[Anton Dooley]

As pipers, we often hear, tell and share stories of adventures on the road.
The crazy accounts of thing that happened to us while on contract in far flung and exotic locations (or nearby and dull places!)

We’ve all heard of “that piper” who had a hair brained or elaborate scheme to make life on the road more comfortable or lucrative. The dodgy accommodation on a site visit.

Maybe it’s a funny incident that happened to you while on site, or a piping myth!
It could be stories of pipers that are no longer with us, but live long in your memory.

I’d love to hear these stories, and I’m sure other pipers would like you to share them also.

Light hearted and funny is always good – lets try to keep them “Safe for Work!”

[Mark Layport]

War Stores my favorite!
Late 80’s, I had gotten a sr piping designers job at a new semi large DOT pipeline company. They were just starting to finishing up construction and wanted to start a design/drafting dept for operations of this line. I had been there for about 3 month, I had gotten back in the office from the field and all the other guys in the office were packing up their stuff! I asked what was going on? All I got was, have you talked with the lead engineer yet? I told them I haven’t I was just gotten out of the field, and they said you need to talk with the lead guy. I go to his office and he’s talking with the VP of the operations group. It seems someone had been caught taking kick backs from contractors and the owners had fired everybody! EXCEPT one young engineer, one secretary, and one piping designer (me).
We stood around for about 2 weeks wondering what to do, when the young engineer called me in to his office said the owner just contacted him and they wanted us to finish design and construction of one of the pump stations! …And they wanted it done in 3 weeks! Actually this wasn’t as bad as it sounded, the original engineering company generated a “cookie cutter design” for a pump station and had a number of the spool pieces fabricated and numbered. The issue was these parts were spread from our location to half way across the states! So I got to go back and forth trying find the parts, then get them loaded up, and shipped to the construction site. Once there to have some equipment lined up to off load these items for installation …some of them where very large. This last part of this job was new to me, but once I got to know the people it went pretty well. We are get close the deadline and we still were missing some major valving, like a 24″-600#RTJ type ball valve, with and actuator! I basically copied what we use on the other pump station sites and brought the list into the engineers office so he could order them. He had a phone stuck in this ear and a semi heated conversation going on. Now normally I would have back out the waited, but these items needed to be ordered now! So I got in his face about them. After he listen to my sepal, he looks at me and says “You take Care of It!” …I reminded him I have no authority to order anything! He didn’t care “deal with it” were his last words to me. SO I do a check in 3 different place on pricing, availability, and shipping for this valve and actuator, then I place and order …for $60,000!!!
6 months later I get a Email form accounting at the main office, they were alittle huffy that I made this purchase and what looks like with no authorization to do so! Also they don’t see any paperwork that it was ever received!?? I wrote and explained that the project engineer had given me “special authorization” to make the purchase. And that I operate out of the local office here and not at pump station site so that I don’t have any paperwork that it was ever received. BUT that it’s highly likely that the valving and operator I ordered were there because it was part of the main pipeline and the facility has been up and running now for the last 3 months
I never heard another word about it. *G*

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