Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Truean]

Your point was, as plainly stated, that line workers were, "among the best paid "blue collar" jobs you can get."
...

I gave you specific examples of why it is NOT all that great and directly refuted your point with cited answers. You don't get [it] that linemen have a not so glamorous job, and I illustrated points showing that they don't.

I stated that the job was among the best paying blue collar jobs.  I never said easily replaceable or glamorous.  You did that.  Your words, my mouth.  If you can find where I said we can just hire more linemen during disasters, I'll retract that statement... good luck.

This whole conversation keeps overlooking the borrowed workers aspect of it.  There's no need to hire more people for natural disasters because people can come in form neighboring areas and help.

Nobody said that the employees should work faster.  I said they could work faster than someone sitting around for a year waiting for a disaster to strike because they are more skilled/practiced.

I stated that the job was among the best paying blue collar jobs.  I never said easily replaceable or glamorous.  You did that.  Your words, my mouth.  If you can find where I said we can just hire more linemen during disasters, I'll retract that statement... good luck.

Underlining and bolding bald assertions makes them true now? Nopes.

1.) I never said myself or said you said it was "easily replaceable."

2.) You: "I stated that the job was among the best paying blue collar jobs." This implies the job is good or as a synonym, glamorous. If you object to the term "glamorus" then we'll use "good." You stated that the job was good, due to the pay. I stated the job sucks and listed the reasons why.

3.) I never said you said "just hire more linemen." What are you talking about? I am the one that said we should hire more linemen. You're confused. Seriously, my whole deal has been "we need to hire more linemen." Yours has been that we shouldn't, that hiring them would be wasteful that they would be "twiddling their thumbs." You've mixed up our points.

You are rushing to judgment and getting confused, again. You need to slow down when you start mixing up things, as you are now.

his whole conversation keeps overlooking the borrowed workers aspect of it.  There's no need to hire more people for natural disasters because people can come in form neighboring areas and help.

I'm not overlooking anything. This is nice and it helps, but it isn't enough. My whole deal, again is that I, not you, am saying we need more linemen overall....

Nobody said that the employees should work faster.  I said they could work faster than someone sitting around for a year waiting for a disaster to strike because they are more skilled/practiced.

There isn't "sitting around," they train on the job, building skills and practicing. What do you think people do all day? "Sit around?" Also, how do you think those skilled workers got that way... on the job training. No hiring them to do on the job training, no skilled workers.... That time "waiting for a disaster, isn't sitting around...." You prepare for it and learn how do deal with it during that time....
Linemen take years, of being employed as linemen, to develop skills, if you're a lineman and you just "sit around" instead of train for disaster, then when that disaster strikes, you'll be the one who is electrocuted. They don't "Sit around," or if they do, then they don't last long.

[Andir]

2.) You: "I stated that the job was among the best paying blue collar jobs." This implies the job is good or as a synonym, glamorous. If you object to the term "glamorus" then we'll use "good." You stated that the job was good, due to the pay. I stated the job sucks and listed the reasons why.

Whoa there!  Blue collar means glamorous?  I never knew that.  I always thought it meant:

a member of the working class who typically performs manual labor and earns an hourly wage. Blue-collar workers are distinguished from those in the service sector and from white-collar workers, whose jobs are not considered manual labor.

For the record, I never said pay = glamorous, good, or excellent work conditions.  You implied that.  ... hmm, where have I heard this... oh,

This is [an] example of you totally putting words in my mouth/ascribing motives and actions to me ...

You are rushing to judgment and getting confused, again.

Me confused?  Blue collar is glamorous, eh?

Nobody said that the employees should work faster.  I said they could work faster than someone sitting around for a year waiting for a disaster to strike because they are more skilled/practiced.

There isn't "sitting around," they train on the job, building skills and practicing. What do you think people do all day? "Sit around?" Also, how do you think those skilled workers got that way... on the job training. No hiring them to do on the job training, no skilled workers....

