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Being a Health Physics Technician (HPT) is a gypsy life style. About every 16 to 18 months, nuclear containment buildings across the United States are cracked open to replace spent fuel rods and to fix whatever atrophied during that time the nuclear reactor was running. This could encompass locating potential radioactive hot spots, repainting surfaces, replacing hot valves, and welding leaks.
The good thing is that there are currently about 104 commercially operated power plants at 64 sites and 34 research reactors present at some universities across the United States. They all don’t go down for repair, decon, and refueling, at the same time, so when your 6 to 8 week contract is complete at one facility, there’s always another reactor to re-locate to. You’re always on the move; you are always looking for new work.
You make a lot of friends along the way (and enemies too) during the course of the contract. Then on the road again to find another available contract which could be anywhere in any state. I did this work for a year and a half, met hundreds of people along the way, but only ran into a handful of people I had worked with before.
That part of the business is sad and lonely. You make friends, and then say good bye knowing you’ll probably never see them again. But the money pretty much made up for it.
When you do apply for a new gig at a new facility, at least three things occur: Your work history is verified, your accumulative dose is scrutinized, and you have to provide a urine sample so they can test for drugs. There might even be a pop quiz.
This pop quiz is called “The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory” (MMPI). You would have had to take this test before your first nuke gig, but the powers that be at some sites throw one in there periodically just to re-check your mental stability.
The MMPI is a personality test that measures one’s mental health, personality structure, and psychopathology. It’s been revised several times since my day, but I’m sure the latest and greatest is pretty close to the one I took.
The test consists of about 550 questions that measure: Hypochondriasis, Depression, Hysteria, Psychopathic Deviate, Masculinity/Femininity, Paranoia, Psychasthenia, Schizophrenia, Hypomania, and Social Introversion.
I’ve taken this test several times, and I still don’t understand how they can grock your personality and mental state by asking questions like: “I like mechanics magazines”, “I like to read newspaper articles on crime”, “My father was a good man”, “I am very seldom troubled by constipation”, “My soul sometimes leaves my body”, and the ever popular “Evil spirits possess me at times”. But it is the standard they go by.
OK, back to the piss. If there are non-prescribed drugs in your urine, you are an immediate “no hire” and that information goes into your work history and you’d probably never work on a nuke site ever again. I guess they don’t want you high or drunk while playing with nuclear stuff.
But, people do like to do their drugs, so they find a workaround. The most popular is to obtain a clean sample from someone that doesn’t do drugs and sneak it in the bathroom with the piss cup. When you return to the nurse with the sample, they take its temperature to verify that it came out of you. It’s easy to cheat here too. Put the sample in a zip lock bag and either tape it to you abdomen or carry it around in your underwear for a while to heat it up to your core body temperature.
Where do you obtain clean urine if you have drugs in your system? You go to a “provider”.
I couldn’t believe it when I found out that there were people out on job sites selling 2 ounces of their own piss for 50 to $75 – and people were buying it!
There was one guy I knew that failed the urinalysis not due to drugs in the sample, but that the sample he provided was from a woman who was pregnant and didn’t know it! Men generally don’t have placental glycoprotein in their urine!
On one job, I was working for a contractor called Scope at Duke Power in North Carolina. Pretty much all of them were partiers. Mostly alcohol, lots of weed, and a little coke. Nothing too out of control, just some people blowing off some steam after a 12 hour shift at the local bar mostly. The bar would open at 5 in the morning for the guys that worked the night shift. I always worked the night shift when I could. I was always more alert and sharp when the sun went down and there’s nothing like getting a buzz on watching the sun come up.
One weekend there was a Scope company party (not sponsored by the company) that for whatever reason I wasn’t able to make.
But the next day I heard about the shenanigans and boyish hijinks that ensued. It was one hell of a good time! Booze fueled skinny dipping included by some of the hot girls to boot. Damn, I wished I would have made it.
Come Monday morning, I walked up the security desk to get may badge, and it was gone. I looked a little closer and noticed that all Scope contractor badges were gone. I asked the guard why all the Scope ID badges were missing.
“I guess you guys had one hell of a party Saturday night. Rumor has it that there were a lot of drugs consumed and Duke Power wants all Scope employees to take a urinalysis in order to keep their contract. Go see the site nurse.”
I showed up at the nurses’ station and I said I worked for Scope. The nurse handed me a sample cup and pointed toward the bathroom. She then said, “You know, you really don’t have to do this. You can just quit now, because if you test positive, you’ll not only be fired, but you’ll never set foot on reactor property anywhere in this country.”
I didn’t understand what she meant at the time, so I just grabbed the cup and headed to the bathroom.
After I returned with the sample, she said “Go back to the guard station in a week to see if your badge is there. Good luck!”
A week went by and my badge was there. I asked the guard to hand me my badge.
He was in complete shock when he compared the picture on my badge to my face and uttered, “Well I’ll be damned.”
I took my badge from him and headed off to the Scope break area. When I walked in, there was only about 20 (out of 70) Scope people there. My manager asked, “How did you beat the UA test?” I replied, “I don’t do drugs.” I guess I looked like the type of guy that did.
That’s when I understood why the nurse said I didn’t have to provide a sample. I looked like a druggie. They gave everybody a choice. If you were taking drugs, they would let you quit rather than fail the test and never work in that field again. More than 60 percent of the Scope crew either failed the test or didn’t take it and just quit.
I'm hooked on etymology, folklore, writing, live music, and making movies. I jam the axe and I'm currently learning how to beat the skins. I write cool software and meaningful screenplays.
I like to drive fast with the top down in the rain with the music cranked.
My tastes in TV, music, film, and literature are broad but obscure. I keep a journal, write screenplays, compose music, take many pictures, and create software.
When camping at night, you can find me staring into the campfire either playing the guitar or telling a spooky story under the moonlight. I love thunder storms, Friday is my favorite day and my favorite number is 9. 
