Summer Plow

[advanceMan]

The jobs are put up for tender by the tel co, usually jobs that have literally been "sitting on the fence" for at least 2 yrs. Road moves are when the cable network has been disassembled to accomadate construction, and temped out. We did many of these jobs. Overlays are when when a new cable is plowed in to uprade an existing network to accomodate growth. We did many of these also. The jobs are bid on and depending on the weather, the season would usually start around april, ending in nov.
The "tours" are plotted out and routes decided. FIRST CALL CONSIDERATION ARE MADE WELL IN ADVANCE! My former boss wouldn't do anything smaller than 1km.
The advance man goes out before the crew, to each job, pre surveying, calculating, taking notes. when they are far enough ahead, they can come back to meet with any associated personnel(1 call locators, drillers, oilfild reps etc) requiring meetings signatures and such
Verifies # of crossings (railroads, highways, utilities), stakes # of areas requiring drilling, makes first calls, informs foreman of issues requiring attention, sometimes calculates # reels required. Keep in mind, these plans have been engineered prior to release, so even before the advanceman, someone usually a tel engineer or even a tech has done much of the work to a degree, the advance man verifies it. Typicallly they are 2-4 wks ahead of the crew.
Understanding of basic telephone plans such as the ones provided to one call contractors is one thing, understanding constuction plans is another, and, if you work on a temp crew, you have to understand temp plans.(where cable to be disconnected, rerouting of customers to other peds etc.) I'm sure Dave72 among others can verify this.
The locator should be at least 2 days ahead of the crew. Just like you guys who do sweeping and scanning, there are two guys on the locate crew. One a real locator, the other labour. This is where the difficulty comes in, as you gotta be the guys boss(cause if he doesn't know shit, and they usually didn't) AND his buddy all day 12 hr shifts and get along back at the motel, for 2 wks on. I went through a lot of guys.
The locator comes in, gets the labour to "sniff" for culverts with the "sniffer" as thay called it. We know it as a pinfinder or magnatrack/schondstedt. This means he has to walk the whole job and mark off the culverts without going into lala land( it happens, especially after all the weed we were smoking) Hitting culverts is a huge pain in tha ass, and it sets the crew back repairing them so this way they are flagged off and the cat can avoid them. Open the ped, verify your count, account for any "odd" cable/abandoned cables. Dissconnect ALL cable grounds from the ground bar. Locate ALL the cables you can on the lowest frequency possible.(512). My personal preference for locator is an RD433, right now I'm using a subsite. They mostly do all the same things. I usually liked to "locate the ped out", starting with the route cables a few feet in either direction, then any drops, then any drops going in the direction we are plowing, finally the route cable(s) in that direction. Accuracy around the ped is required cuz you look like a dumbass if it's not when the hoes and swamper come in. No, it doesn't just shoot out in a tee, or "common trench". All cables should be labeled(prs) extending from the ped, and depths written on flags where required. Knowing where a foreman or driller or hoe guy might want to know the depth (such as any place the plow mighthave to cross it) requires you "think".
Locate ALL other utilities within the vicinity of the work. Power, gas, foreign fibre, water(usually just valves), manholes, farmer lines, anything. When you look at the constuction plans, not only do you need to know just how to locate the lines on it, you need a working knowledge of the constuction procedure. If the temp is lying in the ditch, it needs to moved out of the way of the plow, yet not on someones property. If its even just a 6pr lying in the weeds for 2+ yrs it can be a cunt to pull it up. If its over 200 good luck. All the pipelines need to be located, thus we "swept" for them, though I became fairly good at finding them without another guy later.Ped locations also need to be marked with stakes so the foreman can worry about other shit without missing one, it;s happened.
The signs also need to pounded in, evry 300m, at every crossing, 1m to CO side of every ped, at splices, end of route. We only used 3 colours of flags, pink is one. Finally the crew needs to be flagged in from the main roads, some times you also keep track of roadbans, places the transport pigs are lurking, stuff like that.
After its all done, everything should be easily visible so the crew can come in drop the cat and go.
Crew come in:
Foreman drives up first or second after or b4 the guys in the fuel truck. (whoever drives fastest) Trucks come in 2 hoes, 2 low boys, plow cat, tow cat, picker truck. Hoes go ahead, digging out peds, drills(incidently sometimes they can get away without having to do a drill by "pushing the rods" underneath the road with the hoe), plow unloades and begins. Figure 8ing every drill takes time. that means, when the plow comes to railroad or something, the cable needs to be unreeled off the plow, fed through the drill and reeled back on on the other side, the cat must be tired over paved approaches and such. Peds are set by hoe swampers, as cable is plowed, tow cat is used to both tow the plow if necessary and to drag the plow slot flat again after. Garbage has to be picked up, everything must be done according to procedure. On to the next job. Splicers come in and terminate the peds. This is a condensed version of the rolling construction crew. Want to know any more? Ask. I know my shit.

