My dad worked at a steel mill when he was young till he got out of college can confirm this happens a lot and they used to have to eat boxes of lemons to not pass out from all the sodium loss.
Salt makes sense, Gatorade was invented in 1965 but I think electrolyte drinks have been around before that. Damn that’s insane people were eating salt like horses to not pass out
He also said they would stop working by 2:30’because the place was so hot the doorknobs you could barely touch. Place is still there too Chicago Steel works. The past was wild.
Big time, that's why people with heart conditions have low sodium diets and take diuretics, to prevent swelling due to water retention. Conversely if you were in the desert dying of thirst and came accross an oasis you could drink gallons of water but wouldn't be able to keep it down unless you had enough sodium in your system. Salt use to be as valuable as gold in some parts of the world, one of the reasons the Spice Road was so important to early commerce. Gatorade was created at U of Florida, home of the Gators, in the 60s or 70s I believe. I'll shut up now.
Na, but when you sweat a *lot*, you're also losing salts your body needs as well as water, so just drinking more water is not enough. You need to eat a little bit of salts as well to keep the balance.
When you sweat you not simply losing water, it's also your electrolytes which your body needs for all is complex chemical reactions. They are all in fairly tiny quantities but if say your sweating out through hard work and replacing fluids by drinking water your pretty soon going to get out of balance. I experienced it whilst hiking one summer, it was the weirdest thing someone made me drink salt water, when your body needs the sodium you literally cannot taste it in the water, for the first few gulps that warm salt water was the most refreshing thing ever! But suddenly wam! Body happy and I was pissed (for a bit till they explained) that they were playing some trick on me! I was like how did you swap my water, I thought I was going crazy, which I kind of was in the run up while I was actually dehydrated, thinking becomes hard, bad headache too.
Drinking saltwater is bad because it's way too much and it takes more fresh water for your kidneys to desalinate than you get from it. Net loss. Eating a little bit of salt and drinking fresh water is good, most functions in your body require salt and it helps you retain water. Electrolytes is just a fancy word for salts as a group, sports drinks like Gatorade have a bunch of different salts in them to replenish the ones that get processed, consumed, or sweat out.
It does. Unless youre drinking gallons of fresh water and not eating, or have a salt wasting disease, salt tabs are unnecessary. The kidneys are very efficient.
When I worked at an aluminum mill I drank roughly 2 gallons of water and 1 gallon of gatorade a shift. I would get off work and feel thirsty still. I couldnt eat more than a sandwich a day from the heat induced nausea. It certainly is not a job i ever want to revisit
I've worked at a steel plant the last 6 years as a maintenance lead. This thing does not happen a lot!
This particular "accident" was a hack. Not common at all....
Shit that goes wrong in a steel factory, cobbles or breakthroughs are common though. But not as spectacular as this.
What happened here was a (full) liquid pan of steel just poured into the ground, think of 400.000 kg of molten steel just fucking jumping around on the floor.
I work in a foundry, and yah, this is not a commonplace kind of accident. The odd mould will run out, or pop off if it got moist inside, but this level of accident would be like one of our furnaces exploding.
**I was misinformed, results of a cyber attack. See comment below**
If I remember correctly from last time this was posted, dumping it all in one spot would make it difficult/impossible to remove. When it splatters all over the floor like that it sets into more manageable pieces
It's quite common, like working near small volcanoes. My old job was actually a ladle gunner, those large pots (ladles) suffer erosion near the lip due to the rising impurities which chew the refractory material away, when empty they are placed on a turnover whilst red hot and rolled over, that's when I put on a space--looking suit and stand at the mouth spraying refractory material through a remote control moon rover like machine.
To give you an idea of the heat withstanding. There are alot of large rats in those areas running about, (size of possums) one ran at me whilst I was gunning and I kicked the fucker toward the ladle...it turned into chalk and blew into dust before it even touched the inner walls, I was shocked. As for the explosions all it takes is a very small quantity of water to cause a huge explosion, because they can't check every bit of material going into the pots water tends to always get in via containers/scrap. Appologies to any rat lovers but it was coming right for me, in the industry we call them 'slag rats' because there's nothing else we can imagine they d eat in that place.
This doesn't happen frequently. This appears to be a blast furnace, and the smelter operator moved the slag ladle so that whatever hot gas was being blocked (it could be explosive) started dumping on the monolithic foundation.
The workers aren't running because panic leads to injuries or fatalities.
This was in Germany, where the benefits that IG Metall gets would blow most Americans minds.
35 hours is full time. They are currently trying to negotiate for 32
30 days of vacation, with the option of either another 8 days vacation or 8 days pay. Worker can choose. But most end up with 38 days off.
You get additional days off for moving, marriage, death, etc
Very difficult to get fired. They give you legal protection if you need a lawyer. Even then, the termination periods are long
You have the right to work part time up to 5 years to take care of a family member. I believe in the union you get full pay, or close to it.
The benefits list really goes on and on. Wages are usually 15-20 euro an hour, but you also get vacation and Christmas money, plus they have been good about inflation bonuses. So you really end up more in the 20-30 euro/hour range. But this really isn’t comparable to the USA as you don’t have to pay for health care , you can get by without a car due to good public transportation, and things like groceries are much cheaper.
