Floyd Baker

all right welcome back to another episode of out on the road podcast i'm your host ty linker as always today's episode is brought to you by slickman welding apparel um if you don't know it's four years now nate makes the best gloves on the market they're soon to be american-made gloves uh that seems to be something that a lot of people uh kind of pitch a fit about but they're going to be american-made uh hopefully in texas i think some of them may may eventually be made in mexico that's slickmanweldingapparel.com for all your gloves you find it tiktok instagram facebook it's everywhere um also brought to you by woe bros woe bros.us chris makes the fr shirt that i wear day in and day out they're uh they're not too heavy they hold up well with starch all that business um he's got the hoods he's got the mashup gloves with slickman if you want a pair of the duck camo gloves he has them that's slickman or that's woe bros.us um also brought to you by southern leatherworks andrew sent me a hood i've been on this tig job using it every day it's a chop down jackson it's got the fancy leather on it all that stuff it's a great it's a great investment piece in your arsenal to have an extra hood outside of just wearing pancakes every day also brought to you by pearl snap pimps johnny all your uh logo fancy uh graphic t-shirts for welding all right he's also gotten to the to the uh fr long sleeve fr um fr uh shirts now i don't think he can call himself pearl snap pimps with it out eventually moving into the to the pearl snap fr shirt they are freaking badass patterns looking forward to when mine get here or when i get home so i'll have mine where i can wear them all right um tnm welding supply towson mary's got all your quality welding products for the day in and day out rig welder all right they're drop shipped anywhere in the country you can call them on the phone you don't get some yahoo you get somebody in the family at tnm that cares about having your business all right and they have everything from rollout wheels jack stands the slickman welding gloves uh arc one single lenses facing wedges facing bands anything you want they have it there all right today we're going to be talking about the tnm welding supply i am joined by the one and only floyd baker floyd's doing a little bit of driving so it'll be the tyler blanchard style podcast uh tyler drove during his another day it was he was in like north dakota i think and it was it was uh it worked out great you know for him so yeah my pool so floyd how long have you been what all right let's start with this how old are you floyd 42 42 old yeah i don't look at 42 as old as i used to consider i'm 36 um how long have you been welding i broke out in 2010 first 2010 it's a hot minute you know was that was that 26 years almost is that right i don't know 2010 is 16 years 16 years what i'm like it's gonna be a long day my math is terrible today my math ain't mathing today i didn't even stay up late last night like i got a good night's rest because i knew i had four podcasts recorded today so i was trying to you know be firing on all cylinders but it's a long week up here it's texas last night i'm not back tonight yeah i don't miss it where are you from at in texas we can drop that cleveland cleveland texas maybe higher north of houston no this this may be the first sunday that i've recorded strictly with texas people you know everybody on the podcast today is all from texas and and uh i'm pretty sure every one of them's from east texas um cameron he's from uh liberty texas i know kind of that yeah he lives about 30 minutes from him yep that's who i that's who i just got off the uh podcast with you know like are you i've been recording with a lot of people that are you know social media famous or whatever but i wanted to get back to the true roots of what i used to do and just record with all the welders that i could get on you know i could encase their stories is what i wanted you know why you got into it and all that stuff so let's with that being said what got you into welding floyd well i welded a bunch coming up you know my grandpa was a rig welder from back in the 70s up to the early 90s and my granddad was a like a plant welder and i welded in shops and stuff growing up and then uh you know a buddy that he was building a sand plant to be honest it wasn't even a pipeline or nothing like that wasn't station work and he was a rig welder contract and i threw a truck together and went to work and i was there probably six months and building a sand plant making good money and uh it come to the end of that because i didn't know how this shit works you know i'm saying i was new in it i didn't realize that there's an end to the job it's not you know and that guy let us know when i started making phone calls i had a buddy he was in pampa texas working for uh holland they were structural welding some of my buddies were and i called him up i was like hey man i'm supposed to be done here y'all need and uh lonnie swan he said uh he said we don't need no structural we need pipe welders can you weld pipe i never missed a beat i said yes i can he said all right then i'll set you up a test i ain't never put a bead in a piece of pipe i didn't even know what two whole pins were yeah hell yeah a pity me or fake it till you make it so called my brother i said hey quit your job you're coming to help me we're going to north texas as well he said okay drove up there and uh made my test as a two-inch monster for a holloman job b-31-3 job and uh got out there and man they just showed me what i needed to know and i've been i've been at it ever since i know lonnie swan he's a good motherfucker that's a welding son of a bitch lonnie's good people known him for i don't it's crazy how many how many people's stories start with holloman it's like all of us seem to broke out around holloman you know first three years you know i worked pretty much two or three years in the middle of probably my second to fifth year of welding was a lot to do with holloman you know we laid the big ozonal line and i worked for tommy and uh miller out in west texas some you know uh yeah it's crazy because i i talked to so many people they're like yeah you know i was at holloman i'm like damn it's great huge yeah now you think about him you hardly ever i mean cameron's working for holloman right now and i got declan he's working for holloman but like they used to be massive and then they just covered it and they dried up you know i've been ever since man worked for holloman for a few years opportunity to go on the pipeline on a mainline and again i got your call from a guy super t said hey i was told to call you you're a beat hand yep never been on pipeline i said yeah he said you come highly recommended can you be here blah blah it was in pennsylvania for 12 minutes line like five miles 12 inch sure enough showed up and i was uh philip snow was there uh the snowman he was running beats too and that's the first time i met him and we got out there man we got running beads and about four days into it he kept saying like man you're i can't believe how fast you are keeping i was like philip you're not gonna believe this i'm hung over and it's the first time i've ever run beats he said what i said yeah for some reason he thought i was a beating hand so i thought him i was now been run beats almost every job i've been on the scene i've been running beats i've been snatched right um what okay before we get too far away from the beginning of your career here what is some advice that you have for that little time period you know the going into holloman and all that i think the best thing i can say especially for some of these younger guys starting there's a big issue with guys that just they learn how to make a 12-inch well and they just go and break out and they just try to go they just they don't really know much if i can give any advice because i didn't know nothing when i started but i paid attention learn some stuff before you put your name out there because when