(a little bit of)
ˆ
All Work and No Play
breaks the ir hard work, but nothing the for n ow kn e ar es ye AEC emplo ind like a few laughs. monotony of the daily gr or those with en now), new employees ev s ap rh pe d (an y da which Back in the nicknames, the origins of rn ea to ely lik re we bit a particular ha Ginzelle, Handsome There’s Paranoid Floyd, . es jok ide ins m fro me ca me a few. y, Cholly and Bone, to na gm Py o, tto Ta a, bb Bu Harold, culture. Some of the a part of the AEC work en be o als ve ha ks an Pr Howard, retired rdous, like the time John za ha ht rig wn do re we ting in jokes n, found an employee sit tio uc od Pr r we Po of nt Vice Preside -flops on top of a Hawaiian shirt and flip his lawn chair dressed in es, they’d grease er—grilling out. Other tim tow ng oli co an wm Lo ver was the ough vents so that whoe thr e ok sm w blo or les door hand y had burned it uipment would think the working on a piece of eq up. “It was all good wer Plant Manager, said, Po an wm Lo d ire ret t, As Henry Ot worked to death.” aven knows we were all camaraderie because he y conscious. de everyone more safet ma s ure ed oc pr y fet sa n in Thankfully, the evolutio se at work! the try Of course: don’t
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AEC employees also mixed fun with philanthropic efforts. Here, Ray Clausen participates in a dunking booth fund raiser.
“Charlie Hunt, one of the original operators who started the plant, was known as the ‘Turbine Room Chef.’ He would bring hamburger and potatoes wrapped in foil, and he knew just what part of the turbine to sit it on so that it would be ready to eat by lunch. I’d fix myself a cheese sandwich and put it in the coal drying oven when I got to work, and by noon that cheese would be melted just perfect.”
“I would make sandwiches out of leather gasket material because it looked just like bologna. I’d switch it out in someone’s lunch box, and they’d never know the difference until they bit into it! Another thing, we’d put oil underneath somebody’s car three or four days in a row and the first thing you know during lunch, they’d be out there looking at that oil.”
Barbara Whitehead Retired Lowman Power Plant Secretary
Henry Ott Retired Lowman Power Plant Manager