POWERLINE LAWS

A tongue-in-cheek look at Powerline Work

*(PLEASE READ IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER BELOW)

1. No matter which cotter pin you have to pull and hold in your mouth for a while, it will probably be the one with the bird crap on it.
2. You can watch the Market Values of crops all day long, but you never know the true value of a crop until you drive a Linetruck on it.
3. The term "I’m sorry that I tore up your yard, I’m just doing my Job" tends to "Tee" more people off than not.
4. Gates in fences that have the special ability to open themselves will never do it when you need to go through them. They wait until right after you leave.
5. The bad insulator will always be the one you didn’t check.
6. There is no such thing as a "Good-looking Powerline" to the average consumer or Landowner.
7. "What goes up; must come down" is a fact that is always remembered by Groundmen and Operators that are unhappy with a Lineman.
8. One little Oak twig has the strength to hold unimaginable strain when preventing you from sagging conductors, but turns limp as a noodle when you need its strength for anything else.
9. Very few other professions require you do most of your best work in the dark with the power off.
10. If the kids are asleep, you’re the call-out Lineman, and you and your spouse get to feeling a little "frisky", the phone will ring more times than not.
11. As a young Lineman, you doubted that your Foreman had ever done what he was asking you to do. Later on, as a Foreman, you have no doubt that your young Lineman thinks the same thing.
12. The people that tell you they "could never be able to do the kind of work that you do" are sometimes the first ones to complain that you’re not doing it fast enough to suit them.
13. The best place to stand on the ground to observe overhead work being done is nearly always down-wind of a tobacco-chewing Lineman.
14. You CAN NOT ride four wide in the front seat of a Linetruck, unless, of course it’s after hours. Then sometimes you can go six deep when you need to.
15. Some consumers will never fully appreciate the effort it took to restore their service. Some will not even have a clue.
16. Things seem to always go better if you keep at least one gaff in the pole.
17. A Lineman generally hates to go disconnect someone for non-payment. Then there are the ones that he can’t wait to get to.
18. Although they try hard, bless their hearts, consumers that diagnose their own Powerline problems tend to miss a thing or two at times.
19. The meanest dog in the neighborhood will nearly always be in the yard where the Office Staff needs a meter reading.
20. About the time that you think you’ve pretty well seen it all in linework, you clearly see that you haven't.
21. Sometimes there are not enough of us; sometimes there are too many.
22. A Universal Hotline Tool (Shotgun) works pretty well to extract a skunk from a padmount transformer.
23. Saying "You can’t do that" to a Lineman is the same as saying "Hey, how about a contest?"
24. No matter what countless numbers of respectable Lineman have called something for decades, the Warehouse will nearly always call it something else.
25. An "unofficial" survey that you take where you work usually will indicate that more Linemen have gone through at least one divorce than the ones that haven’t.
26. It’s usually not crowded around your jobsite if it’s at night and during a major storm.
27. At some point in your career you will ask yourself if there is anything else that you could do to make a living besides Powerline work.
28. At some point in your career you stand a good chance of asking yourself "What the hell am I doing here?" And usually you won’t know the answer.
29. Your spouse is nearly always right when telling you that you can’t go for a complete vacation without saying something about a Powerline that you come across.
30. You take so many blood tests that sometimes it’s kind of refreshing to see that you still have some blood in your veins.
31. You learn at an early age that it’s not wise to use the terms "can’t", "never" & "always" when referring to electricity or Powerline work.
32. Klein has yet to develop a set of Lineman pliers that hold up really well when put in series with 120VAC to ground.
33. There’s no reasonable explanation for it, but it seems like things have a greater chance of going wrong when you’re showing an apprentice "a thing or two".
34. A frightened bystander really can’t do justice to the description of what happened when you built that fire on the pole and blew fuses for miles around you.
35. When engines on bucket trucks die for no reason, they usually die only when the boom is up.
36. You have no doubt that your chances are better than average to see the "biggest storm this year" from an on-site vantage point.
37. As a young Lineman, you seldom share your ornery Foreman’s sense of humor until you get older and there are younger Linemen at the company.
38. As time goes on, you begin to think that you could have been a plumber instead of a Lineman, with the experience that you have gained from repairing buried pipes.
39. Your digger operator will not be correct 100% of the time when he tells you he "can feel that pipe before I break it".
40. Some truck drivers think that the term "back it on up easy" means "keep going until you hear glass break and smell sh__".
41. Some crane and digger operators think that "up just a touch" means a bare minimum of 12 inches.
42. There’s always room for a couple of extra lock nuts in your bug bag when your Groundman or Operator has been giving you a bad time.
43. Some fences seem to fall down all by themselves when you get anywhere close to them.
44. It takes a while to learn that your voice carries better from the top of a pole than at ground level, and even longer to remember it.
45. Clocks in the Office where the people are waiting for you to arrive at your outage destination always seem to run faster than yours.
46. No matter how long you’ve been a Power Lineman, you still notice it when people refer to your poles as "telephone poles".
47. You begin to think that trees possibly grow faster toward your power line just out of spite.
48. You never really understand why trees gain so much in value when they need to be cut out from under your power line.
49. You learn that it takes 2-3 people in the Office and numerous consumers to support you in your job, but then wonder where all of them are when you’re out there in the storm alone.
50. Poles only SEEM to get taller as you get older.
51. If you try to miss a tree limb with a handline rope, it will nearly always hang up in it. The opposite is true if you’re trying to hit the limb.
52. Liquor and Linework don’t mix, but there is still some research being done on the subject.
53. It has been suggested that more lines have been built in the drinking establishments across the land than on the land itself.

