building a little metering station.

Now, of all the fun things in the world, counting blows for pile driving ranks right up there in the right up there scale. Similar past-times include: counting leaves on the ground; counting cars on a train; counting blue cars in traffic.

So here I was, doing blow counts. Life wouldn't have been so difficult if the work was not for a pipeline company, working on land owned by a major chemical manufacturing company. But alas, the rules for the land-owning corporation state that we're mandated to wear FRC.

FRC = Fire Retardant Coveralls. Nomex.

First off, I don't own any of these. I work in the bridge construction business. We're not usually too worried about the concrete and steel constructs catching on fire. Usually we're involved with a watercourse... so if there is fire, it's not difficult to deal with. Explosions are few and far between when we're talking about concrete.

Second off, nomex is not what I would classify as a breathable material. It does a good job of holding in body heat and perspiration. Couple this with feet encased in leather steel-toed boots and wearing a hard hat.

The good news is that I was able to borrow some FRC from the contractor for the length of my time on the site.

The bad news is that the weather has been sunny, clear, and 31 degrees Celsius for the past two days.

I've melted and am somehow typing this post from a puddle of goo on the floor...

Wake me when winter arrives please!!!!