Mike, point of clarification, Exxon had lots of women as clerical workers and so on. The federal government pressured them to hire women to work in the actual refinery. I was a process operator. Part of the time that meant watching a console, kind of like Homer Simpson watches in the nuclear plant. Part of the time that meant going out with a check list, making sure everything was ok. Part of the time that meant taking samples to be tested. If things went wrong, that meant calling someone who knew what they were doing to fix it. Other than climbing metal ladders up the top of very tall towers, and dealing with the occasional leak (benzene pump blew a seal, got benzene all over me, for example) the job was a piece of cake.
Some of the men had attitude problems, but maybe half were ok. The men used to come behind me, for example, and tighten valves that I closed, to get my goat. I started carrying an eight-inch Stilson in my back pocket, using that to REALLY tighten the valves, when they weren't looking, make it almost impossible for the next guy to open it up without a wrench. Lots of horseplay. Crude language. Good for developing the character. |
