At work I generally work so far out of my qualifications that it’s not funny.
And I think this is one of those issues that cause so much conflict between myself and my subordinates.
Power engineers are employed at hospitals like the one as I work at as provincial regulations require power engineers to be on shift to supervise and operate the power plant.
Power engineers are not trade qualified millwrights or industrial mechanics. You can have power engineers that have more qualification, such as a 4th class with a millwright’s ticket, or a 3rd class with an electrical ticket.
We take rounds and readings, make sure that chemical readings are done and that chemical levels are maintained properly. We supervise the boilers, the chillers, the heat recovery systems to ensure that the systems are running as efficiently as possible while maintaining the proper temperatures, air flows, and pressure differentials for the infection control.
I came into this position offering more skills than what is typical of a 4th class power engineer. But this is how I’ve always been. It’s always something that I’ve had to do in order to offset my horrific personality.
After all, when you don’t have any safety nets to fall back upon, you learn how to make yourself valuable.
This is one of the reasons it was always so easy for me to find employment in the bowling industry. Since the ’80s computers and electronics have found their way into bowling centres. Most centres didn’t have anyone that was familiar with electronics and so they would bleed with the electronic repairs. I come along, I can do the mechanical work with ease, but I can also do the electronic repairs in-house, which brings the expenses down substantially, considering that I’m getting paid the same amount as the mechanic with no skills in electrical, electronics. This makes me valuable even though I wasn’t making that much. Better to be poor and employed than poor and unemployed.
I have skills in electronics, networking, DDC, pneumatic controls, etc.
Working with machinery like the fan motor above is something that I can do.
Once I moved into the Chief Engineer’s position there was a sort of resentment directed towards me by the others in my section because there was no one doing the heavy duty work anymore.
Work that I had been doing since I started at the hospital fell to the wayside. Somehow I was not only unqualified to do the work, but now I was being lazy for not doing the work.
One thing that I’ve had to learn over the last few years is that mechanical aptitudes cannot be taught. A person either has a mechanical aptitude, or they don’t. And it’s no use banging your head into the cinderblock wall trying to instil a mechanical aptitude where there is none. It’s like trying to teach someone who has absolutely no interest in music how to read music and keep time. They may be able top memorize the scales, but it will never click for them.
I rebuilt the Phase 2 Domestic Water Booster Station back around 2012. The fun part was that none of the gate valves would hold. So I had to arrange to get ball valves threaded on pretty well as soon as as I pulled the regulators out. We finally managed to get the booster station replaced around 2019
Again, this was a project that I did by myself. This isn’t something that power engineers do.
I ran a copper compressed air line from the Phase 2 Level 4 mechanical room all the way down stairwell 13 and into the Burrard Building by myself. I had a company come in and radio graph the stairwell to guide me so that I’d miss the rebar and the buried conduits. Cored all of the holes by myself and soldered the entire length of pipe myself.
Beeshive 