The Career Crew Chief

I want to take a moment to speak about the career crew chief.

When I was coming up there were a whole bunch of them, working men who cared about their job, loved their job and would never consider doing anything else.

At the time it all seemed so impressive to me to see  30 to 60 year old guys out there barking orders at his crew, cutting brush, holding a rod over his head in the trees yelling for line, methodically calculating the deflections of a curves and writing it in the field book etc.

These guys where always 30 minutes early for work and expected the same out of the crew. They expected all batteries to be charged, the truck to be fully stocked, fueled, the tires to be aired properly and a jug of cold water when he walked out of the office at exactly 5:30 am.

These men are still one of the most impressive things I have ever seen to date. They all did things a little different but all ended up with the same result, they all gave 110% to the companies they worked for and never complained about a thing, they just accepted things at face value and did the job. 3 men, a transit and a chain.

Today technology has killed that sort of a man. It’s a little sad but it is the evolution of a profession which has to happen.

I am very fortunate to have worked with men like this. They are all most likely retired now and probably never regret a thing about what they did with their lives and careers.

One day around 2001 I was out with a guy, I was breaking down a section on my laptop when these two 60 year old guys whipped up in a truck and talked to us for a while. I immediately recognized what kind of men these where and showed them an immense amount of respect having been reared by the like.

The guy I was with was less cordial and after they left made a comment along the lines of how he could not believe that they had no desire to do anything different, to advance to become and LS. He was baffled and I blame that on a serious lack of education regarding the human condition.

I just listened and chuckled and proceeded to explain that not everyone wants to be an LS, some guys prefer to take the easier route with less responsibility and just love being a worker bee.

Without the worker bee I am nothing as a business man. I love guys like that and am bummed that they have become far and few between. I will most likely never hire anyone born after 1976 for any kind of major responsibility because after that, exposure to this kind of man is very limited. I actually prefer 40+ in an employee.

These men are true survey hero’s and all of you my age and older will remember that guy that actually taught you more than realized at the time. If you where anything like me you where just a shit ass kid that just took the old guy with a grain of respectful salt (because you feared he would kick your ass), but you always did exactly what he said when he said it. Respect was what they demanded and they got it.

So thank you career crew chiefs for everything you taught me.