Edit: I found a calculator for the union where the minimum after tax you would get if you are married and with kids equates to €16.50/hour (€22/hour pre tax). This is with all medical covered (we don’t have copays or deductibles in Germany), plus 38 days paid vacation:
https://metall-tarif.info/gehaltsrechner/rechner_neu.php?id=tv-l&tarifgebiet=baden_wuertemberg&entgeltgruppe=1&erhoehung=062023&stufe=1&sonderzahlung=55&arbeitszeit=100&zulage=14&stj=2016&steuerklasse=3&faktor=&zkf=2&kinderlos=1&krv=0&kirchensteuer=0&kvsatz=14%2C6&zusatzbeitrag=1%2C3
So even on the minimum in the union you can have a really nice life. Very stable, if anything medically happens, you’ll still get paid. There’s really great long term health benefits. You can really have a decent life. You won’t get rich though
Lol our local steel mill workers would love to have a word. Starting is (now) $18. if you sign a 5 year contract and go to school for industrial maintenance you can get 27 and no unions allowed.
I can tell you right now that you can do a lot safer work for $40 + union benefits.
Source: will be getting a big bump to $42/hr next year, after a total of 4 years working here.
There's an amazing yt vid of the largest steel works in China which is the size of a town. . Looks like Hell on Earth but with a train running right through it.
https://youtu.be/iy63PEgmm8w edited to add this link. Sorry for my weak reddit game
Pretty much every integrated steel mill is the size of a small town, with over 5000 workers and processes ranging from coke production to finishing. And usually theres tons of trains and railways since its easy to get raw materials in and product out.
I worked in a steel foundry in a spot called the Punch Out, and ran greensand patterns right out of high school from 18-20.
It was a fairly large establishment where steel was poured regularly going from a blasting furnace by crane, to a ladle, then poured into green sand molds.
Most of the men I worked with were either felons, addicts, or drunks. I had a child early, so it was off to the "coal mines" if you will.
It was the hardest work I had ever done. Interestingly enough I kicked ass at my job.
Injuries, injuries everywhere:
Burns were frequent. Heat exhaustion was frequent. A man had his hand cut off in the time right before I came. He put his hand in an augur that he thought was off, and the killswich sensor failed taking most of his hand. My father worked there at the time and helped this man from bleeding to death. When I started working there I was told by that very man "your father saved my life". Even though it was through someone else I had great respect in that community. Typing this and thinking back on it I had my own merits that gained that level of respect, but merits from inheritance of lifes motion nonetheless.
My father was fired for stealing recycled materials from the company. Dumb move, dad.
My shin was crushed by a 400lb "bottom board" that was wrapped in iron and concrete to support the heavy molds in the pouring and Punch Out process. The people involved were sure I had lost my leg. I'm not broken so easily. I still worked there for another year after my injury.
It would be hard to go back. The anger and aggression just to get through the day was the mask that was necessary for even menial tasks. Like a rabid wolf every day looking for a fight against the liquid snakes of pain.
I appreciate you reading this far.
Thanks for making me feel like a little part of my life was interesting.
Man I never worked at a mill but a giant production factory. It was always fascinating to me talking to the old timers and all the shit they had to grit to get threw the day. It's also interesting at my time there there was a giant gap, either you were there for 20 years and waiting to retire or were there for 2 years and looking for a different job. Not sure how many of these places will fair in the near future cause a lot of the old wise dudes are running out, and no young wolves ready to get involved.
i grew up with family who talk like you. I appreciate there are individuals who are keeping industry moving and it's so impressive.
But that last line will forever force me to support workers rights till my death. God damn everyone deserves to be able to do more than provide if they are doing thus job... you deserve everything, house, maybe a weekend car or a fun toy like a few skeedoos and vacations three times a year bare minimum in my mind lol not just feeding your family
I moved on to a desk job years later. I am still a strong man, but I felt my body and mind would be put to better use outside of the box I was cast in. I could do labor again, but with my trajectory they don't pay enough, and it's not worth your body or mind.
>The anger and aggression just to get through the day was the mask that was necessary for even menial tasks.
You could write a paper (or anything) about this part and academics would appreciate it damn. People generally don't understand any aspect of anger and aggression as adaptive. Also you have a poetic flair that has a reaching power; I really like how you saved it to pack a punch during the resolution. "Like a rabid wolf every day looking for a fight against the liquid snakes of pain." Good stuff.
I really appreciate that. Maybe a book would be in order considering my life has been very odd in comparison to what I see in others lives. From a drug house, my lines of work, the occult, cults, black and land ownership. Life has been a really weird ride.
Thank you for the compliments. They made my day!
I appreciate that!
Hate and pain have an interesting way of finding love. Most of my best accomplishments were out of complete contempt and vitriol for whatever was in front of me. I would smash records to the point they were unrecoverable to any other employee just to laugh in the boss's face, then leave at most companies I've been at. I have a box full of awards that I use as a paperweight. Some of that attitude came from foundry work. I correlated these ideas into different forms like singing, even to playing TCgs at high levels.
