Ahhh, I don't get excited by teasing. Fact is, most of the young kids, once they realize how useful it is to have an older worker around them, they fall in line. Well, most of them.

I've met some of the younger guys who come on the job thinking they are something special, try to take welding leads, sabotage stuff on the project, throw fits and try to start fights, and all that stupidity. If they don't fall in line I report them and tell the supervisor I can't and won't work with them. Then shit gets real hard for them when no one's around to lean on.

One younger guy I worked with started showing an interest in learning so I made special attention to ask him how he was doing and every time he had a problem I would show him how it's done. It was a pleasure teaching him. When I first met him he could barely weld and he only got on the job because the foreman was married to his sister.

He was a good sport even when other coworkers who were older played a prank on him and he gave as good as he got.

There's an old prank some guys like to pull on the newbies where they tell them to go get a Matterdaddy. The kid ran off to the tool trailer a couple times I guess before he came to me and asked me, "What's a Matter Daddy?".

I had forgotten that prank because it's so old and I turned to him and told him to quit messing about and get back to work. He walks off a couple steps and turns back to me embarrassed but asks me again, "But, what's a Matter Daddy?". Then I noticed the other guys kind of grouped together snickering to themselves.

I had such a hard time keeping a straight face as I said, "You do know I'm not your daddy, right? And nothing's the matter."

He followed my gaze over at the other guys on the other side of the tank and then looked at me even more embarrassed.

Me: "Yep, the guys are having a bit of fun at your expense".

I told him one day to never coil up a welding lead he was using as the flowing current sets up a magnetic field that messes up your voltage and drops the amps as well when it's too close it can totally scramble your welding bead.

Next day I'm busy welding with him as my assistant standing watch on the other side of the tank wall. My current was way off and I had him reset my machine.

Nope, it's still messed up and even worse. Finally, tired of having issues I went out and checked my machine also, put the settings right and went back inside. Still messed up. How a machine can go from working fine and then being all messed up had me really frustrated and when I said something about it he doubled over laughing his butt off. He called me outside to show me how he coiled up my welding cable just outside where I was welding.

He claimed it was for science to prove out my "theory". Smart kid and he went on to do very well in the steel construction industry from what I hear.

Some learn, some don't. I love the ones who want to learn.

It's true, I've had foreman who got there through family connections and had no business managing a crew. Inept, uncultured, rude and arrogant. I'll just put his name here since he was one of the worst. Bob Hammond. We called him Slammin Hammond because that was his style. Unfair, vindictive and had a poor grasp of English. Inarticulate at times so he'd give vague orders you couldn't understand then rant when you asked questions. On a large molten sulfur tank he had the entire tank rotated about 15 degrees off from the original plan. No reason he got that wrong that I can think of. This meant that every fitting on the tank was off the mark. Pipe connections at the top were wrong, stairs were in the wrong place, just on and on. Another guy had to be sent back into to the plant to cut out stuff and relocate it so it could be attached to the already existing pipe fixtures. They spent six weeks fixing that shit and the company gets nothing for it as the contract is set in stone. Do or die, don't fix it and the contract doesn't get paid at all.

Little things that didn't get up to management were things like giving guys an assignment on the job and then when they are half done pulling them off and giving them a new assignment and neglecting to tell them to go back where they had been working before to finish up a detail. Then raging because stuff hadn't been completed as scheduled. Neglecting to order more material like welding rods and then when I was asked by a lead man to inform him we would be out of welding rods in a few hours I asked the leadman, "Why don't you tell him? It's your job, right?". Leadman: "Because he'll throw a fit and I don't want to hear it". I tell Bob and as predicted he starts screaming like a bitch. I'm thinking to myself, "WTF? It's his job to know these things and do inventory? Why does he have to be told, why does he rant at me? I just got here. How am I supposed to suddenly be the fall guy? No one even told me this was my responsibility?

Then I've worked for other foremen who were like pure gold. One guy they pumped up to supervisor position noticed how diligent and knowledgeable I was with welding machines and put me directly in charge of parts and supply as well as continuing welding like the others. I went out and got a large tool box with partitions for parts, had leave to go off site to corporate headquarters and get parts or order machines from suppliers for rentals. Set up machines properly, troubleshoot machines, and say who gets to use what on the job. It even got to the point I was overruling foremen who thought they were hot shots but didn't know shit about the job. I got to make changes in weld sequence, determine what procedure would be used to fix defects and so on and so forth.

CEO didn't like me so he fired me. Of course they had to make up shit to have a reason... the industry is full of good and bad people. Upper management sits in their office and is often clueless.

Oh, what about Bob. I encountered him on several projects and he eventually fired me and company rehired me for a shut down at a refinery. There Bob is again, the great pretender fucker upper.

