Bad day at work

Goth

Senior member
Oct 22, 2001
356
0
0
Hopefully not a repost...
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Next time you have a bad day at work...think of this guy. Rob is a commercial saturation diver for Global Divers in Louisiana. He performs underwater repairs on offshore drilling rigs. Below is an E-mail he sent to his sister. She then sent it to 103.2 in Ft Wayne IN, who was sponsoring a "worst job experience" contest.

Needless to say, she won.

Hi Sue, Just another note from your bottom-dwelling brother. Last week I had a "bad day at the office". I know you've been feeling down lately at work, so I thought I would share my dilemma with you to make you realize it's not so bad after all.

Before I can tell you what happened to me, I first must bore you with a few technicalities of my job. As you know, my office lies at the bottom of the sea. I wear a suit to the office. It's a wetsuit. This time of year the water is quite cool. So what we do to keep warm is this: We have a diesel powered industrial water heater. This $20,000 piece of equipment sucks the
water out of the sea. It heats it to a delightful temperature then pumps it down to the diver through a garden hose, which is taped to the air hose.

Now this sounds like a darn good plan, and I've used it several times with no complaints. What I do, when I get to the bottom and start working, is take the hose and stuff it down the back of my wetsuit. This floods my whole suit with warm water. It's like working in a Jacuzzi.

Everything was going well until all of a sudden, my butt started to itch. So, of course, I scratched it. This only made things worse. Within seconds my butt started to burn. I pulled the hose out from my back, but the damage was done. In agony I realized what had happened. The hot water machine had sucked up a jellyfish and pumped it into my suit.

Now since I don't have any hair on my back, the jellyfish couldn't stick to it. However, the crack of my butt was not as fortunate. When I scratched what I thought was an itch, I was actually grinding the jellyfish into my butt.

I informed the dive supervisor of my dilemma over the communicator. His instructions were unclear due to the fact that he, along with 5 other divers, were all laughing hysterically. Needless to say I aborted the dive.

I was instructed to make agonizing in-water decompression stops totaling 35 minutes before I could reach the surface to begin my chamber decompression.

When I arrived at the surface, I was wearing nothing but my brass helmet. As I climbed out of the water, the medic, with tears of laughter running down his face, handed me a tube of cream and told me to rub it on my butt as soon as I got in the chamber. The cream put the fire out, but I couldn't poop for 2 days because my butt hole was swollen shut.

So, next time you're having a bad day at work, think about how much worse it would be if you had a jellyfish shoved up your butt.
 

Goth

Senior member
Oct 22, 2001
356
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Crud, I guess it was just too farfetched to be true. Oh well, thanks for the link Fausto.
 

virtueixi

Platinum Member
Jun 28, 2003
2,781
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OMG LMAO !!! ahahahah I heard that this is one of the most dangerous professions ever.
 

sharkeeper

Lifer
Jan 13, 2001
10,886
2
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It may be funny, but obviously did not happen...

The device they speak of, a water heater, would have strainers making it impossible to suck up a Phylum Cnidaria sp. or similar.

Cheers!
 

gotensan01

Golden Member
Jul 6, 2004
1,446
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Originally posted by: virtueixi
OMG LMAO !!! ahahahah I heard that this is one of the most dangerous professions ever.

I thought GreenPeace or snow crab fishing were the highest. One of those two.
 

sygyzy

Lifer
Oct 21, 2000
14,001
4
76
Not GreenPeace for sure. It's the crab fisherman. And they are not snow crabs.
 

azazyel

Diamond Member
Oct 6, 2000
5,872
1
81
What's so bad about this? When I was up salmon fishing in South East Alaska jelly stings were a daily occurrence. I had to pile web so all of the little jellies that got caught in the net got dumped right on my head. By the end of the day my eyes looked like I had smoke a lb of pot and my skin was all blotchy. After about a couple weeks I finally had enough hair on my face to keep most of the jelly off. That and a pair of glasses worked alright.
 

Aharami

Lifer
Aug 31, 2001
21,205
165
106
Originally posted by: sygyzy
Not GreenPeace for sure. It's the crab fisherman. And they are not snow crabs.

why is crab fishing so bad? im asking...ive heard it is also, but dunno why
 

Scarpozzi

Lifer
Jun 13, 2000
26,392
1,780
126
Sounds like it hurt. The only thing I wonder about is the "cream" he was given to rub on himself. Usually, they don't use cream to take care of jellyfish stings....they use Vinegar. I would think a liquid form would work better than a cream and most docs near the sea keep it handy....
 

azazyel

Diamond Member
Oct 6, 2000
5,872
1
81
Originally posted by: Aharami
Originally posted by: sygyzy
Not GreenPeace for sure. It's the crab fisherman. And they are not snow crabs.

why is crab fishing so bad? im asking...ive heard it is also, but dunno why

Well at least someone dies yearly. In some of the places if you happen to go overboard you have about 3 -7 min before you're dead. Combine that fact with huge swells and ice everywhere you are going to get some mess ups.

Interesting fact about crab boats, they tend to have a lot of baseball bats. Why? To beat the ice that forms on the deck so the boat won't get top heave and sink.
 

BigJ

Lifer
Nov 18, 2001
21,330
1
81
Originally posted by: Aharami
Originally posted by: sygyzy
Not GreenPeace for sure. It's the crab fisherman. And they are not snow crabs.

why is crab fishing so bad? im asking...ive heard it is also, but dunno why

From a CNN article:

The crab fishery in Alaska is particularly perilous, according to University of Alaska economist Gunnar Knapp. "The environment in which the crabbing is done, in the Bering Sea, in winter, has to be some of the worst conditions on Earth. You're hundreds of miles from port, in stormy seas, with ice forming all over, sometimes so thick it capsizes the boat."

Fishermen also sustain injuries from working with heavy gear and mighty machinery. Alaskan crabbers use huge cages as traps. "Imagine," say Knapp, "steel lobster pots, only ten times the size, hundreds of pounds apiece."

No wonder the Alaskan shellfish industry averaged 400 fatalities per 100,000 workers during the 1990s.

Furthermore, the crab crews are in a mad dash to fill their holds. "The season lasts only three or four weeks," says Knapp, "they fish as hard as they can before the season ends, often working 40 out of every 50 hours. It's an intense, fundamentally dangerous environment with a lot of money at stake."

Edit: Here are some photos
http://www.fishermansexpress.com/photo-gallery.html
 

Aharami

Lifer
Aug 31, 2001
21,205
165
106
ah i see. i think discovery had some kinda show about the alaskan crab season
 

virtuamike

Diamond Member
Oct 13, 2000
7,845
13
81
The last time I went crab fishing, a line got caught in one of the props and we got stuck. Then we saw a great white.

At least the crab was good.
 

EarthwormJim

Diamond Member
Oct 15, 2003
3,239
0
76
Originally posted by: sharkeeper
It may be funny, but obviously did not happen...

The device they speak of, a water heater, would have strainers making it impossible to suck up a Phylum Cnidaria sp. or similar.

Cheers!

Not only that he would have a dry suit on and would have no need for this water heater.