About 17 years sooner than expected...

Only 2 years to go here; if I don't keep spending money on holidays and
computery crap.

Managed to clear off £100k in about 7 years so I'm quite chuffed.

 

Should be easy for you.

 

On Sat, 1 Nov 2008 11:46:24 -0000, "Nige"

snip>

I'm perfectly happy with the situation as it is. I've earned more
money this summer than I ever have before and at least the pubs aren't
as crowded now people have less disposable.

 

I was pretty happy until a couple of weeks ago.

Earned a big bonus in February, got a hefty pay rise at the same time
and was awarded an all expenses paid holiday to the Algarve.

Whilst I knew things were getting tighter, I wasn't expecting to now be
going through redundancy consultation.

 

The jammy git was in the right place at the right time to do it - I
fancied doing just that for years after I saw the movie, but then again,
it would have meant living in some shi.. place like Corby.

 

Yeah, I can see that being a bit of a bastard.

Luckily for me I'm in a job where I can walk out and start with a
competitor the next morning (1) but it hasn't always been like that
and I've been sat in the works canteen with my workmates when the
manager came in a called out half a dozen of them to go for the long
walk.

(1) One of them has promised that if I get fed up where I am they'll
send a taxi to collect me.

 

Nice work fella .....virginity next?

 

Oh yes, but it was still scary to take on a big debt like that at the
time.

I'm used to living in Blackpool when houses were 10 a penny (with a
boarding house thrown in) so these London prices are a bit dizzy.

 

I suppose the biggest point has to be the fact that I've been doing
this type of work for about 30 years and over those years I've become
smart enough to not only be able to do the hands on work but I can
also design machines for specific jobs when none are available to buy.

You can't buy experience and there aren't many people who can do the
things I can so it's not just a case of getting a decent engineer but
you're also robbing a competitor of one.

I think the next couple of years could see things coming to a head
when it comes to skilled engineers because once the next generation of
nuclear power stations start to be built a lot of guys will quit the
shutdown work and go for longer contracts on the new builds.

Employers are going to have to fight for the men and the problem will
be knowing how high you can pitch your pay demands before overseas
labour is brought in. I really believe that wages will go up by about
30% but I'm not sure if going above that would be a step too far. Only
time will tell on that one.

 

Sounds like a nice, matey offer to me - you going to youtube that
occasion, Cane?

 

Not sure about that, the current proposals look like the frogs could just
come over and do the whole job with more skills and experience than just
about anyone in the world. OTOH, if we want more than a couple of projects
running at the same time there could be a nasty skills shortage.

The problems are likely to come later, most of the guys doing the safety
case work for each shutdown have either retired of are getting very close.
We are going to need a lot of engineers playing FORTRAN to keep the
annual shutdowns on schedule and a lot of NDT guys feeding them with data.

 

It's perfectly reasonable to assume that French built reactors will
be used but I'd put a small bet on the turbines being made in Poland.

What the hell are you on about?

 

See my answer to Hog, earlier - it would have to be apocalyptically
severe, before It would affect me.

 

Err... you're not my type...

 

He'd have to get rid of the bitch-tits before you'd consider it?

--
Lozzo
SV650S K5, CBR600F-W, SR250 SpazzTrakka, SR250 Project SpazzCaffer
Ford Maverick 2.7 litre 4x4 Turbonutterbastard with VTOL.
and a shit load more 2-wheeled junk in the garage
I believe in free speech, but I still have to pay my phone bill

 

Building them is, in many ways, the easy bit. The tough part is regularly
convincing the regulators that it is safe to keep them running.

Hmmmm - I am not very good at explaining stuff when most of it is waaay
above my technical ability but I will try .......

I mean the technical bit that the heavy guys in the field do not see.
For example, every pressure vessel has minor defects such as small
inclusions in welds. At every shutdown a lot of stuff gets tested by the
NDT guys and the structural engineering guys have to recertify the resulting
simulations before the NRA will permit the reactor to be restarted.
A lot of highly skilled stuff happens in offices at every shutdown, When
I was at Magnox it was becoming increasingly difficult to find enough
people to do the work. Most of the Magnox era decommissionings were the
result of doubts about future structural integrity, one of the difficult
parts is the increasing fragility caused by radiation hardening of the
structural steel which can allow a major crack to propagate from a
minor defect.

One query from the NRA about a detail in a safety case can keep a reactor
closed for weeks or even months beyond the scheduled restart which is
horribly expensive.

The scientists, engineers and mathematicians who do this work both
at the owners and their counterparts at the NRA are all around retirement
age and we are going to need a whole new generation of these specialists.

 

The mention of FORTRAN was what initially threw me and now you're
muttering about the NRA when the reality is that the NII actually
cover the areas you mention.

I don't work in the RCA very often because I'd sooner be working on
the turbines but I do get involved with the systems engineers who
cover that area and cracks are the least of their problems at the
moment.

 

As did I.

I needed somewhere to live, I still think it was probably a better
deal than renting and I have no plans to move so any loss is only on
paper unless I *have* to sell.

 

Did they change their name or am I having a senior moment ?.

I would not be surprised, my involvement was 9 years ago purely on
maintaining the computing resources for the engineers and physics guys
who were then based at Berkeley. By that stage the Magnox fleet was
already a nightmare to keep working.

My point remains, however, that we simply do not have the backroom guys
that we are going to need if we build a new generation of nuclear
power stations and there is a very serious shortage of young physics
and maths graduates coming through the education system.
You are probably seeing a similar lack of young mechanical engineers.
The current timeline implies that there will be only a tiny number of
experienced guys left to pass on their experience to the next generation.

 

Totally unrelated but I've been to the NDA near Whitehaven[1] and it was
a bit worrying that they didn't really have a handle on their IT
security. Still, I did my stuff then had a pleasant drive back on a
Saturday while they backed everything out due to none of them
understanding their ISA config. I expected better, probably naively
given where they are geographically.

[1] "Sorry, can't tell you where the office is, but if you can't find
it, ring us and we'll guide you in" FFS there's a **** off massive
reactor down the road!