About two weeks in to the project I got to talk with some of his crew and they had complaints. One of the plasma arc cutters had vanished from the job and they suspected Bob. Bob, the guy who fuels up his company truck on Friday so he can go traveling on the weekend doing his own projects. The guy who can't set up a tank properly and costs CB&I a shit ton of money on projects that don't make a dime.

Turns out Bob was giving his boys work orders, hang around for a couple hours and then vanish with his truck. Going off site to sit in a bar somewhere no doubt as he would return an hour before quitting, do basically nothing and then sign the guys off for the day after taking roll call. I gave everyone on his crew a complaint form and told them to write up this stuff and drop off the reports with the project supervisor.

Bob got his gold hat taken away and was told if he wanted to work it wouldn't be as a foreman again. It's just Bob the welder. A month later I checked back with his old crew and was told that he did the unforgivable. He was working underneath another welder who just happened to "fall" off the scaffolding onto him. His back was badly injured and Bob could no longer work. Seems his coworkers didn't much like him even working with them as a regular Joe Welder. Shitty way to end a shitty career if you ask me but he earned it.

Oh, in case you didn't know, you are to NEVER work under someone else. If someone is over you one of you has to move aside. Never, never, never. It's also an OSHA violation. Bob fucked up. Maybe it was an actual accident but I suspect someone did it on purpose. By all rights, the guy above should have been in a harness and tied off so it couldn't happen so that's why I suspect the "accident" wasn't really an accident.

I had another foreman for a time who treated me so crappy I asked to be transferred. She couldn't find a reason to fire me as I am a fast, efficient, high performing welder who does great work and follows instructions very well with little supervision so she made shit up and tried to set me up. I caught her. Then I asked to be sent to another area of the company away from her with a new foreman. Another coworker took my example and asked to be transferred with me and since they had two openings on a new repair job we both got sent to start work on another ship. All is good. But as I was leaving I told the supervisor they need to reign her in as some guys will not be taking her bullshit nicely and she could get hurt. Something could happen to her. There's some rough guys just trying to support their families and her policy of personal destruction on the job was pissing guys off. Constantly making shit up and firing guys every day for petty made up reasons is not a thing to do with construction workers.

So, about a month later me and my good buddy coworker are taking a break on the back of our ship when across the water we see this bitch standing on the back of a new ship construction gazing at us. She recognized us. I guess she imagined we had been fired or something and was confused to see us still working?

She just kept staring. WTF? So we started clowning, shouting bullshit and grabbing our crotch. What can she do way over there in another area. We are barely within shouting distance and totally out of her domain. What can she say. Well, she got herself transferred to our ship a few days later. Within half an hour she was starting shit with me, escalating things so no matter what I said I was the bad guy and demanding to use my welding helmet. No. I draw the line with that nappy headed bitch. She's not putting her head in my welding hood no matter what. It's mine, I paid for it and no. Flat no. Get your own hood if you want to test equipment that I told you is broken and doesn't work.

So I got fired. Half an hour later she went to my buddy and started shit with him and he got fired. Being from California and this is gulf coast I wasn't ready to leave just yet so I drove down to the bay and sat there drinking beers and cooling off. Next day I spent arranging to go to a new contractor for work. I already had a new job. So, Another night and I sat down by the bay, eating snacks and drinking some beers and happy again. No worries, leave that bitch behind. Besides, the new job will pay better and I know the contractors, they are great people.

Then a navy boy who had been on our crew drove by, noticed me and stopped to chat. He's pure white corn bread farmer boy fresh out of the navy and not used to the industry so he had been trying hard to fit in. He had been on her crew so I wanted to know what's up with the bitch. "Oh, right, you wouldn't know. Last night going home after work she got run off the road by some car and ended up in the ditch with a broken neck. News is, she's never going to walk again". And she had fired Navy guy also. Funny how that works out. The company put a NEVER rehire on my records so I can never work there again. They won't say why but I can guess. They can't accuse me of the deed, they know it wasn't accidental from what the woman said when she recovered. I don't drive a car or what ever she got run off the road with and she didn't get the license plate as it happened so fast. But, I get the blame. So who really did it? My main suspect is my good buddy. He was a local, another black guy and he had a family. He's not going anywhere so the job really meant something to him. High paying, good work and the bitch made his life hell at the job as well as for me. The navy guy I don't suspect at all as he seemed totally relaxed talking about it. He just didn't have it in him so yah, he's off the hook. My black buddy coworker, well now, I wish him well where ever he is and hope he and his family are doing well.

Oh, and the bitch was going to her office and locking the door every night. Why? One coworker who had a shitty attitude, was lazy and constantly hanging out with her was always gone when the office was locked up. They're fucking each other on the job. Guess that ended, right?

Of all the foremen I ever worked under, I would rate Karen as the worst. They made her foreman for one reason. She's black and she's female and she knows how to kiss ass, lie, make shit up and pat herself on the back.