Had the worst shift of my career last Tuesday on the Mississippi

Ngl, I've been running a dredge for about 7 years now and last week was a nightmare. We hit a buried cable near Baton Rouge around 3 PM that wrapped around the cutterhead so bad we had to shut down for 4 hours to cut it free. Then the hydraulic temp gauge started climbing and we lost pressure on the starboard ladder arm right as a storm rolled in. Ended up working 14 hours straight to get everything back online, and my foreman just said 'that's river life'. Has anyone else had a shift where everything went sideways at once?

3 comments

3 Comments

emma_rodriguez3015h ago

Did your foreman at least buy you a beer after all that? I had a day on the Ohio River where the barge broke loose, my radio died, and a seagull dropped a fish on my head all in the same hour. Sometimes the river just decides you're its personal punching bag and there's nothing you can do about it.

nelson.wren13h ago

Is getting beered up really that big of a deal?

alice92812h ago

yeah but that's not really what getting "beered up" means in most trades. getting beered up is when you finish the day and someone cracks a cold one on the tailgate, not when you're still on the clock trying to fix shit. the foreman buying you a beer after a rough day is just common courtesy, not some big bonding ritual. but i get what you're saying about the river kicking your ass, that seagull story is wild. some days you just gotta laugh or you'll cry, right?