You're still not selling me on the idea that we need to hire more people to do less work.  If the line workers were overworked, we'd hear bout local line workers unions picketing.  So far the only people I've heard picket were Verizon communication line workers and I wouldn't consider that to be as essential as electricity... So where are the IBEW Electrician picketers?  (My Dad is an Electrician and he's happy with his job... he has linesmen friends who I've never heard complain.  In fact, at times, he debates moving to line work for the pay and benefits.)

[Nadaka]

This whole conversation keeps overlooking the borrowed workers aspect of it.  There's no need to hire more people for natural disasters because people can come in form neighboring areas and help.

Except that is obviously not working, as you need weeks to get the power back on.

1: Power in many places will be restored before then.

2: Fixing a power grid is not an infinitely parallel set of tasks. It takes time to set up the main power corridors, from those you work outwards.  Any section of the grid to be restored must first be disconnected from both power and other unpowered sections of the grid. And only once it has been restored can you move on to adjacent parts.

3: it takes years of training and experience to become a linemanperson (this is the progressive thread after all ), so it isn't something that you can just hire extra bodies for the occasional problem, you would have to maintain them permanently, even in cases where there normally isn't enough work to go around for the experience they need.

Fun Fact: Today is the 6th Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

In my opinion, in the aftermath of Katrina, the response of line men and the electrical providers around the nationworld (Mexico, Canada, Germany and a few others had workers involved) that donated them was one of the few aspects of the response that was done very well.

Given a choice between hiring redundant linemen, and building a more resilient and harder to damage power grid, I would definitely choose the latter.

[Andir]

Given a choice between hiring redundant linemen, and building a more resilient and harder to damage power grid, I would definitely choose the latter.

/Agree

[Truean]

2.) You: "I stated that the job was among the best paying blue collar jobs." This implies the job is good or as a synonym, glamorous. If you object to the term "glamorus" then we'll use "good." You stated that the job was good, due to the pay. I stated the job sucks and listed the reasons why.

Whoa there!  Blue collar means glamorous?  I never knew that.  I always thought it meant:

a member of the working class who typically performs manual labor and earns an hourly wage. Blue-collar workers are distinguished from those in the service sector and from white-collar workers, whose jobs are not considered manual labor.

For the record, I never said pay = glamorous, good, or excellent work conditions.  You implied that.

You are rushing to judgment and getting confused, again.

Me confused?  Blue collar is glamorous, eh?

Nobody said that the employees should work faster.  I said they could work faster than someone sitting around for a year waiting for a disaster to strike because they are more skilled/practiced.

There isn't "sitting around," they train on the job, building skills and practicing. What do you think people do all day? "Sit around?" Also, how do you think those skilled workers got that way... on the job training. No hiring them to do on the job training, no skilled workers....

You're still not selling me on the idea that we need to hire more people to do less work.  If the line workers were overworked, we'd hear bout local line workers unions picketing.  So far the only people I've heard picket were Verizon communication line workers and I wouldn't consider that to be as essential as electricity... So where are the IBEW Electrician picketers?  (My Dad is an Electrician and he's happy with his job... he has linesmen friends who I've never heard complain.  In fact, at times, he debates moving to line work for the pay and benefits.)

And now I've got you retreating. You can't figure out what words go to what statement.

"Good"
The operative word or phrase wasn't "blue collar," the operative phrase was "among the best paid." I didn't imply "among the best paid" = good, western society did, and you know it or should know it. Does "among the best paid" mean bad, neutral, no it is a good thing. No.... You posted a link and made a statement not about the nature of the job as blue or white collar but about the high pay ("among the best paid").

Also, I believe that line workers are among the best paid "blue collar" jobs that you can get:
http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos195.htm

You are rushing to judgment and getting confused, again.

Once again, no, you've mixed up what this statement was in reference to. It was this:

If you can find where I said we can just hire more linemen during disasters, I'll retract that statement...

That statement, that one right above this sentence, not the "blue collar" red herring, that statement right there. I never said you wanted to hire more linemen. THAT IS MY POINT; I WANT TO HIRE MORE LINEMEN. You don't. My aim is to hire more linemen; yours isn't. <--- You were saying I was telling you your point was to hire more linemen and daring me to find you saying that. This is your mix up.... You confused your own point with mine. It has nothing to do with blue collar vs. white collar, it has everything to do with this, above point.