you leave that job you're leaving that job with either a mark on the good or a mark on the bad you know what i mean so if i had any advice to give the younger guys learn some stuff learn a little bit before you just go put your name out there and then you get on a job and you can't do nothing but well i don't think that the the that people come into this knowing how small of a circle it truly is amongst rig welders there's not one phone call i can't make to another guy to find out what i want to find out about another guy because we all know each other one way we may not personally know each other but we know we have plenty of mutual friends that know this guy or that guy or so forth that company you know it's i don't think people realize how small the welding community is especially poplining you know yeah everybody knows everybody like i said you know somebody that knows somebody or you know that person personally but you can find out you you can get you can get the download on their name within 10 minutes with a few phone calls you know easy easy that's got me that that's got me a few jobs i've talked to well bosses that didn't know me and they'll ask you where i'm from and ask you know and i'll know somebody yeah i know barry hill and he'll hang a phone up he'll call barry hill and he'll tell him yeah how are you that's a hand and he'll call me back all right well i talked to a few guys man uh go ahead and be here you know it's got me jobs like that you know yeah like i i remember when i first broke out i remember um god frankie casanova at pumpco i called him and i was like um i was like hey this is ty linker and he said who i said ty linker and he was like well i don't know you i said well we don't know each other can you give me a test and he said all right come on with it and i went and tested in for him dude it was that motherfucker's drugging me but i didn't complain you know i just and they didn't complain you know like i mean they just he freaking was like you know you need to do that tighten up here tighten up there you know and the way we went you know and he was like one day he comes to me and he was like i don't think uh you're built for the firing line how did you ever hop past i was like nope he's like well that's where i'm gonna put you at we gonna learn today and that's where we went to you know and it kind of just that kind of slung shot my career you know because it didn't have to be like that you know he had a stable of good welders you know but i guess my little bit of uh my little bit of you know try or talk to you about that or whatever and the way we went i'd only ever really welded for crossfire in new mexico rentals at this time you know like little compared to pumpko they was nothing on the map you know yeah but it was a uh it was a great experience you know and that you know then that got me in with holloman you know uh tommy bunnick and all them and kind of progressed it even further but uh it's great it's it's crazy how it just can happen or not happen you know sometimes i get messages you know about well i'm trying to break out and i'm like well how long have you helped you know and they're like well i've been helping three or four months you know i went to welding school here you know that stuff is hard like it doesn't matter that you went to welding school to to the rig welder you know it's it's about what you can do for them you know like come in and just pretend like you don't know shit you know i i love green helpers you know a lot i see these posts on facebook all the time or snapchat and it pisses me off because we was all green at one time or another and somebody gave us a shot you know start somewhere yeah like work the kid for a couple weeks you know see the kind of mentality he's got and then go from there you know you don't know you may be making the next john brooks you know or art parker reese like well you never know what what that kid's potential is be honest now those don't take what you get because i think the quality of hands nowadays is not what it used to be right especially in helpers man they're the helper world now is a bunch of they're they're some of those kids coming up that are entitled you know what they growed up with feelings and they're all entitled and they think their opinion matters and it's not like i don't ever i'm never i treat my helper like a grown man i never discredit him i don't i mean i treat this and it's just like i would a welder but at the same time don't act too good to do something or don't pop your collar and sit in the truck or just or be on your phone or get mad because i get on to you about something i can't tell you how many times in the last two years i have heard drug up on me because i got on their ass about something you know what i mean and i don't mean holler and cuss them but i get on their ass and they can't take it so nowadays even a green helper you might as well try him out and see if you can shape him shape him to what you want you know what i mean like when i when i went to go help hillbilly uh down in corpus christi he had just run off a helper that like they had a huge falling out like and he's a big biker looking motherfucker you know kind of intimidating guy to be around you know he's ex-military he's pretty pretty direct and uh but i didn't you know kind of um i'm not saying that he didn't intimidate because he damn sure did but i remember i remember uh coming out that we was welding 48 inch style well he was welding 48 inch thousand wall i remember coming out with that grinder and it's saying you know across that pop and hillbilly didn't holler and he didn't cuss at me he just come over there and he said how many miles do you got to feed i said i don't know three or four you know he said i got seven not counting myself he said you do that again they're gonna run us off keep that fucking grinder in the bevel i said you bet you know it's just uh and when like i would go over to his house and practice like he didn't come out there and be like oh you're doing so great you know like i don't know that he ever even looked at my welds for weeks you know i i think he was he was sneaking out there after i left to go back to my camper and looking at him you know but he didn't ever say you know i don't know and i just try to always have that same mentality like i'm not saying that i ain't hard on fucking helpers because i am hard on them but it's because i expect the best out of everybody i'm trying to give the best why i can only do my best if you're giving your best you know because you're a team effort you know exactly my son-in-law he's been helping me five six months now at first i was rough on him because he had that mentality you know he just kind of didn't take not no sense of emergency didn't pay attention he's always thinking about dumb shit so he don't gather nothing in his head and i just kept on kept on in it and you could tell i hurt his feelings sometimes i'm like hey man leave your feelings at the gate i said if i get on your ass instead of getting pissy about it go hey you know what i'm just not gonna do that again or i'm gonna pay attention that way he don't get on my ass again and he's shaped up man he's come out to be a really good hand uh i'm not gonna do that again i might even let him marry my daughter i guess now but he he uh but he's wanting to break out and i'm showing him the same thing he's like you know come out here well i said you go well you watch me well all day i said go well i said then floor at me i'll come look at it but you need to figure your your own you need to figure your out your way out like you figure out how to make it look just like mine i'll show you the basics and they don't i said it takes work welding i said put that in your hand every day put this thing in your hand you know and then towards the end you know when you get close to breaking out yeah we'll go out there and do some polishing you know i've i've been fortunate enough to break out six or seven helpers you know that are all welders and you know