In reality, there are only two things that has kept me at this location. First and foremost, my family. My son spent two years of his life in Mexico, a short stint in Peru, along with some visits to Japan, Austria, Philippines, Canada, and 12 states. He turns eight in a few days. We are not so much different in that respect, but he needed some time to grow roots. Dad can deal with some things he doesn't really care for to make that happen.
Number two is the learning experience. This particular project was first started in 1968. Mothballed, off and on for the next 30 and all associated variations of Section II, then restarted in full 2007. As such, it's registered code of record is summer 73 ASME Section III, Winter 71 Section VIII Div1, the literal first edition of D1.1 some from D1.0, B31.5 refrigeration among other no longer existing pressure piping codes. Most ASTM standards are from 1968 vintage, all adjusted for regulatory commitments, industry events, etc, etc. Everything had to be reconciled to assure nothing slipped through the cracks. We were the first Section III NPT stamp in decades when we got it. For me, it was a challenge that almost ate my lunch for me. I was born in 1966, the same year this design was being drawn up and a year before the reactor vessel was manufactured. In fact, it was almost enough to make me drag if it wasn't for reason number one above.
I not only had to learn how they did nuclear work while I was tossing spit wads at the nuns, I had to learn why they did it that way. I could write a book on the evolution of the IQI in America by itself now (and it was totally hosed back then). I could go on, but you get the idea. You've probably got a real good idea about how hard it is to explain why your now seeing a flaw in structural welds (UT wise) that someone in 1976 failed to report, or worse, why someone in that time could see something and report it, that the latest of this era could not. Those reports cost me many a night of sleep in the last 5 years. The same applies for all the methods, but especially so in regards to MT. Try explaining to a regulator who is fresh out of college, why it is your AC yoke is not picking up a subsurface flaw reported on a weld op sheet MT DC prod report from 1974.
All of that is coupled with being required to marry up the latest and greatest Automated Phased Array on non safety related piping (b31.1 etc), CR radiography, FLIR, and remote video fibrescoping.
About three years in, I was ready to go, but someone asked a very simple question in a meeting that would not have been so simple without the above mentioned pain. That was a moment of awakening for me.
It was after that, i realized i have something no one else I am aware of in my peer group has. A true understanding of the history, methodology, and reasoning of nuclear and other forms of construction, QC, Welding, QA, and NDE from a time which the vast majority who worked it, are dead or retired for good. From that perspective, there is no amount of college that could have provided the learning experience this project afforded me.
The old hands from the era are almost gone and with them their knowledge. Within a decade, they will effectively all be gone. It will be the ultra rare person that can answer the WTF were they thinking question in the years to come. that may or may not translate into $$$, but I am sure it will translate into job satisfaction as it's already done that for me.
Yes we are looking at it from two different perspectives, but not the ones you assumed.
Regards,
Gerald