Some days I miss the work I performed, the noises, smells, the machine alive. Other days I peer into my archived photos and remember the heat, the cold, the workload, the messes and outages where could not BEG me back in there.
Being in the 'Can' during outage time when work was happening was different, being basically locked inside a concrete cocoon with no facilities for hours on end and trying NOT to get contaminacrappedup with radiologic hot material was difficult. We would have to climb fixed supports in some spots to hang Workman's Protection, isolate some systems, return systems to service, just a major pain wearing protective clothing. Any and everything we worked around in the Reactor and Auxiliary buildings had hot particles, radioactive corrosion sediments, always a test of patience as to getting a job done and not spreading the crap all over. Had a couple bad spots, one we called the Bowling alley, reach rod operated actuators for radiation levels that we had to enter on occasion, had to climb thru over and around to get to flanged drain points to remove the flanges and install drain rigs, always leaked by always nasty and always heat hot as was for a heat exchanger system. Sweat like on fire, double gloves double boot covers, double PCs and sometimes plastic over clothing over that all in 98-120 degree heat and confined area. Radiation Protection(RP) Personnel would be steady yelling to get done and get out.
