Process Essay Essie #26

The most difficult job I have ever had is when I built an Air Separator in New Johnsonville Tennessee for the Dupont Company. I was there from the summer of 2002 spring of 2002 till the fall of the same year. From then on when someone says, “Tennessee is in the south,” I whole-heartedly agree with him or her, for I have had personal experience with the Tennessee Valley heat epidemic.The town of New Johnsonville is nestled in a valley on The Tennessee River. The smoke stacks from the Titanium Dioxide enrichment plant loom over the city like some lost vestiges of the by-gone industrial era. For those that do not know Titanium Dioxide is the pure color white. It can be found on the ingredient list of everything from Dime Store candy, to paint, to concrete. I had to take a noxious gases training class, a class on planned exits and their procedures, and a contamination and decontamination seminar. Most people would think twice about accepting a job with risks like permanent lung damage, skin melting off, permanent loss of sight, and/or death. The only hope of survival was this little blue sticker that everyone had to have stuck in their hardhats, on the sticker was a list of whistles that let you know if there was a gas leak, a fire, an impending explosion, or the all clear whistle. Every time it would go off all you would see is people taking off their hardhat and referring to this twelve-cent sticker. The whole time I was there we were evacuated from the plant three times and this was no easy task, from our work site to the green zone it was a six or seven minute walk, long enough to smoke a whole cigarette and finish the car coffee. Even with the well paying job and security of the union; the town never grew past a blip on the map. There were more bars then gas stations, no chain restaurants, and a really bad breeding pool. There was this law on the books that bars could not sell hard booze, so and this was the cool part, you could bring an unopened bottle of what ever into the bar and pay one dollar and could drink at your own desecration but you had to buy chaser from the bar, if your into that sort if thing. I believe in flagrant nonsupport. I will not and have not ever tipped a stripper I will tip the bartender, the waitress, the door guy, and the disc jockey, but never a stripper. On a second note I would like to get poison ivy allover my self and show up Washington heavy. I have been in fifty strip club from the Mouse’s Ear in Knoxville to Cheetahs in Atlanta, to this one thirty or so miles from New Johnsonville. At this strip club they had the same policy about B.Y.O.B that the bar had the only difference is that they did not sell beer, so when you walk in with a case of the Lambic under your arm they charge you one dollar for every bottle, that is an extra twenty-four dollars on to of what you paid for the booze.
I would say that this was the worst job I have ever had, not because of the pay or the hours but because of the false-warnings all the time. When, all day long, you think that there is an impending explosion or gas leak it will start to wear on you, after a while. On most days I would daydream that I was anywhere else besides there and every chance that I got to get off the jobsite I would take it. Most people think that with only a half hour lunch break no one would want to spend that downtime just going to the store and back but with impending danger people would. When I look back on my time in New Johnsonville I am still filled with fear and sorrow for the people of that town. Some people will never know what it is like to live fifty miles out in some backwoods community but I do. I think it is worst on the children, I think that most of them just want to run away as much as I did.The propose of work is not to have fun nor is the day-to-day grind going to be enlightening. The challenges you face will be many no matter what section of the work force you will be applying yourself to. So just keep your head up and the ones out of your hand and all of us will be fine.