once we get to that point then we'll do the finer things you know to get you dialed in but you got to build your own you got to learn how to make mistakes and how to fix them mistakes because i can't you know you if we sit out there and do that i'm gonna have to it'll be a 24-hour course because i make plenty of fucking mistakes you know like you got to build your own method oh yeah you got to get that dry and like you said this entitlement that we're dealing with right now because somebody's mama sat here and told them their whole life how special they are their daddies you know if their daddy's around i've told them how special that they are and babied them and cuddled them you know you was you was an athlete in high school well this ain't athlete shit out here this is grown man shit you know you you know it's yeah it's it's nothing matters from that day forward it's about what you can give every single day you know it and i and i think kids forget that this is not this is not a sixty or seventy thousand dollar year job this is this is a 200 year or 200 000 plus year job and you can learn that skill from guys that are making that money if you you know if you take the notion to do it it's this girl it's grown man money a lot of these guys nowadays they come in and they want the percent they like the thought of being a welder but they really don't they don't come in the game to make a name they just get along enough to drive around town in a welding truck and it follows them you know i'm saying i've in the last few years i've worked with so many hands younger guys i wouldn't hire them to save my fucking soul because they're they fucking stand around and they talk shit you ain't good enough to talk shithand like it's all them younger guys collar pop and fucking you know fifteen thousand dollars and they're like you know i'm not gonna chop two hundred and i was like it's all fine slick i love them they look good but you better learn how to carry that you better match that vibe you better match that energy you know what i mean and they just it's just a lot of they're just a lot of of uh like you said there's a lot of the younger generations and i know like i said there's some good ones out there you know i mean i'm not mocking all the younger generation i know some younger cats or welders that are hands man they're fucking hands i they're good i'm not mocking all the younger generation i know some i'm working with two guys right now and they're both they're 25 maybe a little less a little more you can tell they don't know as much but they're fucking hands they work they have that drive to them you know what i mean well they want the reputation they don't just want the they want that glory and that reputation because and a lot of that goes back to what the the the men that they've been around the type of welders that they've been around when they was helpers you know like like if you're around like john brooks eric davison them guys i was a helper scott hutchins hillbilly i mean i can name a massive list of welders that i was around when i was a helper that are just they were just some dogs you know they just they could just weld flat out freaking weld and you know and then when i was a helper i would go to the campground we was out there in pecos well first i was in corpus and later i was in pecos and i remember how many helpers sunday we would we would try to gather all the bullshit coupons we could gather during the week all these helpers would and we're getting the campground out there and we're getting on sundays we you know we'd go put our clothes in the washer we'd start cleaning coupons tacking shit together and we would just weld until freaking dark every sunday it wasn't no ifs ands or buts about it and then if we didn't if one guy didn't show up because of this or whatever you know we went and got drunk saturday night and he didn't come out there until two or three o'clock we we raw dogged him for hours over you know because it wasn't just about ourselves being as good as we wanted this whole little group to all break out together you know and be as good as each other you know but people don't look at it that way anymore these kids look i mean even even welders i've been guilty of we've all been guilty of it talking talking shit without truly knowing somebody and want and maybe not wanting the best for each other you know and i've tried to change that i've been working on trying to change that whole persona you know especially with me being 798 now and the non-union welder and all that mumbo jumbo going along that it's not welder verse welder or helper verse helper we're all in this together and we shouldn't be doing whatever it takes to push each other forward you know because we're getting kind of rolled over on whether union non-union some of these contractors are still rolling over on motherfuckers and it shouldn't be that way because we the solely the only people on a job site that can do everybody else's fucking job is the is the rig welder yep so another personal job can do work yep and i learned that about my uh sixth day of welding russell shaw come out there and bulldogged an operator and said hey that little motherfucker get up there and run that but you can't do his job and i learned that pretty quick you know quick fast and in a hurry yeah it's just man it's a lot and like you say them uh it's like i've been on some jobs and there'll be some younger cats back there and they're fighting the firing line and all and there's a bunch of welder just raw dog and the fuck i'm talking shit you know and it's like motherfucker you was there at one point in time you know what i mean you've been doing it 10 years so yeah you're gonna be a little faster but that don't mean he may be a hustler he may be a man he's trying hard he just ain't getting it done as fast but that goes back to that video i made the other day about the drama there's so much drama in this industry oh my god it's like a bunch of fucking housewives of orange county like it's like women i'm not kidding the last job i was on it was about i was in a group of women and all they want to do is get in a they were like in a facebook group talking shit about everything and everybody and i was like i don't even know how you have time to fuck with that you should have your hood down motherfucker like why are you talking about some of this it's high school shit you know they run their mouth i'm just i'm real quiet dude i mean i take that i'm not a real quiet dude i run my fucking mouth sometimes i'm i like to fuck with people but i do it in like a uh genuinely nice way um everybody likes me but everybody well not everybody i promise you that but uh but at the same time you know like i also have a respect for welders you know i'm saying like but i don't know it's just i don't want to talk about shit you know what i mean i don't care that such and such uh did this or such and such said this or man i think such and such don't like you it's like jesus christ take that dumb high school shit um don't bring it out here the uh i almost quit poplining uh two years ago over the simple fact that i was tired of fucking all that shit dude like i don't give a fuck if so-and-so's doing whatever he's doing i don't give a fuck i come here to weld pipe together as fast as i possibly could oh oh he's back okay i don't know what happened the uh like i don't i didn't come here like yeah i come here to be like we're all gonna get the job done be homies hopefully you know and one thing i will never say bad about troy the the contractor troy and some of the well bosses is that they done the friday afternoon thing you know they want to cook steaks on friday and that shit was kind of i mean it was kind of a cocksuck fest but at the same time you was kind of building like a group of welders too you know what i mean like we would it wasn't no bullshit we would all drink beer and listen to the radio or kids run around play you know it was kind of building some of that camaraderie you know like yeah did i did i talk shit