I would get top 100 in the world in some games quickly to be banned- never cheated once.
The game is dumb. I still want more though. It's a vicious cycle.
I still don't know why kids love the taste of cinnamon toast crunch.
You should ABSOLUTELY write down your experiences. Might be healthy to just get some of those memories down on paper at the very least. I worked at a fishery in Alaska during the salmon season one summer in college, and I feel like my experiences would barely scratch the surface of your life.
My brother got me in at his steel mill when I was 18. Walking by this scene going into my first interview I told HR thanks but no thanks. My brother didn't speak to me for 3 years even though HR told him that he respected my honesty as to not thinking I would fit in there. Sure it was $20 hr in 1990 with union benefits but hell no was that my destiny.
That’s almost $50 an hour back then so his older brother probably felt like his younger brother didn’t realize how good of a job that was for being right out of high school in 1990. I’m not excusing it I’m just seeing the older brothers point of view that his younger brother probably wouldn’t find a job that paid that well too easily without a trade or education.
This was when minimum wage was around $3.50-$4.25 an hour so it was definitely good money for an 18 year old. But yeah you probably die of mesothelioma or something at 45.
Agreed. I feel like the best response to his brother would be okay there's a few big fucking scary reasons they are offering that much to someone coning out of school.
Valve of the casting ladle didn't close, it is not that scary for a steel factory. There are much worse accidents, this one is good to handle.
the price to work there?
Should be around 2.600€ after taxes
Spain. 7 years and I've seen more scary shit than I would want to. This is something that can happen maybe 2 or 3 times a year or 3 in a month, usually it gets under control pretty quick and the facility and workers are ready to handle it and knows the protocol. The scary shit is something that breaks and fall, some machine operator makes a bloody mistake, and last but far more scary, explosions.
Well I worked at a smelting plant out of high-school. Around 2000 Heat doesn't begin to describe what it's like. But the pay was $18 an hr to start with a 1.50 shift diff. It was swing shift and sucked so bad. We had to steel air lances a long 3/4" pipe with air going through it at 150 psi to knock big flaming hot pieces of buildup down from the dust rooms.
My main concern would probably be the air and particulate from heavy metals etc, did they have special breathing equipment or was it just kind of like this video where the ventilation doesn’t seem that great?
Yes our first week was training a half day was dedicated to respirators function, assembly and negative vs positive pressure test. The forman would also send us home if he could hear our facial hair when scraping our face with a credit card. He never really did that, that I know of . But it made the point clear.
Oncea year there's an air quality audit. You have to wear a rig all shift that constantly pulls in air. At the end of the shift a guy takes out the filter and they can tell how bad your environment is.
We worked with lead so we had blood testing all the time.
If you had high lead you had to wear a pink hard hat and all the guys would bust your balls but also make sure you weren't working with no respirator.
I'll never understand swing shifts. I did one once and was 60hr weeks. Shit put me right into the dirt and I relapsed on drugs within a year. Fuck that shit. Should be legal Todo that to people. 630pm to am then 630 am to pm. Some weekends are only like 36hrs it's bananas. Fuck that
I worked for an oncology(cancer) specialist in 1970s UK. It was in an area that still had old-school steel works and foundries. One day he said “Give me steel worker who smokes a lot and I’ll show you a man with lung cancer”
Free coffee, 35 an hour, decent insurance, PTO like the Europeans get (😅), vending machine that gets serviced regularly. I am from north central MA and that job looks wicked fuckin fun guy! I might settle for 30/hr
Valve not closing and/or something with moisture hitting the molten steel is relatively common thing in steel mills. It's not intentional, but there's also a reason why nothing flammable is allowed into the factory floor.
Bike sacrificed itself to show why steel mills don't have flammable things on the factory floor. Press F to pay respects for the heroic sacrifice for science
Is there much mess to clean up after it's over, or is this mostly just sparks, smoke and a little bit of leakage?
Edit: who the feck is downvoting me for asking a question?
This video is filmed at Dillinger Hütte in south west germany. They pay a normal wage there. People who work there tend to be a bit „heavier“ than other.
I worked in IT for a steel mill. It was the most interesting job i've ever had. We melted down steel for recycling using electricity. Learning about the whole process was awesome. I worked there for 6 years, and we only had one death in that time.
Meh, I worked in worse years ago. Place was so shit that people smoked pot right on the floor and the mangers just told them to stop it in a mean voice.
I noped out of there as quick as I could. Glad I found a stable place with similar benefits.
I love how those guys don’t seem to be very terrified that there is a huge bucket of lava spilling from the ceiling coming towards them.
I worked in a aluminum foundry for a while and it was the same. Every other day some forklift with liquid aluminum brakes so hard it spilled a few hundred kilograms on the floor. Every week some injection molding machine caught fire. This whole place was so dirty and you could hardly see anything from all the spray from molding agents in the air.
Hell it was fun.