You're still not selling me on the idea that we need to hire more people to do less work.  If the line workers were overworked, we'd hear bout local line workers unions picketing.  So far the only people I've heard picket were Verizon communication line workers and I wouldn't consider that to be as essential as electricity... So where are the IBEW Electrician picketers?  (My Dad is an Electrician and he's happy with his job... he has linesmen friends who I've never heard complain.  In fact, at times, he debates moving to line work for the pay and benefits.)

Really? This is the route you're taking? You don't have to have people picketing to have them be overworked. Maybe they can't picket due to bad economic times. How about the fact that it's taking us days and weeks to get power restored? Who cares right? Long as no one is picketing....

Also "more people to do less work," that was cute, but not at all my point. The idea is having people on hand who know those rare skills about fixing electric power lines. The only way you learn those skills is ON THE JOB. If we don't hire people to learn those skills, on the job, then we won't have them when we need them. It is about providing them training so they can restore power faster. Building skills.... Building... skills. Having a reserve ready, willing and able to go....

Given a choice between hiring redundant linemen, and building a more resilient and harder to damage power grid, I would definitely choose the latter.

/Agree

/Disagree. Not redundant.

"Mr Ford how many cars do those machines buy?"
Let's automate EVERYTHING. Then what are we going to do for jobs?

Also, I thought we were all about saving money, you wanna pay for large expensive infrastructure projects? Please do, please. Also be sure to maintain them once they're built....

[Andir]

Given a choice between hiring redundant linemen, and building a more resilient and harder to damage power grid, I would definitely choose the latter.

/Agree

/Disagree. Not redundant.

You don't have enough information to say that.  You assume that there could be more and all resources are being used as efficiently as possible.  I assume that there are people already sitting around waiting for work.  Who is right?

[Truean]

And now I've got you retreating.

I'd have to have said something to retreat from it.  I never said that Blue Collar is glamorous.  You ascribed that to the statement.  This is what you complained about me doing before and you are too headstrong to admit it.  In fact, I think it was you who were back-pedaling by changing the word to "good".

I simply said they were well paid.  You ascribed meaning to that.  On top of that, you are picking on something unrelated to my main complaint about your statement and using it as a straw man.



(Also, it would go a long way if your avatar was not a cat bearing teeth....  Freaking Psychology.)

You're backpedaling faster than you even know: {and look, you edited out your entire post, Ultimate Backpedal....}

No, not a chance, I'm not backpedaling, I'll reassert. I'm pressing forward and have been for a while.

"Good" = "glamorous" synonym in this instance.

Either directly address this statement or move on:
Good/Glamorous does not refer to the blue collar nature of the job.
Good/Glamorous refers to the pay, which is what you were trying to prove by citing a source about pay and you know it.

Either directly in simple terms ascribe things to actually back up your arguments or stop.

As for strawmen, what was that about avatars? Vector's is usually pie. The avatar doesn't mean anything and you know it.

Given a choice between hiring redundant linemen, and building a more resilient and harder to damage power grid, I would definitely choose the latter.

/Agree

/Disagree. Not redundant.

You don't have enough information to say that.  You assume that there could be more and all resources are being used as efficiently as possible.  I assume that there are people already sitting around waiting for work.  Who is right?

I don't have enough to disagree but you have enough to agree? I included lines upon lines of explanations and you included a single word but I don't have enough?

[Andir]

You're backpedaling faster than you even know:

No, not a chance, I'm not backpedaling, I'll reassert.

"Good" = "glamorous" synonym in this instance.

Either directly address this statement or move on:
Good/Glamorous does not refer to the blue collar nature of the job.
Good/Glamorous refers to the pay, which is what you were trying to prove and you know it.

Either directly in simple terms ascribe things to actually back up your arguments or stop.

What?

I said: "I believe that line workers are among the best paid "blue collar" jobs that you can get"

And you implied that means I think their jobs are glamorous/good.  I never said "good" "glamorous" "work conditions" or any of what you are trying to pin on me.