about it yeah i talked shit about it but but at the same time i can see why that i can see why they kind of done it too you know it was you know kind of badass to work all week you know put five together and then go over there and not worry about work and just drink beer and bullshit and let our old ladies mingle and all that stuff it was kind of fun you know but it used to be our family like yeah i'm a real popliner real popliner real pop yeah yeah i walked into an office one day for holloman and the superintendent come out there's someone's wearing a civil war hat and he said uh i'm standing my truck parked behind me he said you know a little bag of my truck i said yeah i'm the welder he said boy you're no real welder unless you got a real welder and i said yeah i'm the welder i got a couple of kids and a bunch of ex-wives i said well i got four kids and four ex-wives he said oh okay shit you are yeah yeah sure no but the um it used to be more family like i tell everybody like i got family at home but then i got my road family you know what i mean and it was like that everybody hung out everybody got along everybody took care of everybody and now it's more of a fucking dog eat dog like greedy deal you know what i'm saying like a lot of it is is a lot of guys they don't want to work hard enough to look good so they try to make other people look bad yep yep and you know where it used to be like uh if you went to a job and there was better welders than you because there's always going to be better welders than you you know you were you're trying to work towards that goal you didn't have to run your mouth and be like oh well blah blah blah you just fucking went and put your fucking hood down because the only way i've learned that you get a leg up in pipeline and truly is to keep your hood down and your ass up that's that's the only way yep that's it's got me every job i've ever had when i pull up on a job i try to be the fastest and the most productive hand there and i'm not always but i'm always when i show up at seven o'clock from seven to five i might as well be 21 years old i'm getting it right now that even i might be more than fuck out but i'm gonna i'm gonna give it 100 best job i can do and that's got me it's got me along this into this career you know and that's what i was telling my son-in-law i was like you need to pick it up look look busy do something all the way don't be one of them helpers sitting around if there ain't nothing to do don't be one of those helpers they're on their phone i said your name is all you have in this industry it'll either make you or break you you know well it's never the welder that you work for like yeah of course he works for you right but what i have always tried to preach the helpers it's not me that's gonna keep you fucking busy i'm one man so if you but if all these other welders and helpers out here see you taking the initiative and stuff they're gonna be like damn maybe you know when you're not working he needs a job you can call that guy up he doesn't see any work he's like well hell that kid's a hand you know and that'll yeah that you know to help you along you know or that superintendent drove by in that truck you know and we got to where we've always we call people you know uh a suck ass and all that shit you know over um if you do a little bit extra where you're just being a kiss ass you know instead of you know instead of it just doing you're just doing the initiative you're just making yourself stand out a little bit more and i'm guilty as fuck about calling people suck ass all the time you know i do it today to this day there's sometimes you can tell somebody suck it or sometimes you can just tell i've done it too but i also have been called a suck ass because i'm going a little bit too far i'm going a little bit too far i'm going a little bit overboard i don't mind chunking a few skids and building a crotch i don't mind making my own fit i don't mind tight hitting the clamp with my with a hammer i don't mind digging out underneath the pipe a little bit you know what i mean like if i'm standing there you know what i mean i don't mind doing shit like that i like to get that my goal number one goal is get whatever the fuck i'm doing done as fast as possible so if that means i got to do a little extra but we that it is a that is a mentality that if you stay you try to stay busy you're either job scared or you're a suck ass and i try to explain to my son-in-law don't live off that mentality i said because that motherfucker calling you a suck ass is not going to call you for a job he's not going to feed your family he's not going to fucking break you out i said you do you do your job and you do it to the best of your ability and i said i promise you it you you won't it will it will help you along the way i said you got to keep a good name in this industry there's a lot of guys just don't give a fuck i know some guys now they don't care what people think about them they don't care what name they leave at a company they drag up which i'm guilty of dragging up before you know i drug up over dumb shot drug over drug up over sparrows you know what i'm saying like they they told me i couldn't wear my sparrows got my shit up rolled up but uh you know but to a certain extent you got to have a reason but at some time there's just some guys that just don't care they just and they end up it ends up i have one guy he's a buddy and i won't name no names or nothing like that uh he's called me multiple times and i've known him for a long time for jobs and i'm not gonna lie you know i'm not he's one of those guys i'm not getting you i'm not putting my name on him yep he just there's some guys you don't put your name on they don't do good work and they're bad attitudes they don't last very long on a job because everybody literally ready to whoop their ass by the end of the job you know what i mean yep and i try to explain to people that's the name you get if you don't hold yourself to a certain standard you know what i mean yep well even if you don't want to if you don't want to hold yourself to everybody else's standard at least set your standard high enough to where you're competitive in the realm of the realm of it you know like like you said there the old guys used to do all that shit you know if a if a skid needed to be chunked or whatever they just done it you know like uh i worked for an old man named ronnie motley and there's some people that didn't really care for ronnie because ronnie went them extra steps you know like sometimes if you're in a bell hole and they done done what they thought was good enough right and you get down in there and you're like oh my god i'm gonna be like oh my god i'm gonna be like oh my god i'm gonna be like you know like sometimes if you're in a bell hole and they done done what they thought was good enough right and you get down in there and there's you know you're just not exactly how you want to be it's easier for you just to take the fucking shovel and do it and make it how you want it than it is to get somebody else in the hole and you get all your shit out of the way you know you know exactly what you're hunting now in my line of work that i do now that's a that's a no-fly zone you ain't doing oh yeah you don't do that but but at times you know i've took the stinger and kind of raked a little bit where i was more comfortable making a tie-in you know kind of done it secretly or whatever but there's nothing wrong with being a helper and going out there learning stack skids because your ass one day hopefully he's going to be laying up under him and you want it i ain't never got out of my truck and walked past the skid set up and not looked at the motherfucker because i got two kids that count on me to to not be dead or maimed or whatever and well popped together so i'm always looking at skid sets i'm gonna look at them and kick them yep you know kicking with my foot because like you say there's no coming back yeah 30 inch pops unforgiving i you know you get enough of it and