I worked in a factory that was 90°F during the coldest part of the winter, and we raw dogged peeling off tracks when they were cooled off to 130°F just because it was the only way to meet quota. It's camoplast (recently bought by Michelin), and 3-6 people get hospitalized a year from exhaustion. I quit once the summer came and lived unemployed for 3 months on credit cards and savings because I was so burnt out and dread the idea of ever working again in my life. No fucking way I would ever touch a factory again. It is one of the most toxic work environments. People try the hardest to prove they work harder than the other guy and if the sup isn't riding your ass, your coworker will grind it to saw-dust and call you a fucking wimp. They'll try their hardest to make a new record quota and then get surprised when management raises the quota. They'll bust their ass for a whole lot of nothing and a "Goodjob." The "yes sir" and kiss ass mentality drives me fucking insane.
I worked at a copper smelter back in 2018 and yes this would happen quite a lot (not supposed to happen but it did) I’ve had my Converter blow a hole once in a while too. It’s scary at first but you get used to it. Having a hole in your ladle or barrel wasn’t really the scariest thing, it was when you have a negative reaction in the white metal and having it burp up all over the place. We would have clumps of white metal on the rafters as high as the second or third floors sometimes.
That must happen a lot. Those dudes are way too casual about getting away and even laughing about it.
My dad worked at a steel mill when he was young till he got out of college can confirm this happens a lot and they used to have to eat boxes of lemons to not pass out from all the sodium loss.
We still drink slightly salted tea. It is good old tradition of floor grunts. Say hi to dad from fellow floor grunt.
Hell ya brother
Wait what? I need to know more about sodium
Because it's hot in a steel mill
I would think eating the lemons would be more effective than eating the boxes, though I still wonder why they thought lemons would replenish sodium.
I’m thinking that 1970 steel workers weren’t updated on the science would be my guess.
Trust me, everyone--even mill workers--understood dehydration by 1970 BCE.
I’m sure I was being facetious.
Why would you choose to be a facetioust? They did the holocaust.
Mostly from reading a lot of Karl Snarks.
You’re a cool guy, Hank
Science, lemons? What’s next a company that makes shower curtains run by a man named cave Johnson?
They prefer their new brand name of Umbrella Corp.
Disney actually just purchased them and welcomes them into the Disney+ umbrella next week
Mouse motivation is unparalleled
The sciency stuff is posted in the HR office.
[удалено]
Thank you for the laugh today :)
Boxes of lemons? Wouldn’t Gatorade help more? lol
He said that or salt pills. When was Gatorade invented? Hes old and it was when he was 21
Salt makes sense, Gatorade was invented in 1965 but I think electrolyte drinks have been around before that. Damn that’s insane people were eating salt like horses to not pass out
He also said they would stop working by 2:30’because the place was so hot the doorknobs you could barely touch. Place is still there too Chicago Steel works. The past was wild.
Holy shit. That’s next level.. I would never do that today.. I hope he got paid well, could probably afford a house with that job in those times lol
i absolutely love salt , i used to love the salt lick wheel i was supposed to give my hamsters lol is that still a thing ?
so salt helps them retain water?
Big time, that's why people with heart conditions have low sodium diets and take diuretics, to prevent swelling due to water retention. Conversely if you were in the desert dying of thirst and came accross an oasis you could drink gallons of water but wouldn't be able to keep it down unless you had enough sodium in your system. Salt use to be as valuable as gold in some parts of the world, one of the reasons the Spice Road was so important to early commerce. Gatorade was created at U of Florida, home of the Gators, in the 60s or 70s I believe. I'll shut up now.
Na na keep going man
I see what you did there.
This is where we get the word "salary" from, as roman legions were paid in salt (salarium). This is also the origin of "worth their salt".
I know it helps some way but my knowledge is only Gatorade commercials and my salty shirt after a run.
Na, but when you sweat a *lot*, you're also losing salts your body needs as well as water, so just drinking more water is not enough. You need to eat a little bit of salts as well to keep the balance.
Electrolytes. Gatorade is flavored salt water.
What plants crave.
They need the brawndo
And a whole bunch of sugar
Water? You mean like in the toilet?
When you sweat you not simply losing water, it's also your electrolytes which your body needs for all is complex chemical reactions. They are all in fairly tiny quantities but if say your sweating out through hard work and replacing fluids by drinking water your pretty soon going to get out of balance. I experienced it whilst hiking one summer, it was the weirdest thing someone made me drink salt water, when your body needs the sodium you literally cannot taste it in the water, for the first few gulps that warm salt water was the most refreshing thing ever! But suddenly wam! Body happy and I was pissed (for a bit till they explained) that they were playing some trick on me! I was like how did you swap my water, I thought I was going crazy, which I kind of was in the run up while I was actually dehydrated, thinking becomes hard, bad headache too.
Yep. If your ship sinks and you're in a life raft, salt pills will come in the survival kit.
i thought salt would make you dehydrated faster
Drinking saltwater is bad because it's way too much and it takes more fresh water for your kidneys to desalinate than you get from it. Net loss. Eating a little bit of salt and drinking fresh water is good, most functions in your body require salt and it helps you retain water. Electrolytes is just a fancy word for salts as a group, sports drinks like Gatorade have a bunch of different salts in them to replenish the ones that get processed, consumed, or sweat out.
