Just finished my 47th commercial panel swap this morning and it hit me different

I always thought big numbers like that would feel routine, but that one actually made me stop and realize how many scary high-voltage jobs I've done without incident, anyone else get thrown off when they add up their totals?

3 comments

3 Comments

keithbutler1mo ago

47 in a morning is nothing to sneeze at, faith_carter, but I gotta ask - what's the real difference between that number and 63? Is it just a matter of who's counting or what's at stake? I hear what @scott.jana is saying about it being just a number, but I think he's missing the point a little. It's not the count itself, it's the moment you realize you've been doing something dangerous long enough to lose track of how many times you've done it. That feeling when it finally hits you, you know? Like, I've been up on ladders with live wires more times than I can remember, and one day you just stop and think, "huh, that's a lot of near misses I didn't even notice." So yeah, 47 is a number, but it's also a marker of how much risk you've managed to walk away from without thinking twice.

scott.jana2mo ago

Is 47 even that many though? I've seen sparkys brag about tripling that before lunch and they treat it like changing a lightbulb. Doesn't sound like this one went wrong either, so what's the big deal? Feels more like you're hunting for meaning in a number that's just a number.

faith_carter2mo ago

Right! I totally get what you're saying! 47 is like a slow Tuesday for half the folks I know who do this work. My buddy Mark did 63 before noon once and didn't even mention it until I asked why he was so tired. Honestly people get worked up over numbers that don't mean much in the real world. It's like counting steps in a race nobody signed up for. So yeah, I'm with you on this one, it's just a number and not even a big one at that.