I run the local fixed wireless internet company in a small town and the surrounding area.
Yesterday, a major feedlot lost their Internet completely. I connected to the radio and could see that their ethernet cable from the radio to the inside appeared to have been damaged.
So I went out to the feedlot but had a lot going against me:
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I can’t see good enough to put connectors on a cable any more. Being colorblind, I never could see the colors much anyway. The last time I put the RJ-45 connections on a cable, it took me six hours and much of that in the direct sunlight where I could see better. I wouldn’t have a chance at night or in poor light.
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We originally put the radio up with a twenty eight foot ladder. That ladder cracked and we replaced it with a twenty four foot ladder with intentions of using the bucket truck for anything higher up to sixty feet. Since someone tore up the bucket truck a year or two ago, there was no way for me to get up to the radio.
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It was cold and was going to be colder today (currently 15 F). Ever since my thyroid failed, I cannot maintain body temperature in cold weather. I could stay out at most an hour at a time without going back inside to warm up.
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Darkness was quickly approaching.
I’m used to people telling me it is my problem and going home. I usually get them back up and running, but this was one that I could not have handled by myself.
One worker from the feedlot office stayed to help even though he was supposed to be elsewhere by 5:30. He was great in coordinating the help from the feedlot employees. An electrician came over and helped along with a really nice bucket truck. And a guy from a related company that works closely with the feedlot on their computer support came out to put the RJ-45 connectors on the cable. And there were two more people from the feedlot standing by in case we needed more help.
While waiting for the guy to put new RJ-45 connectors on the cable (he works about 50 miles away), we ran a new cable across just in case we needed it. He couldn’t get the older cable to work – there is probably a break in a wire somewhere in the middle – and so he put new ends on the new cable and it worked great.
When the electrician brought us the bucket truck, I tried to get into the bucket to go up to the radio, but couldn’t manage (I’m not so flexible any more and if I slipped and fell, it would be about an 8 to 10 foot fall to the ground with plenty of steel to hit my head on). So the electrician did that for me.
Nobody complained. Everyone pitched into help. We finished about 7:15 pm and everyone went home. It was really great to see such teamwork. I was definitely hypothermic by then.
It’s not often I get to see solid teamwork like that. I was really impressed by everyone who stayed to help. It seems like most people these days are only concerned with going home as soon as they finish their eight hours or so that day. It showed me that there are still people around who you can count on in a pinch.
Has anyone else had many experiences like this?
Yes. I used to also do field service and have had many great collaborations with competent folks in trades, engineering, maintainance, quality control, IT. It’s truly a pleasure to work with people who are good at their jobs.
One particularly talented and funny electrician was wiring some of my equipment for use in an explosive atmosphere. The whole time we were together, his fingers flew over the wire, his tools were a blur, he’s cutting wire by eye and it’s perfect every time. And the entire time he’s working, he was talking nonstop about how much being a Chicago Bears fan sucks which is as true now as it was then. Of course, I never saw him again.
Teamwork, when it works, is one of the greatest experiences you can have. Bravo to you and your team!
I can’t think of anything exactly like that at the moment. If I do, I’ll come back and tell the story,
There are several hog confinement operations near me, one of which is owned by my wife’s cousin. The owners of the facilities don’t own the hogs. They contract with someone else who moves the hogs from one place to another as they grow. It sounds like some facilities only handle breeding, some facilities handle piglets, some facilities fatten up young hogs to marketable size, etc. I think cattle facilities may work similarly, with young cows out in the pasture, and feedlots being where they feed them grain to fatten them up for market. There may be security systems, monitoring cameras, remotely controlled equipment and other essential gadgets dependent on internet service. They may need internet access just as much as they need water and power. The owners of the facilities don’t want to take any risks with the livestock, or they could lose money on their contracts, or lose future contracts entirely. I know that my wife’s cousin goes to great lengths to make sure employees are always able to get to the facility (he has a monstrous tractor-mounted snow-blower), there is always heat in the winter, air circulation in the summer, etc. Hogs can apparently die stupidly easily, so they really have to keep an eye on them. Putting effort into keeping everything working 24/7 may be standard procedure for any livestock operation.
Pretty much. The main uses around here are for office work such as banking, but they do have the ability for a vendor to connect to some of their equipment remotely to check it out.
I just thought of another. I had to install some equipment into a conveyer line at a really famous manufacturer of distinctively colored, disposable drinking vessels that you’ve probably heard of, perhaps in song. There was a sensorthing to install, a 25 foot cable run through rigid conduit, into an automation controls cabinet to the sensorthings controller.
So the mechanics got to work disassembling the conveyer to install the new thing, some other guys, probably electricians, cut and bent and assembled the conduit, securing it every few feet and pulled the cable through. Meanwhile, the cable was to terminate inside the stainless cabinet. I’m not really set up to make large (3/4 inch) holes in stainless, I basically have stepper bits which suck ass on even the softest materials which stainless is not. So dude comes over with a hydraulic 3/4" holepunch that does the job in, like, 45 seconds. The cable is inside the cabinet!
We get all the parts connected and the PLC engineer enters the scene. He’s at first puzzled since my equipment has a sort of funny active-low logic. The outputs are normally high but drop to a low condition when their characteristics are met. I explain it to the PLC guy, he immediately gets it and clicks a few icons on his laptop. A minute later, the entire thing is working and the support staff evaporates. On to the next problem!
I work at a global 100 company. We had a few pallets of hardware product come in that basically filled a small office from floor to ceiling with individually boxed product (once the pallet was broken down).
The facilities guys are used to some contact telling 'em where to put stuff and disappearing.
I whipped out a multitool and cut the straps on the first pallet. These good ol’ boys, one who prolly has a decade on me, are saying ‘we got this boss.’ I’m “the hell you say, I grew up in the country and we don’t stand by if we can help.” And we de-palletized those boxes and got them squared away in pretty decent time whilst shooting the shit. It was great. Covid be damned.
Isn’t it amazing how running into competent and hard working people make you feel so great?
Thanks for the story, and thanks for the crew who put in extra hours (for which I hope they did get OT pay) to do this.
The pigs thank you, for now.
My job at a manufacturer of pacemakers was to maintain and repair machinery used on the production lines, which are in a cleanroom. When a machine would go offline, it would typically shut down the whole line, idling all the tooling, and the operators, until I could make repairs. No one would blame the operators for heading for the break room, bathroom, or out to smoke, and wait to be called back in.
Invariably, the operators would return, unbidden, to help me get the tool running again. They’d fetch tools, push an out-of-reach button for me, or hold my flashlight so I could keep 2 hands on some faulty component in a dark corner of the machine. Often they’d notice some odd noise that would help me zero in on the issue. When I’d finish my repair, I was not qualified to run the product on the machine, but the operators were in the break room, they were there and waiting, to run it and inspect the product. All of us wanted that line to be up, and making reliable pacemakers that kept people alive.