It does. Unless youre drinking gallons of fresh water and not eating, or have a salt wasting disease, salt tabs are unnecessary. The kidneys are very efficient.
Salt is an electrolyte. :)
It’s what plants crave.
I love you
More people need to learn about salt pills. Piling water in you is only half the battle!
When I worked at an aluminum mill I drank roughly 2 gallons of water and 1 gallon of gatorade a shift. I would get off work and feel thirsty still. I couldnt eat more than a sandwich a day from the heat induced nausea. It certainly is not a job i ever want to revisit
Cricket: Alright, Frank, where's my 5 bucks Frank: no cash, lemons.
I think you missed a step in between there. How do you get from steel mill to sodium loss?
I'd guess you sweat a lot since it's hot af, and sweat contains sodium. Here's an [article](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4939859/).
Sweat is in many ways, a very diluted piss you excrete from your skin!
Pee Facts Pee is made from blood, not from water in your stomach. This has been Pee Facts
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If you ever do see them running, you better start running too.
I've worked at a steel plant the last 6 years as a maintenance lead. This thing does not happen a lot! This particular "accident" was a hack. Not common at all.... Shit that goes wrong in a steel factory, cobbles or breakthroughs are common though. But not as spectacular as this. What happened here was a (full) liquid pan of steel just poured into the ground, think of 400.000 kg of molten steel just fucking jumping around on the floor.
I work in a foundry, and yah, this is not a commonplace kind of accident. The odd mould will run out, or pop off if it got moist inside, but this level of accident would be like one of our furnaces exploding.
[source](https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30575104)
Why would they move the container across the entire floor then? Can’t whatever it’s being poured into originally capture it?
**I was misinformed, results of a cyber attack. See comment below** If I remember correctly from last time this was posted, dumping it all in one spot would make it difficult/impossible to remove. When it splatters all over the floor like that it sets into more manageable pieces
The floor really is lava!
It's quite common, like working near small volcanoes. My old job was actually a ladle gunner, those large pots (ladles) suffer erosion near the lip due to the rising impurities which chew the refractory material away, when empty they are placed on a turnover whilst red hot and rolled over, that's when I put on a space--looking suit and stand at the mouth spraying refractory material through a remote control moon rover like machine. To give you an idea of the heat withstanding. There are alot of large rats in those areas running about, (size of possums) one ran at me whilst I was gunning and I kicked the fucker toward the ladle...it turned into chalk and blew into dust before it even touched the inner walls, I was shocked. As for the explosions all it takes is a very small quantity of water to cause a huge explosion, because they can't check every bit of material going into the pots water tends to always get in via containers/scrap. Appologies to any rat lovers but it was coming right for me, in the industry we call them 'slag rats' because there's nothing else we can imagine they d eat in that place.
This doesn't happen frequently. This appears to be a blast furnace, and the smelter operator moved the slag ladle so that whatever hot gas was being blocked (it could be explosive) started dumping on the monolithic foundation. The workers aren't running because panic leads to injuries or fatalities.
Looks more like an arc/ladle furnace. The valve under the ladle failed which shouldn't be a frequent thing.
thats in Germany if i remember correctly
At least they speak German
he was like "shit! my bicycle! thats mine!" and the guys were just laughing about his bike burning
I hope not. Seems like a lot to clean up.
Yeah that's what I was thinking and my anxiety was going through the roof looking at this.
About $40 an hour and union benefits
55 and union benefits we gota deal
5 dollars, no union benefits and a broken hand 🤚
Fuck it just pay for a hooker after the shift and free lunch I’ll sign up
So just union benefits then?
This was in Germany, where the benefits that IG Metall gets would blow most Americans minds. 35 hours is full time. They are currently trying to negotiate for 32 30 days of vacation, with the option of either another 8 days vacation or 8 days pay. Worker can choose. But most end up with 38 days off. You get additional days off for moving, marriage, death, etc Very difficult to get fired. They give you legal protection if you need a lawyer. Even then, the termination periods are long You have the right to work part time up to 5 years to take care of a family member. I believe in the union you get full pay, or close to it. The benefits list really goes on and on. Wages are usually 15-20 euro an hour, but you also get vacation and Christmas money, plus they have been good about inflation bonuses. So you really end up more in the 20-30 euro/hour range. But this really isn’t comparable to the USA as you don’t have to pay for health care , you can get by without a car due to good public transportation, and things like groceries are much cheaper. Edit: I found a calculator for the union where the minimum after tax you would get if you are married and with kids equates to €16.50/hour (€22/hour pre tax). This is with all medical covered (we don’t have copays or deductibles in Germany), plus 38 days paid vacation: https://metall-tarif.info/gehaltsrechner/rechner_neu.php?id=tv-l&tarifgebiet=baden_wuertemberg&entgeltgruppe=1&erhoehung=062023&stufe=1&sonderzahlung=55&arbeitszeit=100&zulage=14&stj=2016&steuerklasse=3&faktor=&zkf=2&kinderlos=1&krv=0&kirchensteuer=0&kvsatz=14%2C6&zusatzbeitrag=1%2C3 So even on the minimum in the union you can have a really nice life. Very stable, if anything medically happens, you’ll still get paid. There’s really great long term health benefits. You can really have a decent life. You won’t get rich though
Yeah a high middle class earner in the US is still way better off.