Blue collar to me (and everyone I know) means manual labor, usually hourly pay.  Being paid well/best does not automatically infer great working environments.  (It usually means the opposite.)

As for strawmen, what was that about avatars? Vector's is usually pie. The avatar doesn't mean anything and you know it.

Who said anything about Vector?  Your avatar is a self selected/imposed image.  The way you want others to see you.  If I put up an avatar of a GOP logo, you'd assume I was a Republican supporter.  By having a cat bearing teeth, I subconsciously assign that image to your posts.  For better or worse.  It means something to me and for you to tell me it doesn't mean anything to me is ridiculous, at best.  You want to tell me how I'm supposed to think?

Given a choice between hiring redundant linemen, and building a more resilient and harder to damage power grid, I would definitely choose the latter.

/Agree

/Disagree. Not redundant.

You don't have enough information to say that.  You assume that there could be more and all resources are being used as efficiently as possible.  I assume that there are people already sitting around waiting for work.  Who is right?

I don't have enough to disagree but you have enough to agree? I included lines upon lines of explanations and you included a single word but I don't have enough?

You included links to job hazards.  You did not provide resources that stated that linesmen were upset a the workload.  I have talked to people in the field and I get the opposite impression.

Let me quote you:

This is the problem with America, people don't know half of what they think they do, look at a website without knowing anything...

[Nadaka]

Blarg. I hate being the middle of the road third party.

You both have some good points and some bad points.

Andir: I am definately not suggesting we already have to many linemen and that they "sit around".

Truean: redundant does not mean "replace them all with machines"


I assume that in the general case, we have enough linemen to perform maintenance on the grid and deploy a modest amount of increased capacity in their normal work. I also assume that there are enough of them to respond to a disaster like a hurricane at nearly the maximum capacity, as is evident by the response to hurricane Katrina, and the quite short amount of time required to restore power to the majority of disaster affected areas.

My use of "redundant" is this. In the general case where we have near optimal employment of linemen and retain the ability to effectively respond to disasters, adding extra linemen without increasing the amount of labor they need to perform would be redundant.

[Truean]

You're backpedaling faster than you even know:

No, not a chance, I'm not backpedaling, I'll reassert.

"Good" = "glamorous" synonym in this instance.

Either directly address this statement or move on:
Good/Glamorous does not refer to the blue collar nature of the job.
Good/Glamorous refers to the pay, which is what you were trying to prove and you know it.

Either directly in simple terms ascribe things to actually back up your arguments or stop.

What?

I said: "I believe that line workers are among the best paid "blue collar" jobs that you can get"

And you implied that means I think their jobs are glamorous/good.  I never said "good" "glamorous" "work conditions" or any of what you are trying to pin on me.

Blue collar to me (and everyone I know) means manual labor, usually hourly pay.  Being paid well/best does not automatically infer great working environments.  (It usually means the opposite.)

As for strawmen, what was that about avatars? Vector's is usually pie. The avatar doesn't mean anything and you know it.

Who said anything about Vector?  Your avatar is a self selected/imposed image.  The way you want others to see you.  If I put up an avatar of a GOP logo, you'd assume I was a Republican supporter.  By having a cat bearing teeth, I subconsciously assign that image to your posts.  For better or worse.  It means something to me and for you to tell me it doesn't mean anything to me is ridiculous, at best.  You want to tell me how I'm supposed to think?

Given a choice between hiring redundant linemen, and building a more resilient and harder to damage power grid, I would definitely choose the latter.

/Agree

/Disagree. Not redundant.

You don't have enough information to say that.  You assume that there could be more and all resources are being used as efficiently as possible.  I assume that there are people already sitting around waiting for work.  Who is right?

I don't have enough to disagree but you have enough to agree? I included lines upon lines of explanations and you included a single word but I don't have enough?

You included links to job hazards.  You did not provide resources that stated that linesmen were upset a the workload.  I have talked to people in the field and I get the opposite impression.

Let me quote you:

This is the problem with America, people don't know half of what they think they do, look at a website without knowing anything...