the right wall thing is that shit's unforgiving you know i look at a lot of stuff and that that's part of being a helper you know you need to take the time to learn them them things up because i like i tell every green helper i've ever gotten everything on that fucking right away in that yard is designed to kill you or maim you every bit of it i don't care how safe they talk about in the safety meetings them track hose and booms the pop the welding trucks everything out there is designed to hurt you bad real bad nobody's gonna nobody's gonna look out for you it's your job yep my helper just had a week off and because we were fitting two inch in the ditch and they had it in jack stands and the guys i was up at my truck and the guys that were helping them do it they didn't know what they were doing and he's got it in a clamp and they end up dropping the end piece and when they do that he's got his head over looking at the gap that piece of two inch pops out and hits him in the mouth i thought it killed him busted his teeth through his mouth and i told him you know i said man this is why i always tell you don't trust none of these guys nobody here cares i said they will kill you i said they're not the one down there in that hole they're not the one you know look this is just a piece of two inch but man it fucked him up like his mouth was busted split open i said don't trust these guys keep your eyes on them keep your eyes on the operators you know i said none of these guys they're they're they're not here to hurt you but they're also don't they're not care they don't care if they do you know they're not thinking about the uh we talk about the the lack of um the quality of helpers well that spreads through everything you know it's spreading to the labor hands and spread it to the operators it is literally spread to every part of the pipeline that we don't have there's a gaps there's gaps in it in experience you know and it's as a rule of thumb if you know something that somebody else don't know you know especially these guys that are you know hooking these big joints up with um you know the belts and all that you need you need to pay attention to that shit you know they ain't checking that belt they're not laying their ass up under they don't give a shit you know i just i seen a snapchat the other day of a cable broke on a side boom in a ditch a piece of 30 inch pipe in the ditch and the cables broke on the side boom i mean that i mean one time it was an anomaly now i've seen it twice you know and i've seen it twice and i've seen it twice and i've seen it twice you know the same contractor i'm not gonna i'm not gonna throw an old contractor out there but you know maybe maybe they need to stack a few rigs and do a little investigating on what's going on out there because that shit they're gonna get somebody gets killed you know next time you know it's not it's not good you know no it ain't no coming back from it either i mean it ain't even the lawsuits and the what it does to the company is it's there's no coming back you just sent that you just sent that man to heaven and i'm not gonna throw an old contractor out there and i'm not gonna throw and he's no coming back he can't you can't fix it for his wife his kids you know no amount of money no you can't pay them enough it ain't anywhere it's at but i do i tell them all the time like you got to watch these guys man they're not going they're not here for your best interest they just want to get the work done and make their paycheck so but i explained it to him i said this is the prime example of paying attention 100 i mean it's a tough lesson since he got hit in the mouth with the file that's a tough lesson to learn you know who's son i ain't getting it not the fuck out of him the uh the middle part of your career here you know 16 years pretty long career the middle part of it here what would you say is one little bit of advice that you kind of are experienced that you kind of gained through that middle part of it what where's the middle of my career i got an opportunity to run some work boss and uh west texas is actually for the company i'm working for right now and i'd never bossed before and when i got the opportunity i was excited like hell yeah i'm good and i can run you know i was i'm good leader but i realized what i didn't know you know what i mean what i didn't take in and keep like i didn't uh like i didn't gather i just done stuff and you know what i mean like i didn't take it in and keep it in my head and then i started like hey you've got to pay attention you got to figure out why you're doing what you're doing you know and the reasons for it and how to best do it and at that point is when i learned i just gotta like if you want to make it other than just a welder and some people don't want a boss and they don't want to lead stuff and stuff like that that's fine you know i mean there's a lot of guys don't want that heartache i mean the the headache and the fucking stress that's fine but i'm not going to but if you do you really gotta slow down pay attention and take it all in grasp what you're doing you know and so that's basically you know middle ways through my career i realize that you know it's not just show up and well even though i'm fast even though i'm good even though i can i can weld any fucking thing from the crack of dawn to a broken heart it wasn't just that if i wanted to show up and make a name for myself and i wanted to run something i needed to pay attention so that's if there's any advice i can give it's just pay attention figure out why you're doing what you're doing and try to take in like soak in what you're learning yeah retain it retain it retain it yeah that's the word i was looking for yeah yeah they um you know before we got on here you you know you talked about uh working for a mutual friend of ours you know that's one thing that i've always admired about him is his ability you know i know he's young and he i mean he got in this young but that he he is it's not just that he's a badass welder because we all know he's a great freaking welder it's it's his ability to deal with people and in the situations he's put in he he never questions himself you know like his confidence and what he has going on and the people that he puts places and how he goes about his business i mean if i wish that things was different i would have got to work you know more for him and stuff but just his ability of how he blows me away to be the age that he that he is and um yeah and you know he just i and i know a lot of people that um that kind of don't care for for him per se not not as personally but the just because the way that the opportunities that he's had i guess jealousy would be the word to use but it comes back to i mean it's hard to beat him shoulder to the holder i mean i'm telling you and like i said when we met he worked for me until then he was young like real young and i could tell then that he was a very good hand he had a good i knew he had a good career ahead of him and then you know we went our separate ways because of life you know you end up somewhere else working and this and that well then like i said you i told you he called me about going to work for him and i went back to welding after being off for a little while and he was bossing then i went and worked for him that's one of these things out here you might work you got to be careful who you talk shit to and who you make friends with and who you don't because at one minute you might be working for that person the next minute they may be working for you so and i went up there and worked for him in pa and uh i was very surprised in how he handled himself how he composed himself and how he run work and extremely well like that dude's smart man he takes in stuff smart and everything he does he tries to get something out of it he tries He don't ever do anything with blind or something, you know what I mean? and he can damn sure weld. Yeah, yeah, that's 100%. I don't care what anybody's got to say about him. He can put a pipe