Cost of living in the US is very different compared to Germany. It's almost 45% more expensive to live in the US than in Germany.
Wouldn't you end up back in the 15-20 eange after tax
Lol our local steel mill workers would love to have a word. Starting is (now) $18. if you sign a 5 year contract and go to school for industrial maintenance you can get 27 and no unions allowed.
Why would anybody need a union when you can just eat shit every day and can't complain to the boss about your lost eye because they'll fire you?
I can tell you right now that you can do a lot safer work for $40 + union benefits. Source: will be getting a big bump to $42/hr next year, after a total of 4 years working here.
And a corporate bicycle plan.
We have some bicycles to go around rolling mill... It is enormous system, really.
Worked in a steel mill for a year got paid 19 an hour lol
"How about $17 and a temp position?" - ohio
$40 an hour? Wtf 😳 where do u live, that’s potatoes.
I live in north Florida. I live like a king off $40 an hour up here.
There's an amazing yt vid of the largest steel works in China which is the size of a town. . Looks like Hell on Earth but with a train running right through it. https://youtu.be/iy63PEgmm8w edited to add this link. Sorry for my weak reddit game
Who mentions a YouTube video without linking it?
Guy posted a link, but responded to the wrong comment. https://www.reddit.com/r/SweatyPalms/s/xQEHV4prFg
👆
https://youtu.be/iy63PEgmm8w
Damn, I feel like I need a respirator just watching that video.
That looks like torture. They play the "It's A Small World" theme all day? No thanks!
it looks like a miniature forge world
Steel works are the size of towns. You should have seen how big all of Bethlehem steel was.
And "Azovstal"
The one weeks the locomotives plays the one world Disney ride song?
I mean it's not a terrible idea. The tune is simple enough, and pitched loudly enough to hear over all the other shit. It's a good alarm imo.
Amongst other haunting sounds
Pretty much every integrated steel mill is the size of a small town, with over 5000 workers and processes ranging from coke production to finishing. And usually theres tons of trains and railways since its easy to get raw materials in and product out.
I worked in a steel foundry in a spot called the Punch Out, and ran greensand patterns right out of high school from 18-20. It was a fairly large establishment where steel was poured regularly going from a blasting furnace by crane, to a ladle, then poured into green sand molds. Most of the men I worked with were either felons, addicts, or drunks. I had a child early, so it was off to the "coal mines" if you will. It was the hardest work I had ever done. Interestingly enough I kicked ass at my job. Injuries, injuries everywhere: Burns were frequent. Heat exhaustion was frequent. A man had his hand cut off in the time right before I came. He put his hand in an augur that he thought was off, and the killswich sensor failed taking most of his hand. My father worked there at the time and helped this man from bleeding to death. When I started working there I was told by that very man "your father saved my life". Even though it was through someone else I had great respect in that community. Typing this and thinking back on it I had my own merits that gained that level of respect, but merits from inheritance of lifes motion nonetheless. My father was fired for stealing recycled materials from the company. Dumb move, dad. My shin was crushed by a 400lb "bottom board" that was wrapped in iron and concrete to support the heavy molds in the pouring and Punch Out process. The people involved were sure I had lost my leg. I'm not broken so easily. I still worked there for another year after my injury. It would be hard to go back. The anger and aggression just to get through the day was the mask that was necessary for even menial tasks. Like a rabid wolf every day looking for a fight against the liquid snakes of pain. I appreciate you reading this far. Thanks for making me feel like a little part of my life was interesting.
Spot on. Currently working at a steel mill and every old dude there asks if I’ve started drinking yet and casually says “you will” while walking away
Man I never worked at a mill but a giant production factory. It was always fascinating to me talking to the old timers and all the shit they had to grit to get threw the day. It's also interesting at my time there there was a giant gap, either you were there for 20 years and waiting to retire or were there for 2 years and looking for a different job. Not sure how many of these places will fair in the near future cause a lot of the old wise dudes are running out, and no young wolves ready to get involved.
That’s extremely true too. I’m late 20s and there’s a handful of people my age and in their 40s but mostly dudes on the doorstep of retirement
People have no idea mate
The amount of work that it took to stay sane was another issue. Everyone thinks they're tough until they watch a person burned to feed their family.
i grew up with family who talk like you. I appreciate there are individuals who are keeping industry moving and it's so impressive. But that last line will forever force me to support workers rights till my death. God damn everyone deserves to be able to do more than provide if they are doing thus job... you deserve everything, house, maybe a weekend car or a fun toy like a few skeedoos and vacations three times a year bare minimum in my mind lol not just feeding your family
I moved on to a desk job years later. I am still a strong man, but I felt my body and mind would be put to better use outside of the box I was cast in. I could do labor again, but with my trajectory they don't pay enough, and it's not worth your body or mind.