54. Yes, there is a Power Lineman GOD, he just doesn’t coddle us.
55. It’s a toss-up to determine which one is the most startled on the pole; the squirrel in the woodpecker hole or the Lineman peeking in.
56. It’s a fact that a gaff can hold in a pole ground consisting of a single strand of #6 soft drawn copper, but that doesn’t decrease the urge to get the other gaff into the pole as quickly as possible.
57. People who haven’t done high voltage aerial work before may not understand a Power Lineman when he says, "I’ve been getting a lot of static lately".
58. Someday you will finally get time to reflect and decide that being a Power Lineman really isn’t a bad way to make a living after all.
59. To the subordinates, the Journeyman Lineman is ALWAYS RIGHT!
60. If a subordinate (such as an Apprentice) thinks he's caught you doing something wrong, refer him to rule #59...
61. Thirty-seven years of "Hiding from the Foreman" (linework), will nearly wear you out.
62. Some times I feel like the money is pretty good. Other times they couldn't pay me enough if I'd known what I was going to be doing ahead of time.
63. Sometimes, after looking at the job print, I've decided that the fellow that drew it up should be selling women's shoes.
64. It seems when your crew is four hours into a 5-hour scheduled outage, with 500 customers out of power and plenty of work still to be done, that when you look down the line you could swear that everybody is working in slow motion.
65. One sure way to make you think you "bought the farm" while rubber gloving high voltage, is to bump your "funny bone".
66. Instead of worrying so much about EMF from power lines, scientists should look into the AMP (Automobile Magnetism Phenomena) of utility poles. Even if there are over 300 feet between poles, an out-of-control car will hit one or the other of them for some unknown reason. The magnetic force seems 10 times stronger if the pole contains a transformer bank, a regulator bank, or is a junction pole.
67. A Grunt will only take so much crap...then he starts returning the favor...(anything to help ya'...)
68. There are those times when you have to remind yourself that "It's ok....I was looking for a job when I found this one..."
69. If you're lucky, you'll get an opportunity to get down in the mud with a good Grunt and come out better educated....if not, you may go your entire life without knowing much about his world...
70. You may never convince your "Sweety" that Lineman is NOT SPELLED "L-I-E-i-n-g-m-a-n", especially if you'd had some "embarrassing moments" that you couldn't really tell her about...
71. No matter where you string wire, somebody will need to get by...
72. People can't appreciate the term "wrapped up in my work", until they've worn a Safety Harness tied to a bucket truck boom with a 6-foot lanyard all day long...
73. Sometimes it seems that seatbelts could be replaced with mechanical grounding sets or handlines.If anything was to happen, surely they'll hang up on something before you go very far...
74. When you're having "communication problems" on the job, it helps to remind yourself that guys used to build lines all of the time without the use of cell phones or radios...
75. The point you were trying to make in that spat you had with your wife or kids before going out on a big storm break eventually doesn't seem nearly as important as getting back home to them as quickly as possible.
76. "Safety" can be referred to as a "perceived condition". Yesterday, you used a half dozen pieces of rubber cover to complete the job safely, and today you notice that a similar job looks like the "Mayflower under full sail" with all of the rubber cover you drug up there...
77. Customers that are mad as all heck because they have been out of power for 20+ hours, sure get glad in a hurry when that line truck comes rolling down their street.
78. Being able to consistently park a Foreman's truck in the way doesn't just "happen"... It takes years of practice and dedication...
79. One little "coon-tail" rattlesnake joining the crew can sure perk up an otherwise dismal day of linework...
80. Having Apprentices can be compared to the old saying about having children..."You don't pay for your own upbringing until you have children of your own".
81. Brand new rubber goods, hot sticks and pick-up trucks usually need very little attention, but brand new Grunts, Apprentices and Linemen need to be watched very closely...
82. Ever notice that when you respond to your loudest Critic with "would you rather to go out and do the work yourself?", he usually begins his next statement with "No butt..."?
83. An easy way to keep your attention on your linework, is to remind yourself that "What your head don't figure out, your butt will pay for...."
84. Sometimes, when Dispatchers refer to the jobsite with the term "you can't miss it", you know you'll be looking for it for a while....
85. Working energized lines is a lot like handling women....you will probably live longer if you work just one at a time...
86. You can take the Lineman out of the Utility, but you can't take the Utility out of the Lineman.
87. Even though your Carhart's can withstand flash burns, hydraulic oil, spilled alcoholic beverages, and bloodstains, a wrong move at one little barbed wire fence can completely do them in....
88. You need to get some years on you before you realize the truth to the saying: “always be careful who you choose to make an enemy in this trade, because you never know when they will be your boss one day”….
89. The farmer that owns the property in that blind mile that you have to walk at night looking for line damage, will generally always have black cows that jump up and scare the wadding out of you....
90. While stumbling around in a back yard at night trying to find the service through the trees, you will generally never notice that you are standing in the center of a 25' circle of bare ground that’s been rubbed bare with a large chain, until you hear growling and realize that you don’t know where the dog house is….
91. For some reason, the first person that gives you a cussing for not restoring their power quickly enough will generally be the last ones to have lights when restoration is complete.
92. Generation guys and Substation guys who look down their noses at Line guys will eventually realize that they don't have much without that transmission line going between them. It just may take them a while...
93. An experienced Lineman will normally not use the walk-through gate at a substation, choosing instead to open the large double gates provided for vehicle passage. He knows that if something goes wrong, and there are more than 3 people in there, he'll need the space.
94. That long friendship can be over in a matter of a few days, after you let your best friend talk you into getting him a job as a grunt on your line crew...
95. There is a fine line between "tight" and "broken" that all meter lugs have, and it seems like that line needs to be crossed every once in a while to remember where it's at.
96. One thing's for certain in line work. No matter how many great things you do at your job, you'll always be remembered best for your screw-ups.
97. You always remember to remove your gaff guards before the first step, except that one time when you're in front of a couple of good lookers...
98. It's 30 degrees below zero and after you've spent 15-minutes getting all of your warmies on, you're not out of the truck for 30 minutes when you realize that you need to go to the bathroom...
99. Poles that are the most inaccessible will usually be the first ones that need to be replaced.
100. A large number of supervisors are gifted with 20-20 hindsight.
101. If for some reason you want to bring a job to a halt, sometimes it works to simply call the Design Engineer.
102. The dogs that bite usually have owners that will tell you they don't.
103. About the only time stringing equipment will break down, is half way through a pull over a major roadway.
104. The property that has all of the trees in the power lines is the one with the owner that doesn't seem to care how often his lights go out.

