Operating Errors

[australiantroubleman]

Theres been a few operating errors lately at our company ,operating incorrect switches, not making protection non auto prior to loop switching, closing onto earth/grounds to name a few .
Some of these errors are caused by Control room mistakes but many are field problems.
There is disciplinary action pending on the more serious incidents and our company is getting more serious on troublemen /operators who regularly make mistakes.

They are talking about a three strikes and your out policy on consistant breaches in particular closing onto earth switches and grounded equipment .

I am interested in what other companies policies are on operating errors, reverse polarity service hook ups etc.
Do you retrain guys who regularly make mistakes or kick em out ?

Its are hard problem for the union and management to handle as unsafe or incompetent workers really have to be weeded out eventually.

[wtdoor67]

some pretty good screwups by both dispatch and the hands in the field. I can't recall any outright firings for this. Usually a letter in your file, or days off without pay. The standard where I last worked seemed to be 3 days off without pay.

I have never read any co. rules regarding this type of thing. I think they are pretty lenient in this country actually.

I think this is one area where the Union must have pretty good stroke (one of few). I have seen people fired in a heartbeat for stealing a little petro (gasoline in the USA) and only get an ass chewing for burning up thousands of dollars of equipment or hardware.

I have seen great pains gone to in order to cover up screwups as long as they don't involve safety.

It'll be interesting to hear other folks experience on this subject.

[IN THE SHADOWS]

I think this is one area where the Union must have pretty good stroke (one of few). I have seen people fired in a heartbeat for stealing a little petro (gasoline in the USA) and only get an ass chewing for burning up thousands of dollars of equipment or hardware.

Sounds like you used to work for the same outfit I'm working for now. When they started replacing HR / Labor Relations personnel (who used to have field experiance ie: journeymen linemen or other trades/crafts) with these fresh faced young punk lawyers or F Lee Bailey wannabes right out of college who dont have a F$%king clue about our work...just trying to make a name for themselves....is when this Company went on a firing frenzy for trivial crap which they hide behind the "theft" catagory. And yet....like you mention, a switching error, or some form of gross negligence resulting in big bucks damage/outage/injury results in the Company using "progressive discipline" starting from the lowest level. Go figure.

As a Journyman Lineman, I have been on the recieving end of a switching error. Wrong feeder of a 12kv double circuit was dumped at the sub, ( by another Journeyman ) and when we went up to ground it.....well it wasnt pretty. I accepted my share of the blame because we didnt have a hot horn and we couldnt have heard a fuzz test cuz of the wind anyway. No discipline issued but it was a lesson learned...on both ends.

As an operator/dispatcher now, we write and issue literaly thousands of switch orders which are double and triple checked before they leave dispatch and most importantly are checked in the field by the switchman BEFORE they are executed. This method of switching eliminates 98 to 99% of the errors. However an error can and will happen on a rare occasion. When it does, the operator/dispatcher is pretty much guarenteed a 1-2 year letter in their fiIe along with the switchman in the field. If it happens again, the discipline is usually raised to suspension or termination depending on the circumstances.

In my opinion, one error is too many but we are all human and it can happen. But, if after discipline has already been issued and it happens again.... see ya and have a nice life...somewhere else.

[LINETRASH]

Theres been a few operating errors lately at our company ,operating incorrect switches, not making protection non auto prior to loop switching, closing onto earth/grounds to name a few .
Some of these errors are caused by Control room mistakes but many are field problems.
There is disciplinary action pending on the more serious incidents and our company is getting more serious on troublemen /operators who regularly make mistakes.

They are talking about a three strikes and your out policy on consistant breaches in particular closing onto earth switches and grounded equipment .

I am interested in what other companies policies are on operating errors, reverse polarity service hook ups etc.
Do you retrain guys who regularly make mistakes or kick em out ?

Its are hard problem for the union and management to handle as unsafe or incompetent workers really have to be weeded out eventually.

I am just curious, where do you feel that switching errors stem from?

Where I work, I feel most come from the field.

In my opinion, the current mass employment of new linemen from God knows where, coupled with lax training methods for new hires leaves us with unqualified people in the field.

An example would be: A troubleman turns in a pole hit. Tangent pole, 3 phase, the Tman provides switch number for the pourpose of setting up a one shot for the repair crew. The circuit is in, the pole is hanging by the primary.

Enter the line crew.

They ask for a clearance, then spend half the night switching the circuit out in order to work it dead.

Let's stop here......