together like it ain't nobody's business. It's like him if he wants to, but you can't say he can't weld, yeah. And when I broke out, I worked for the inspector that I had was the welder that he worked for when he was a helper, and I can see why he has a lot of the mentality that he has. But you might not know it. He's got the old school mentality. Yes, and you might not even know that he was a welder. If he didn't come out, like if he didn't tell you he was a welder, like I kind of got him saying when he was in Oklahoma that we worked for waste management, and he thought that shit was hilarious. But we was tail gunners for waste management. But I got myself in a bind with that shit one night up there in Oklahoma too with this old boy. He was like, would y'all ever just keep stuff out of the trash? And I was like, well, fuck no, it's the garbage, brother. But Parker, he used to die over that shit. All right, so to get back a little bit on track here, you know, we talk about the jobs and stuff. It's the quality of people that you're around. You know, like if you hold yourself to the standard that you have the right arm and stuff, most of the time you're not going around here running your mouth, and that makes the job better. Like you talk about the prima donnas of the world, you know. That mentality set in. I don't. I don't know where some of them learned it from. Maybe the welders, you know, like I don't know because I feel different about the gaps. You know, I know welders that's been welding 30 years, and I know welders that's been welding a year, you know, and some of them have that still that old school mentality, and a lot of us don't, especially through my part of my from five to 10 years here. I can say that I don't know someplace in that time frame. I think we got kind of complacent about the quality of product that was coming out. You know what I mean? And I mean, it reflects on myself and a bunch of guys that I know. It's just that time frame right there. I think we lost some of the integrity and honor and quality of the welder that was trying. I think it would just become because there was a boom that hadn't happened in so long. When it boomed, when it boomed, and they could test, anybody could get a test. Anybody could go to welding. And gas companies basically almost had to just get what you get and don't throw a fit. Mm-hmm. It dropped. Our quality definitely dropped. And from what I understand, I talked to Keith Bailey the other day. We're Republican. And he was here making a video, and he was saying that they're fixing to go to changing the test of procedures up a little bit and try to weed out some of the riffraff. And I'm sorry. I know it may sound like an asshole thing to say, but I'm all about it because there's guys out here on these jobs that do not do quality work. They cannot do quality. And they're drawing the same paycheck I'm drawing every week. I don't like that. And all they can do is weld. That's why I try to tell some of these guys, like, don't try to learn because we're making the same check. And you can't pull elevations or you can't, you know what I mean? Like, you can't even cut a fitting down or whatever it is. You know what I'm saying? All you do is weld. So try to learn some stuff. So somebody like me ain't doing all of it on the job because we're one of the only ones that can do it. But the quality is. It definitely dropped with that big boom. The big boom around 16 or so when Trump got in office the first year and it boomed out. And man, you couldn't find a welder. Everybody's working. You know, I remember taking a test around, you know, that's kind of that's when I broke out was in that time. You know, I'm part of that boom. Well, they I remember taking a test like a year later when it, you know, still on the uptick there. And I remember. I remember the guy in front of me broke his straps and that inspector looked at them straps and they had some shit in it. And he threw him down and said, I'll actually catch you in a week. I said, I said, oh, I got this motherfucker made boy, you know, you know, like easy peasy. If he's on that side. Yeah. I keeps coming up on the podcast and I can't wait to have Keith. It's just been hard because his time, you know, like his time. His times are kind of weird. I've been working like a normal job or like this. I've been in this plant over here working. So it's it's not like I'm poplining right now where I have the time to be in my truck for an hour and get something done. But we got a date coming. I can't. I absolutely cannot wait. You know, you probably know Roger Howe. You probably tested for him back in the day there. And, you know, slick is slick. That's what that's one of his most known famous sayings. I would say I remember I tested I tested for that motherfucker and he gave his whole little spill. I put a beat in the pipe and he come over there with his little fucking pocket knife, kicked around for a second, kicked it off the jack stands. He said, slick is slick. And that ain't it. And I said, yes, sir. Roll my shit up and left. You know, it just West Texas mentality is is different. Yes. Oh, 100 percent. 100 percent. It's a lot. It's a lot. There's just a lot of. Satisfying, like not satisfying, like. You know, I get on some of these jobs and they don't worry about nothing. They're letting some shit go that I'm like, are you kidding me right now? I know they're burying this motherfucker, but you're going to let that fucking go. You know, it's almost like they got the mentality. As long as it shoots X-ray, it's good. Did I? I have seen some pictures on the fucking Internet that I would never allow. Dude, I'm not saying that I'm slick. I'm not saying that I'm slick as Welder by no means. But there ain't a chance on this fucking planet I would post some of that stuff on the Internet. And then when you say something to them, then they get all in their feelings. I'm like, don't post the shit on the Internet. Like, I literally made a whole post about me catching repairs, showed the straps where I busted a test. I'm not saying I'm above anybody because I've done it all. And I've cost myself some opportunities by being complacent. Right. Well, you know, but. I mean, the whale did look slick, but it was a repair. So how slick was the motherfucker? You know? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It happens. I mean, just like you say, I'm not the slickest, but I ain't bad. I ain't the fastest, but I damn sure ain't slow. But just some of the shit I see, I just don't understand how they got on the job. I don't understand how it's OK. When I first broke out, man, you wasn't getting away with that dumb shit. Right. It was a lot. It was a lot stricter. A lot stricter. And during that same time frame. Go ahead. Go ahead. I'm glad it was because it put me. I had to put myself to a certain standard or I wasn't going to be on the job. You can get run off. And even though it's dropped off, like you said, in that time period, around the 60s, the quality kind of dropped off. Not all welders, but just the quality in the industry dropped off. Because of what they could get and what they could find. And that I still had my standard. Well, I learned how to make a weld look like it's supposed to. And I don't give a shit if I'm on a tie-in and it's going in the ditch. I don't care if it's fabrication. I don't care what it is. My weld's going to look as good as I can possibly make it, regardless. You can be fisting a coat that bastard and put it four foot in the ground. But dig it up and buff it off. It'd be slick. To a certain extent. Like I said, I'm not slick. That's it all. But I definitely don't put no bad shit on the pipe. Well, the thing about it, what I learned about shit being buried, is I got buddies that do in-service work. And one time, one of them dug up one of my welds. And he said, you must have been fucked up this day. I said, must have been, brother. Because now, you think about welds you made seven or eight years ago. Well, now they're doing rehab work on them. You