105. While Fairytales in most circles start out: "Once Upon a Time...", it seems that around Linemen, they usually start out: "Hey Guys, this ain't no bullsh*t!..."
106. At the end of a long career and many years on the road, it suddenly occurs to you that "IBEW" may actually stand for "I've Been EveryWhere"....
107. Usually, the best sounding "unidentified wire down" calls turn out to be telephone or cable drops....

HAVE ANYTHING TO ADD?

This is only a few of the POWER LINE LAWS . I’m sure I have left out some of the more important ones. Contributions from Power Linemen are encouraged to help complete the POWER LINE LAWS, and may be submitted to OlPoop@cdthayer.com for consideration and possible inclusion in this list. CD reserves the right to edit, modify, tweak, re-phrase or omit any suggestions received. Credits for each accepted entry will NOT be given for any particular entry, but instead, will be limited to an inclusion in the "Contributors" list in small letters at the bottom of the page, consisting of the person’s name and email address only. Only one entry in the "Contributors" list will be given per person regardless of the number of suggestions accepted. Sending a contribution via email constitutes the giving of your permission to publish your suggestion, name and email address at this web site. Inclusion of name and email address will be withheld from the "Contributors" list upon request specifically noted in your email submission. Please include the words "POWER LINE LAWS Suggestion" in the subject area of your email to help route your entry. Keep your suggestions in the form of a humorous, non-threatening nature and avoid the use of extreme profanity, or personal attack against a person, race, sex or occupation.

