Just this past weekend I got to take a glimpse into my new world. Before I was employed by NSUJL I never really thought about linemen. I knew they restored power if there was an outage from a storm but I really never took a moment to really think about what they do in-depth.
When I arrived at the international lineman’s expo in Kansas, I was blown away. There were so many linemen there with their families and you can feel the adoration, love and support they had for them. The atmosphere was so positive and welcoming. If I didn’t feel like I was really part of this community, I did now. Everyone I met was so friendly that I felt that I was part of one big family.
If you aren’t entirely sure how dangerous a lineman’s job is, I implore you to go to a rodeo. When I first heard that linemen have rodeos I was entirely confused. I thought it was the exact definition of a rodeo with horses and cows. I wasn’t even close! What it is is a display of all their skills and what is required of them to do their job every day. There are three separate events the hurt man rescue, speed climb, and transformer change out. I was in awe the entire time watching these events. Seeing the pole sway when they got to the top and how they remained calm and continued to do what needed to be done was just incredible. Unfortunately, I couldn’t stay the entire time because I had to catch my flight home but believe me I wanted to stay until the very end!
What I would like for you to take away from this is, next time the power goes out instead of complaining how long it’s been out for and how long it is taking to be restored, stop and appreciate the effort, the danger, and the skill it takes for it to be restored.