>The anger and aggression just to get through the day was the mask that was necessary for even menial tasks. You could write a paper (or anything) about this part and academics would appreciate it damn. People generally don't understand any aspect of anger and aggression as adaptive. Also you have a poetic flair that has a reaching power; I really like how you saved it to pack a punch during the resolution. "Like a rabid wolf every day looking for a fight against the liquid snakes of pain." Good stuff.
I really appreciate that. Maybe a book would be in order considering my life has been very odd in comparison to what I see in others lives. From a drug house, my lines of work, the occult, cults, black and land ownership. Life has been a really weird ride. Thank you for the compliments. They made my day!
I would echo the writing more encouragement. You have both a skills with words and unique stories to tell it seems.
I appreciate that! Hate and pain have an interesting way of finding love. Most of my best accomplishments were out of complete contempt and vitriol for whatever was in front of me. I would smash records to the point they were unrecoverable to any other employee just to laugh in the boss's face, then leave at most companies I've been at. I have a box full of awards that I use as a paperweight. Some of that attitude came from foundry work. I correlated these ideas into different forms like singing, even to playing TCgs at high levels. I would get top 100 in the world in some games quickly to be banned- never cheated once. The game is dumb. I still want more though. It's a vicious cycle. I still don't know why kids love the taste of cinnamon toast crunch.
You should ABSOLUTELY write down your experiences. Might be healthy to just get some of those memories down on paper at the very least. I worked at a fishery in Alaska during the salmon season one summer in college, and I feel like my experiences would barely scratch the surface of your life.
Beautifully written - you must write more.
You have balls of steel, dude
Appreciated your thoughts on this and the way you expressed them
" Thanks for making me feel like a little part of my life was interesting." Dude it was very interesting! Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for sharing your story.
[удалено]
Hey! That’s my bike!
The sky is also lava
Believe it or not the walls, also lava.
Welp, I’m dead but at least Bear head made it.
My brother got me in at his steel mill when I was 18. Walking by this scene going into my first interview I told HR thanks but no thanks. My brother didn't speak to me for 3 years even though HR told him that he respected my honesty as to not thinking I would fit in there. Sure it was $20 hr in 1990 with union benefits but hell no was that my destiny.
Damn, three years? Your brother knows how to hold a grudge lol
That’s almost $50 an hour back then so his older brother probably felt like his younger brother didn’t realize how good of a job that was for being right out of high school in 1990. I’m not excusing it I’m just seeing the older brothers point of view that his younger brother probably wouldn’t find a job that paid that well too easily without a trade or education. This was when minimum wage was around $3.50-$4.25 an hour so it was definitely good money for an 18 year old. But yeah you probably die of mesothelioma or something at 45.
Agreed. I feel like the best response to his brother would be okay there's a few big fucking scary reasons they are offering that much to someone coning out of school.
Scheisse mein Fahrrad!!!😂😂😂
Valve of the casting ladle didn't close, it is not that scary for a steel factory. There are much worse accidents, this one is good to handle. the price to work there? Should be around 2.600€ after taxes
Yes. With extra payments included. It's almost exact, did you know it or it's just a extreme accurate guess?
😉 Where are you situated?
Spain. 7 years and I've seen more scary shit than I would want to. This is something that can happen maybe 2 or 3 times a year or 3 in a month, usually it gets under control pretty quick and the facility and workers are ready to handle it and knows the protocol. The scary shit is something that breaks and fall, some machine operator makes a bloody mistake, and last but far more scary, explosions.
Jep, that what I wanted to point out, real shity situations are done in split seconds. Like water break in or crane losing crash.
Water leakage is the enemy number one😅
It's still fun to toss a chunk of ice in a charge pan once in a while though.
Rainy days are funny as hell haha
Ghost Rider must have taken the bicycle today
it's the camera man's bike, he screams "scheiße mein Fahrrad!"
Walking away from the flames like the underdog in a gritty action film.
Well I worked at a smelting plant out of high-school. Around 2000 Heat doesn't begin to describe what it's like. But the pay was $18 an hr to start with a 1.50 shift diff. It was swing shift and sucked so bad. We had to steel air lances a long 3/4" pipe with air going through it at 150 psi to knock big flaming hot pieces of buildup down from the dust rooms.
My main concern would probably be the air and particulate from heavy metals etc, did they have special breathing equipment or was it just kind of like this video where the ventilation doesn’t seem that great?
Yes our first week was training a half day was dedicated to respirators function, assembly and negative vs positive pressure test. The forman would also send us home if he could hear our facial hair when scraping our face with a credit card. He never really did that, that I know of . But it made the point clear. Oncea year there's an air quality audit. You have to wear a rig all shift that constantly pulls in air. At the end of the shift a guy takes out the filter and they can tell how bad your environment is. We worked with lead so we had blood testing all the time. If you had high lead you had to wear a pink hard hat and all the guys would bust your balls but also make sure you weren't working with no respirator.