Subjectivity:
People cannot read your mind and understand your words as their ordinary meaning. That you have a subjective, internal meaning inside your mind, doesn't mean people have to read your mind, they can't. Rather it means you have to express this in words....

The Good/Glamorous thing:
I'm not implying anything, western civilization and common usage do. "Among the best paid," jobs are good/glamorous jobs in common usage. Yes or no? The answer is yes.... You've had this problem before on this thread, people will read your words and ascribe the common everyday meaning to them. You know or should know this. Your subjective, internal meaning can't be known by people reading your words. Your readers will be ordinary reasonable people understanding your words in their ordinary reasonable meanings

Is "Among the Best Paid," A.) Good, B.) Bad, or C.) Neutral in common usage?

Your words, weren't talking about the catagory of the job as "blue or white collar." The only words you have are about the PAY, not the manual or non manual nature of the job.

You saying your comments were about "blue collar" is wrong, because your words and your citation, only go to PAY.... You may subjectively, internally, mean something else, but if so you have failed to describe this outside your mind where the rest of us can read it.

Avatars:
You brought in avatars as a strawman. I mean mine as a joke, and most people take it that way, the punchline is "this is why we can't have nice things." Do you think most people actually believe the cat is saying that? No. You're grasping and running out of points so you're attacking my aesthetic choices, which you know have no bearing on this argument. I brought in vector's avatar as an example. The fact that she has pie as an avatar doesn't detract from or add to her arguments. The fact that I have a cat jokingly saying "this is why we can't have nice things." doesn't detract from mine. Most people here have cartoons as avatars, what does that "say about them?"

This is the same point as the "Good:" header above, that it means something to you doesn't register. Common, Ordinary, Meaning, because I can't read your mind and no one else can either. Until and unless you spell out your thoughts, no one knows what you mean.

You included links to job hazards.  You did not provide resources that stated that linesmen were upset a the workload.  I have talked to people in the field and I get the opposite impression.

My whole point wasn't that linemen, were upset about the work, my point was that people without power would like it sooner and hiring more linemen would get that done sooner. My point was it doesn't matter if the individual linemen are stressed in this case, there need to be more of them, because a.) they they can't work faster without risking injury, b.) there are people without power for days or weeks.

Truean: redundant does not mean "replace them all with machines"

Granted, and yet the point remains with less exaggeration. The magic answer isn't always and can't always be "reduce labor" because those people still need jobs....

[Virex]

If someone wants power sooner then the lineworkers are able to provide, then why not get an aggregate? If it would take too long for the aggregate to be shipped, then you also understand the problem lineworkers are facing

[MetalSlimeHunt]

You know, building a more-damage resistant power grid and then keeping it maintained would take a lot of work and workers. Like the kind that linemen do. Just saying.

[Truean]

If someone wants power sooner then the lineworkers are able to provide, then why not get an aggregate? If it would take too long for the aggregate to be shipped, then you also understand the problem lineworkers are facing

Agreed. Supporting them or the "shipping department" might help them.

You know, building a more-damage resistant power grid and then keeping it maintained would take a lot of work and workers. Like the kind that linemen do. Just saying.

Much kudos, and properly maintaining it probably would too.

[Virex]

If someone wants power sooner then the lineworkers are able to provide, then why not get an aggregate? If it would take too long for the aggregate to be shipped, then you also understand the problem lineworkers are facing

Agreed. Supporting them or the "shipping department" might help them.

As much as I'd like it, strapping rocket boosters to a freighter or truck isn't all that viable...

[Truean]

If someone wants power sooner then the lineworkers are able to provide, then why not get an aggregate? If it would take too long for the aggregate to be shipped, then you also understand the problem lineworkers are facing

Agreed. Supporting them or the "shipping department" might help them.

As much as I'd like it, strapping rocket boosters to a freighter isn't all that viable...

Lol, well now I'm just picturing that starting fires. Granted, but I'm saying if we hired a few more freighters it might lighten the load. I dunno. I think I may have honestly lost this metaphor. I'd like to have more linemen covering those large blacked out geographic areas. So, and I admit that in this specific instance I'm unsure, would that be hiring more freighters? [shrugs].