[underground quester]

Interesting Advanceman. Did not realize the detail involved in your job.

[advanceMan]

Yup, and that's just the "condensed' version. there's six million little things that have to go into a plow project, and variations on procedure, and usually at least on is forgotten. If you think I know a lot about it, you can imagine all the of the stuff the foreman has to know and keep track of. That's a guy I had a lot of respect for. We always laughed at those self important oilfield guys who talked at us like we were small time, cuz they take a year to put in a few sections of pipeline and give themselves a pat on the back. we have about six monthes to plow as much as possible, including some lengthy and sometimes complex installations. it's old school work, and they still do it old school.(Except we stay in motels, as opposed to the old days when they towed a trailer around, parked it a roadside restaurant and you had all those guys drinking, fighting and farting in there together)
Think you could make it on the crew? It takes a certain person to tolerate all those hard asses drinking and fighting in a different smalltown everynight. They won't baby you like locating companies, and if all your good for is running the wand, you won't get much respect.

[advanceMan]

One more thing, this is where i honed my skills in "asshollery". So, many of YOU see your own inadequecies and lack of experience mirrored by my knowledge as "arrogance".(advance the psychologist). True enough, that kind of work lowers your tolerance level for people and their stupid shit, and the hard ass atmosphere grows on you. so if you see or hear something you think is crap, you call it.(like i did here only politely till the clique attacked) And, if it's going to come down to fists be ready. Most people in that industry for any length of time tend to view others without that same knowledge with mild contempt. One of the biggest things I took away from this job was"listen". The foreman would listen to everyword you said and pick apart anything that didn't quite make sense. You HAD to do everything right. I have very little in common with the average locator anymore. i'm sure there's some unique individual hiding here who will appreciate my view point and would certainly do well onthe crew. Given the exchanges i've had and comments i've read from many, you wouldn't last half a day. If you're fine with that, enjoy painting lines pretending to be important while other people do the real work.

[ifinditunderground]

Or, we'll just sit here and roll our eyes at you, and think to ourselves what an arrogant, egotistical asshole.....

Advanceman For President in 2012!!!!

[ifinditunderground]

Oh, and another thing.......take your ****ing cold back, it's spring here.

[RD_Wrangler]

Actually advanceMan, I think it was your original post on gun control that turned most people off on you. You had been insulting in a couple posts before this over drug use, etc, but thats the one that started the fire. IMO anyway.

Your exact quote with highlights of the insulting parts follows...just in case the synapse links to this memory have lost cohesion through tetrahydrous saturation.

"That being said, why is it always the morons whom are the most vocal? You same people who whine about your legal rights and freedoms are always the first to mindlessly take the side of "Law and Order' without question. The type of people who turn a blind eye to police corruption and brutaltity, yet claim to love freedom and democracy. How much hassle do you get from the pigs even if it is legal? You don't need that gun just for mexicans, you'll need it to fight the government and by extension the police and military when they come to steal your gun and jail you for owning one.. Isn't that just the sort of scenario the "right to bear arms" embodies? The fight against totalitarian opression by free men? (I believe that's the underlying motif in your "right to bear arms"). Or is the right to bear arms merely a statement only inbred hillbillies identify with, so they can shoot minorities (or anyone) with impunity, while everyone else is fine with big brother? Most of you are too dumb to grasp this, so why bother with a gun? The pigs and government know what's best for you, obey the law!"

That's polite? You pretty much just labeled everyone that is pro-firearm or supportive of the 2nd amendment as morons, inbred, and unintelligent. Not to mention racist and subservient to boot.

Additional posts further insulted anyone with an opposing view on law enforcement or drug use through direct attacks and open hostility. Yet you suddenly feel as though you're the victim here and are simply defending yourself. Everyone here attacked YOU first. We're a "clique" who simply won't accept opposing viewpoints. Seriously?

That's kinda like someone knowingly and willingly breaking the law, spitting on proven safety practices, and being totally disrespectful of authority in general, then having the gall to get pissed and blame the police or their employer when they are caught....oh wait...

...nevermind...

[sprayandpray]

If Advance isn't John, he's the closest thing to him we've heard. They both talk a good game, really run down and ridicule people they don't know, and are both just talking out their A--! They have never been successful in life and probably never will be and need other people to blame their short-comings for. They have conned themselves into believing they can fool other people into believing they are something special when they aren't even average.
Get a life - preferably somewhere else.

[phoenix827]

If Advance isn't John, he's the closest thing to him we've heard.

John I could just tune out, this guy just rubs me the wrong way. First person on my ignore list!! On ANY site!

[advanceMan]

LOL(Really) thanks for letting me vent. I've enjoyed it, idle minds.... All my stories are true but i sure can be a prick eh? Comes with the territory. See you soon.