Leaving the LCTT industry to trade saw for stick. Natural trees to man made and placed. I brought with me a brashness that comes with fighting a large corporation's union busting activities. Having nearly no hesitation to call Bull$hit on bad logic and bad leadership. I found and continue to find myself in situations where that trait will lose you favor with some, but to those who would not speak up and stand on principles its often admired. As a groundman I was placed on a safety committee where we had 4 management and 4 bargaining employees we would meet 1-2 times a week. Knowing nothing of the electric trade at that point. I got to watch and observe how each side treats and bargains even when it came to safety. -"We will get X if you do Y". It really shined a light on what I had suspected. From that moment I placed it in my heart as I will never bargain with the needs of my brothers. Since then I have turned down safety positions at some of the largest contractors because their values in the interview process simply was about value $$. -"If it dont make dollars it dont make sense." -"We are 16% profits this year and even if we have a fatality to close out the year we will get 3-4% and a pat on the back." Thank you for saying the -dont say that part outloud thing. Point is Be a brother have the courage to do the right thing. Keep the comfort away from me. Can't pay me enough to bite my tongue, it hurts too much.

See my story from module 1. Going through that experience changed me not just as a lineman but as a person. Going through something like that is a gut punch like I've never been punched and in my younger days, punches happened often. It changed my mentality and outlook. It drove home the fact of while we were doing quote unquote everything right, it still happened on my watch. One missed moment, the moment where the blanket got brushed again and slid down and I missed it. The moment of while maybe my thought process was spot on training that you can't always isolate a ground and here's how you insulate it, maybe a conversation explaining the importance of not relying on cover and treating it what it is, for incidental contact only, would have been a better way. Either way, it changed me most in the fact of how I approach this trade, how I train, and how I work. It changed my thinking from one of taking the calmer, more gentler approach HR loves to one of not putting up with the bull shit and calling it out and addressing it when it shows its ugly head. Challenging not just my fellow brothers but management also. That work practices, good, safe, proven, work practices could and would prevent a lot of the accidents and incidents. It's a hard topic to tackle but one that we need to. It's easy for companies to bypass the work practice topic and take the easy way out and just make another rule or bring in some "expert that is scientific" and move on. This was my moment.