In my day, we would have picked up a one shot, possibly floated the phases, ect. Even set a pole on a one shot .

These days, the new guys want to kill EVERYTING.

I submit that we are entering into a sad time where real linemen will rarely emerge.

[australiantroubleman]

Linetrash.

The field errors seem to be done by the more experienced guys , we have quite a few newer troublemen and they are performing very well generally.

There are many men with over 25 years experience making simple errors maybe its complacency , getting close to retirement etc, I treat any errors I make seriously like most guys still take pride in my work after 30 years and learn hard lessons from them.

AS for "excessive" isolations we have the same situation arise here but OH&S issues has forced crews to be cautious. We have had a few examples where secondary has come in contact with live primary while tensioning , in one instance guys where severely injured and since then crews isolate if there is any risk.
We refer burnt jumpers and damaged mains to live line crews, switch around many problems so they can be repaired by live line during working hours.
We use lots of secondary parallels to restore supply and sometimes use large generators if repair times become very long and the secondary parallel cannot give good volts or are unavailable.

[tramp67]

I am just curious, where do you feel that switching errors stem from?

Where I work, I feel most come from the field.

In my opinion, the current mass employment of new linemen from God knows where, coupled with lax training methods for new hires leaves us with unqualified people in the field.

An example would be: A troubleman turns in a pole hit. Tangent pole, 3 phase, the Tman provides switch number for the pourpose of setting up a one shot for the repair crew. The circuit is in, the pole is hanging by the primary.

Enter the line crew.

They ask for a clearance, then spend half the night switching the circuit out in order to work it dead.

Let's stop here......

In my day, we would have picked up a one shot, possibly floated the phases, ect. Even set a pole on a one shot .

These days, the new guys want to kill EVERYTING.

I submit that we are entering into a sad time where real linemen will rarely emerge.

That's probably one of the biggest reasons we are having all these ridiculous "safety" rules dumped on us. Rather than taking the time and effort to train the newbies, let's just stick them in a full body rubber suit, attach it to the poletop with a bungee cord, and as an added safety measure, let's inflate the rubber suit so they will bounce if they hit something hard. Just to be safe, let's dump the substation to make sure that there's no chance of the line getting accidentally re-energized, and then write up everyone involved anyway just to protect the company from any liability.

[Trbl639]

Around this outfit..it's send somebody to the house for a few days....to make an example out of em!!!

We're all human and are capable of making mistakes...if no one gets hurt, somebody is still going to the house, cause the 'wheels' are colege educated, and have NO clue, where the old mangement guys worked their way up from a grunt to a lineman to a wheel!!!!!

Had a dispatcher sent home for a few days, because he failed to 'echo protocol' on a switching order.......wheels found out he had some OT in the payperiod, so when he came back to work, they sent him back home for a few more.........they said cause he had some OT..the first lay0ff didn't HURT him!!! that's total BS!!!

had a similar situation the other day like Linetrash posted.........

tree fell and brushed 3 phase..operated the feeder...broke a crossarm.....road phase still tied in on the arm...middle phase and insulator laying on top of pole...field phase and insulator laying almost on top of middle phase, maybe 6 inches apart..........still hot!!

crew gets there.......calls in to get an clearance..dispatcher gives switching order......he calls to dump the feeder breaker.open and close switches to sectionalize it..then closes breaker back, and gives crew a clearance.......this leaves about 500 customers off, and major grocery stores, eating joints, wal-mart, gas stations off .... for a couple hours, while the switching was done, arm replaced and then switching it back to normal, they dumped the breaker again...........dispatch center is the one that wrote the switching order to get the clearance.............

in the old days...set up..dump the breaker....get some clearance on the phases, cover em up......close the breaker..maybe a 10-15 minute outage!!!!!! then work it hot of course 1-shoting the breaker........

..........or........

this arm was broke in a 5 span area that comes off the back of a vertical on one end, and on the other end is a normally open GOAB, where it ties to another feeder..........2 pots also in this 5 span area...1 shot the breaker...open the 2 pots.....lift 3 jumpers on the vertical (3 spans from the broke arm)...check the GOAB open.........ground it, get your clearance...replace the arm...and ya had maybe 12 customers off..........

too many people with 'DBL I Degrees'....Ignorance and Incompetence (as I call it)...these days calling the shots!! Dictating how we do our jobs, when they have No Clue of what it consists of!!! All they care about is a dollar!!!! and how to screw the working man!!!!!