From the wife of a lineman

For clarification: WB means Worker Bee for those of you who haven't been following us from the beginning. OOOHHH! you say. I know some of you probably thought is was short for Wayne Bill or Willie Bob or maybe his momma had so many kids that by the time he was born she had to just name him some letters (you know this use to happen in the 'olden days' just walk through an old cemetary sometime). No, just Worker Bee...and there would have been no other Bee pun that I could have used to describe him better.

As some of you know, WB just returned from a 10 day trip to Paducah, Kentucky to help restore power to those affected by the ice storm. See, WB is a lineman for the local power company. What is that? Well, simply, if you are able to read a blog while drinking a warm cup of coffee (or a cold beverage, take your pick) in a warm home, you have linemen from your power company to thank.
This is an extremely thankless job because no one thinks anything about you unless their life is inconvenienced by the power going off. And, when they do think of you, it is only because they are waiting impatiently for you to get it fixed so that they can get back to their normal routine. Or they don't think of 'you' at all, but of some wizard type man behind a curtain who just goes up to this big board and flips a switch to make all right with the world again.

What people don't know is that there are men (and women I am sure but not around here) who put their life on the line (no pun intended) every day so that we can dry our hair and have hot water and put some waffles in the toaster. Not only do these people work during 'normal business hours' but 24 hours a day. And not 24 hours of sitting around waiting for someone's power to blink. But, 24 hours of manual labor under the ground or on the poles in the air constantly redoing old lines, fixing lines for those that are out, or preventing future power outages. This means 365 days of the year, yes, all holidays and all weather conditions.

There are times when WB goes in early/late (i.e. 1am, 2am) to complete some of these jobs so that no one is affected during 'normal hours' and then continues to work his shift like he does every day. There are also times when WB is 'on call' (scheduled or unscheduled) that he can work upwards of 22 hours straight (the most I have seen is 26 so far) without stopping but for a 30 minute break to eat a meal. There are also times that WB misses Easter, Thanksgiving and/or Christmas dinner, birthdays, etc because of his job.

For instance, this past Thanksgiving, WB was on call and as it always happens, he got called in about 1 hour before we were suppose to go to Santa's Village. Because we know this can happen, we just regroup and go without him. So, that night when he got home, he told me that there were some people that had lost power and when they went to fix it, the man was extremely rude to them and yelling at them that his Thanksgiving with his family was ruined because they couldn't finish cooking, etc because there was no power and he wanted it on now, blah blah blah. I am sure this man didn't stop to think once that my husband was missing his baby's first visit with Santa, or our tradition of going to Santa's Village the day after Thanksgiving, or that I had to explain to a 2 year old why daddy wasn't getting to come. Or that the other guy in WB's crew was missing dinner with his family that he doesn't see very often. Nope, just that his turkey wasn't going to get carved on time and it might take a little longer for his sweet potato casserole to brown. Seriously.

Being a lineman does not only involve long crazy hours, but it is also dangerous. There are many 'accidents' that can happen on any given day because linemen are dealing with 'hot' (high voltage) power lines that cannot always be terminated to do the job. I will not go into detail here because I do not like to let my mind go to these places, especially if I want to keep myself sane. You can google it if you are curious.

Why am I telling you all of this? Because I don't feel that people 'get it.' Having electricity is something we all use and just expect to be there. And when it isn't, we are impatient until it is restored. As the wife of a lineman, I feel that people should know what is involved with their 'inconvenience' and they should be thankful that there are men who are willing to do this thankless job every day. And willing to sacrifice so much daily just so we can all blog and fix supper and have straight hair.

Click here to read about a Minnesota lineman who lost his life while helping in Paducah with WB and some of the other guys. And be thankful for those lights girls!

I will now step down from my soap box.