PRINTING

A note about printing this page and the companion "POWERLINE ETIQUETTE" page: It is completely permissible to print these pages for your personal use with friends, co-workers or associates. Please give proper acknowledgement to The Journeyman Lineman Page and cdthayer.com as the source of the contents. Unless you have your browser set specifically to "print background", most browsers will, by default, print a page like this (white text on black background) as black text on a white sheet of paper. The graphics will normally be the only contents that print in color or shades of gray. CD

DEDICATION

A Lineman’s got to follow certain rules in order to survive the day-to-day life of being a Power Lineman. The rules are the same for either sex, so the term "man" in this hypothesis will refer to either sex equally.

There are several "lists" of laws that govern a Lineman, including the "LAWS of PHYSICS", LAWS of NATURE, LAWS of the UNITED STATES, STATE LAWS, COMPANY POLICIES and PROCEDURES, and then there are the POWERLINE LAWS. This is a list of Rules as perceived by those individuals that have chosen or been "flung" into the roll of Power Lineman.

As I get to thinking about all of the rules and regulations that I have been bombarded with over the years, I can tell you that the people around me have done as much as possible to help protect me from harm along the way. I’ve been given reams of paper memos cautioning me about one hazard or another. I’ve been issued countless Safety Manuals and Safety bulletins. I’ve been sent to one Training Session after another and sat through numerous employee meetings. And as I reflect on things, I can tell that a lot of it "soaked in". Obviously, some of it did because I am still here.

It occurred to me that not all of the rules (at least those of which I firmly abide by) came from the formal training that I have received. There is another set of Rules and Regulations that are passed from one Lineman to another verbally or just "shown" to him. They are perhaps some of the most important rules that a Lineman observes. They are so well imbedded into the Lineman brain that I don’t even think about them. I just follow them. Some of these rules didn’t make any sense when I first heard about them, but "first-hand" experience on the Line brought them home to me. I dedicate these POWERLINE LAWS to those Linemen that have been out there with me when I needed them. I thank them for sharing my life. They will be remembered.

CONTRIBUTORS LIST: Thanks to these folks for sending in their suggestions.

*IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER INFORMATION. THE INFORMATION IN "POWER LINE LAWS" IS STRICTLY FOR AMUSEMENT AND ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY, AND SHOULD NOT BE MISCONCEIVED AS BEING ANYTHING OTHER THAN THAT. BY NO MEANS SHOULD ANY OF THIS INFORMATION BE TAKEN AS ACTUAL TRAINING BY OR FOR INDIVIDUALS FOR THE PURPOSE OF PERSONAL PREPARATION TO PERFORM POWERLINE WORK. IT IS EXPRESSED AND SHOULD BE UNDERSTOOD THAT COMMENTS, INSTRUCTIONS AND OBSERVATIONS IN THIS MATERIAL MAY BE FICTITIOUS AND WITHOUT VALIDITY. ALL COMMENTS AND REFERENCES ARE INTENDED TO BE TAKEN WITHOUT OFFENSE TO ANYONE.

All content, including photos and graphics, is copyrighted and owned by or used with permission by MARDE Enterprises LLC. Unauthorized use is prohibited.

IF, HOWEVER, YOU SEE EVIDENCE TO THE CONTRARY, PLEASE CONTACT THE WEBMASTER AT cdthayer.com.  TO REQUEST REMOVAL OF COPYRIGHT MATERIALS.  YOUR COPYRIGHT MATERIALS WILL GLADLY BE REMOVED.  THANK YOU.  THE VIEWS, OPINIONS, OR COMMENTS ON THESE PAGES ARE THOSE OF THE CONTRIBUTOR, AND MAY NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENT THE VIEWS OR OPINIONS OF MARDE Enterprises LLC, www.cdthayer.com , or CD THAYER. CONTRIBUTORS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR OWN POSTINGS.

Contact the WebMaster at: OlPoop@cdthayer.com

©1998-2008 MARDE Enterprises LLC www.cdthayer.com Best viewed with

Created by CD Thayer - August 1998