know what? That pipeline's getting dug up. So, just because you say that. You say, oh, that son of a bitch is getting buried. It don't matter. You can't see it from my house. One of you buddies is going to drive up there. That son of a bitch said, like, still to this day. I mean, the picture's on my phone. It says TL5197. That was me. And he knew that I'd been in that plant. And they dug that weld up. And he sent me a picture of it. He said, oh, shit, it was a rough morning for you, wasn't it, bud? One of them cross-eyed mornings, huh? Wasn't the one I closed? Yeah. I said, shit, it must have been, bud. We was up there. And Ames, Iowa, we must have stayed out to college. Bard's a little late, you know? Come on. So, you know, just because you think that line's buried and gone, brother, don't mean that it's buried and gone. I promise you, I've experienced that. You do. Which is, kind of makes it full circle, too, you know? I mean, it kind of, in a way, it's got a little bit of nostalgic to it, you know, to think that I welded that so many years ago. And then one of my buddies went back, and they're working on that line. They was actually changing out a valve on that same line. And it just so happened, my weld, was the weld that was right next to the valve. We must have been doing some fab work or whatever, you know? That's pretty cool, though. It has happened. That is pretty cool, you know? People don't think about that, though. And, you know, like, people are okay with just being okay. And I like, I'm an Alabama football fan, you know? So, Nick Saban's one of my freaking, like, icons, you know? If you go out every day and you think about just being okay, well, you're only going to be okay. If you surround yourself with people that are just okay, you're going to still be okay, you know. I didn't mind being around the Kyle Mishnicks and the John Brooks and all them of the world and getting to weld around them. Thank God I did because of the standards that they had for their sales made my standard go through the roof too, you know, or try to be at least, you know. The only thing is who you hang out with. Yep. Competition's competition, you know. Yeah, I love it. I love it. Yeah. You know, it's kind of different. Go ahead. I was saying if I pull up on a job and there's a welder out there that's just smoking everybody's ass and getting it done, put me with that guy. Yeah. Put me with that guy and let's get this, you know what I mean, like let's weld. Get a cross pipe from me. And I don't, you know, it's fun to me. I don't know. I like to go fast. Well, like I said before, if somebody's a little bit quicker than you or something, there's something that they're doing. I mean, obviously machines play into effect, you know, natural talent plays. But there's something that they're doing that's got them a little bit, that little bit of leg up, you know, so I want to weld with them or at least weld near them enough so I can study them a little bit. But. 100%. That goes back to competitive nature, you know. Some people are born competitive and they got to strive to be the best and they're never happy with what they got. And some people complacency sets in or just being okay with being okay, you know. And I thank God for the Keith Bailey's of the world because, uh, that being okay, you ain't getting just to be okay down in that motherfucker. I promise you. We ain't getting motherfucker with just being okay. I promise you that. Keith is brutally honest and I fucking love it. Love it. He told me this story the other day about this kid and he wasn't bulldogging the kid by no means. This wasn't, he wasn't bulldogging the kid. He was speaking facts. He said, this guy come and tested for him and he had a beat up ass truck, clapped out 200, right? He said he helped him get through that test. You know, he worked on his machine. They got through the test, right? Kid shows up down the road, our young man, whatever you'll call it, shows up down the road a little while later, same clapped out, fucking 200, same piece of shit truck, but it's got American force rims on it. $10,000 worth of rims. And guess what? That fucking clapped out 200 couldn't make it through the test. So he didn't make the test. It's dumb. It's dumb. Dumb. Thought Keith was going to let him slide. Cause he kind of helped him the first time. It don't work that way. Not. Not if you do dumb shit. Don't shit. You know, so I don't know. I wish that every inspector would learn to be like Keith Bailey should put on an inspection school and everybody should have to be held, held to that. Fuck. And they should want to, if you're an inspector testing welders, you should strive to be like Keith Bailey. Cause we'll fix this fucking, the best thing that happened about COVID was when it's, when it pulled in tighter than a butthole and nobody could find a job. A lot of us still worked. I worked through every day. I never missed. Check. I worked, I worked every day, but I've seen a lot of them guys sell a lot of shit. You know, then them guys that was okay with being okay. I've seen a lot of shit for sale and now they're building metal buildings or they're trying to get back into poplining now that another boom's coming, you know, they was out when the boom ended and they've been out all these years that we hadn't been booming, you know, the Democrat years or whatever. And now that they know a boom's coming back, you know, all these big lines getting laid. Now they want to come back, you know, some. That, uh, you know, I'm sure you've got plenty of buddies or, you know, acquaintances that, that went out during coping, you know, it just. Oh, I got a lot of buddies. I know that they're good guys, but they just didn't make it through COVID because they just didn't have that name that they didn't, they didn't, they strive to be okay. And you couldn't get by then if you was just okay. Like I said, I, the company I was working for. We finished up the main line was home. They lost the contract or work got pushed back the next job. So they laid off. I didn't make it 150 miles towards home from Colorado to Texas. And I got a phone call. I left there and drove straight to Austin and tested and hired in for one gas and worked there for a few months. I left straight from there and went to Corpus and hired in. Like I never missed, I never was at the house the whole time, but those guys that called me were guys. And I worked for before and I'm on their first call list. Like I'm going to be one of the first guys they call, you know, and I always make sure, and you know, it's just strategy, but I always make sure I do a good job anywhere I go, but I always try to run with and make acquaintance with good superintendents, good well bosses, not just any well boss, not just any superintendent, but the ones I know that stay busy. Those are the guys I run with and hang out with because. They're going to have work. You might be best friends with one superintendent, but he's not really that great or don't he. Okay. We're being okay. And he may be needing a job. But calm, you shouldn't call them. The well, boss is like that. That stay busy. Like they, you can call them anytime they got work on. They may not have a spot for you right then at that time, but they're always working. And that's the guys I try to surround myself with and be acquaintance with Ricky Sims. You know, all them guys are like, I love him, dude. Ricky sales. That's a well, the son of a gun, man. I'm good. Well, they're probably one of my favorite guys to be around, you know, a hundred percent. First time. We tested for snow. Jones. And I was like, I'm going to be a good welder. I'm going to be a good welder. I'm probably one of my favorite guys to be around, you know, a hundred percent. First time. We tested for snow. Jones. My buddy told me, he said, my buddy's there. He'll show you. I'd never took a low high branch. I'd take a low high branch. Well, threadless Willis. And he said, my buddy, Ricky's going to be there. He'll show you how to gap it. You got a gap in a certain way