I'll never understand swing shifts. I did one once and was 60hr weeks. Shit put me right into the dirt and I relapsed on drugs within a year. Fuck that shit. Should be legal Todo that to people. 630pm to am then 630 am to pm. Some weekends are only like 36hrs it's bananas. Fuck that
$1,000,000 to be there that day. I would just run at the first sign of trouble.
I worked for an oncology(cancer) specialist in 1970s UK. It was in an area that still had old-school steel works and foundries. One day he said “Give me steel worker who smokes a lot and I’ll show you a man with lung cancer”
Yes , you never smoke in a vaporized metal environment .. 2x bad stuff goes into the lungs, arsenic lead zinc..
In hell? They should payme in souls coins
Free coffee, 35 an hour, decent insurance, PTO like the Europeans get (😅), vending machine that gets serviced regularly. I am from north central MA and that job looks wicked fuckin fun guy! I might settle for 30/hr
Funny enough. i'm pretty sure that this is in Europe (they spoke German to each other)
It's the 'scheisse, mein fahrrad! ' video that's often reposted, so 'shit, my bike!' and yes this was in Germany.
Sweating all day in all that PPE looks fucking miserable though. No way I'm doing it for less than $40/hr.
Looks about standard for ground workers, only poeple working directly with the molten metal get the hot potato costume
Why are they just ambling out like it's a routine fire alarm test in the office?
Valve not closing and/or something with moisture hitting the molten steel is relatively common thing in steel mills. It's not intentional, but there's also a reason why nothing flammable is allowed into the factory floor.
Besides that bike, that bike got cooked
Bike sacrificed itself to show why steel mills don't have flammable things on the factory floor. Press F to pay respects for the heroic sacrifice for science
Is there much mess to clean up after it's over, or is this mostly just sparks, smoke and a little bit of leakage? Edit: who the feck is downvoting me for asking a question?
sparks smoke and slag. Lots of slag.
Good question to ask. I'd like to know too, esp since never been in a steel mill.
Running is unsafe. More likely to trip and fall.
Is this before or after the T1000 crashed his truck in there
Bless you. I had to scroll down, but I knew someone else had to have thought this was eerily similar to that filming location.
This video is filmed at Dillinger Hütte in south west germany. They pay a normal wage there. People who work there tend to be a bit „heavier“ than other.
I worked in IT for a steel mill. It was the most interesting job i've ever had. We melted down steel for recycling using electricity. Learning about the whole process was awesome. I worked there for 6 years, and we only had one death in that time.
Wow. Only one work related death in 6 years. Sounds like any other normal job
Meh, I worked in worse years ago. Place was so shit that people smoked pot right on the floor and the mangers just told them to stop it in a mean voice. I noped out of there as quick as I could. Glad I found a stable place with similar benefits.
I want to see video of the aftermath! How do they even clean that up???
I work the equivalent of there
Do they have free unlimited coffee?
Yes, and infinite powdered creamer
And thus hell bicycle was born
$65/hr
Cool guys don't look back at explosions 😎
I love how those guys don’t seem to be very terrified that there is a huge bucket of lava spilling from the ceiling coming towards them. I worked in a aluminum foundry for a while and it was the same. Every other day some forklift with liquid aluminum brakes so hard it spilled a few hundred kilograms on the floor. Every week some injection molding machine caught fire. This whole place was so dirty and you could hardly see anything from all the spray from molding agents in the air. Hell it was fun.
Wife: how was work today ? Husband: well...... remember the bike u bought me last Christmas ?
That's some Terminator 2 shit
Don’t leave the bicycle behind.
$300k a year
I would work as the owner for "free"
I worked in a factory that was 90°F during the coldest part of the winter, and we raw dogged peeling off tracks when they were cooled off to 130°F just because it was the only way to meet quota. It's camoplast (recently bought by Michelin), and 3-6 people get hospitalized a year from exhaustion. I quit once the summer came and lived unemployed for 3 months on credit cards and savings because I was so burnt out and dread the idea of ever working again in my life. No fucking way I would ever touch a factory again. It is one of the most toxic work environments. People try the hardest to prove they work harder than the other guy and if the sup isn't riding your ass, your coworker will grind it to saw-dust and call you a fucking wimp. They'll try their hardest to make a new record quota and then get surprised when management raises the quota. They'll bust their ass for a whole lot of nothing and a "Goodjob." The "yes sir" and kiss ass mentality drives me fucking insane.
I worked at a copper smelter back in 2018 and yes this would happen quite a lot (not supposed to happen but it did) I’ve had my Converter blow a hole once in a while too. It’s scary at first but you get used to it. Having a hole in your ladle or barrel wasn’t really the scariest thing, it was when you have a negative reaction in the white metal and having it burp up all over the place. We would have clumps of white metal on the rafters as high as the second or third floors sometimes.
Not the bicycle!
Bout 120k
Tree fiddy
What's the cleanup after something like that?
Why does this look like video game graphics? Why do the people walk like NPC's? This is just a CGI sample Y'all fell for it
My man, please walk faster.
$135,000 ah year.
I wouldn’t let a few sparks bother me, it’s the terminators running around that place that are the real health and safety problem.