Hit 8,000 hours logged in my field book last month and it stopped me cold

I was just flipping through my old field books to look up a job from two summers ago and noticed I hit 8,000 hours of actual boiler work since I started keeping records. That number surprised me because it feels like just yesterday I was the green helper tripping over hoses on the first shipyard job down in Norfolk. 8,000 hours means I have spent roughly 333 full days standing next to hot iron and steam drums. Most of that is on watertube boilers, but I have done my share of firetube work too. I started tracking hours because an old foreman told me to, and now I cannot stop. Does anybody else keep a running tally like this, or do you just let the pay stubs tell the story?

2 comments

2 Comments

knight.xena1mo ago

My buddy who works at Con Edison mentioned that they log hours like this for the boiler operators and said hitting 10,000 is when a lot of them get their senior certs. That number is a solid milestone for sure.

the_mia1mo ago

8,000 hours huh, that's like waking up every day and choosing violence against scale and soot for a full year straight with no weekends off. I half expected you to say you hit that number and the boiler itself gave you a slow clap through the steam drum. Pay stubs tell the story of what you got paid, field books tell the story of what you actually survived.