A 68 year old welder at the hall in Gary told me he used to know every guy on a 40 man crew by their hood alone
Made me realize how much smaller the crews are now and I can't decide if that's just how the work changed or if we lost something along the way, does anyone else's local still have those big turnaround crews where you actually learn who everybody is?
Man, that hood thing hits home. My uncle did shutdowns at the mills back in the 80s and he had this whole wall of photos, guys lined up with their hoods on, and he could name every single one just from the paint and stickers. He said you'd walk into a break trailer and know who was in a bad mood before they even flipped their lid up. Now he sees the crews his old buddies run and it's like eight guys and three of them are contractors who won't even be there next week.