to welders, low high bead and everything. I said, all right. I said, well, what, who am I looking for? He said, you'll know him when you see him. I said, oh yeah. I'm expecting some Shrek. Next thing you know, this guy jumps out of his truck and he's got his arms, little bitty arms and his shirt rolled up. And I was like, Ricky. He said, yeah. I said, okay. T-Rex rolled inside his box. Yeah. Smoking a cigarette. Yeah. Smoking a cigarette. I said, yeah. Smoking a cigarette. I said, yeah. Smoking a cigarette. He said, yeah. Smoking a cigarette. He said, yeah. Smoking a cigarette. I said, yeah. Smoking a cigarette. I said, yeah. Smoking a cigarette. He said, yeah. Smoking a cigarette. He said, yeah. Smoking a cigarette. He said, yeah. Smoking a cigarette. I mean, there's no doubt some guys are just, and they're effortless, you know what I'm saying? Like they just make it look easy. But I try to pay attention to them guys. I try to, like you say, surround yourself with those guys. And I was, like you say, I was fortunate enough to come up with guys like Lonnie Swan and, you know, Ricky Sims and those guys. Scott Kirby, you know, some of the older dudes that, you know, these guys call me old head now because I'm 40 something. I've been doing it a while, but I consider them guys old heads. Like those are the guys that, like, you want to learn something knowledgeable or get something positive out of it. Go listen to those guys. Learn something from them. But that's who I come up with, the older guys. I'm glad I did too. It was a put out or get out thing. You're either fucking well or you're going down the road. You have no choice but not to be fast and get it done. And this, you know, like one thing I can say. About the 798 that, like, our initiation weld is a 24-inch 500 wall that you have to puddle cap. That's what gets you into the 798, right? But then you go out to the job, you know, like it's a thing now, the 3B cap 500 wall. I think that's the most ridiculous shit that there ever was on the planet. Like, I mean, let's freaking weld. Quit dumbing this shit down. Quit making it to where everybody can fucking do it because you got to get a job done. That's exactly what it is. Like, I'm sick of lowering the standard to get, to be able to get a job done. Quit lowering the freaking standard. And obviously, I've repaired it out. You know, I've fucking, I've not been good enough to be on some jobs, which made me go back and fucking reevaluate why I didn't make that job. Like, quit. It's like, it's like these, you know, like in T-Ball. Everybody gets a fucking trophy, which is understandable. That's T-Ball. But we're in a professional grown man business. It's like we play football. $250,000 a year. You know, $250,000 a year. You can't, you're not supposed to just give that money away to anybody. Yep. They don't lower the standard in the NFL to get all these players. You know, they want the best players in the NFL. And that's the way I try to look at my, that's the way I try to look at it day in and day out. That if we don't get the standard up all the way across the board, union, non-union, plant, pipeline, everybody don't get that fucking standard up. They're going to get them robots to fucking do your job sooner or later. I promise you. Oh, a hundred percent. They working on it every day. So it's getting closer and closer. Yep. You know, it's a lot of that shit, but all right. So the, this part of your career before I know you got to get back to West Texas, uh, but this part of your career, you got some advice for a category as this part of your career, the, the uncle stage going into, you know, old head stage here, that part of it. Well, yeah, now, because. I had quit for a little while, uh, two years ago is when I come back to it. I quit for probably three years. I was Boston for a company in New Mexico and ended up getting a bad wreck, total outbranded truck, bed machine, all of it. And my wife at the time, when we come home, he was just tired of me. I've been doing it for a long time. And I went home and then ended up, you know, things didn't work out, got divorced and a little different than we planned. And I ended up having to go back to it. Now that's, that's why I'm back to pipeline and now for the last two years. And, uh, I've learned to listen and not talk. Don't, if you say the less you say the better you are off nowadays because of the drama and the different and the quality and all that, you know, there's some drama on the job. I'm on, I ended up, they ended up running the well balls off like yesterday. And. Company name, no names like that, but, you know, I don't know if per se it wasn't, it was a reason to run him off or whatever, but there was just so much drama going around the job and phone calls. And I've learned to just, yeah, and just let it go. But it's all in my quality. Like, I don't give a fuck what anybody says. I'm going to do the best I can do. And just get that job done, move on to the next one. It's not as fun as it used to be. So I just, I just kind of keep my mouth shut and I try to help them young guys out. There's a lot of others that don't, they don't want to teach them young guys. I see them fucking up and they'll let them fuck up and then laugh at them. You know, it's nice to, if you see somebody struggling or doing it wrong, try to step back and say, Hey man, let me, can I show you something? Can I show you a way? And there's some of them guys that don't want to hear it. You know, like that's fine. But there's some guys, Hey man, I appreciate that. Yup. And I remember there's been times that somebody said something so casual that I still think about today. Sometimes when I got my hood down, they're like, maybe you're, you know, your rod's supposed to, your rod ain't supposed to be like this. It's supposed to be like this. And it was, it was in passing. The guy that said it to me done it in passing and never, never like sat down and had a conversation about it. He's like, maybe you should look at your rod angle. You know, you're supposed to be 90, not, you know, not angled down or angled up or whatever. And, but it, it, and it just sticks with me. So sometimes I feel I'm a little lazy. Sometimes I'll be kicking that rod down, you know, further. It should be in shit. And it just pops in my mind, you know, to go back to that. You know, I don't know. I've, I've been one of them people. I'm open. I don't care. I don't give a shit. If you've been doing it a week or if you've been doing it 30 years, everybody has a way of doing it because we all took the test, you know, and maybe you learn a little bit of something from them. And if I can't use it, then I did, I get rid of it. You know, it's that easy. You don't have to sit here and be like, everybody can take control. You can say, yes, you're, you know, or I'll try it, you know, try to don't work and fucking get rid of it, you know, but a lot of these kids, they can't take, uh, they can't take that constructive criticism, you know, and that's why they, uh, flunk out. Well, that's an issue that goes back to that issue with this younger group of kids, entitled kids. They, they just think they know everything and their, their way is the best. And sometimes it bites you in the ass. You try to help them and you know, you two don't get along no more because they think you're an asshole and getting in there. You know, it's just, but I'm the same way, man. If I can learn something, I've been doing this a long time and I've been, I learned something every week, something I learned something, you know what I mean? Like, and even if I've already know what I'm learning, I learned how to, to, to make that better, to do it better, to do, to make it more productive for me. Like I try to get whatever I can out of every situation, just like talking about that, that welder man, you was talking about. That we both know and I work for, and you know, try to get, not try to further my knowledge in every situation. Learn what I can learn. The, uh, when you close your ears off and everything, you know, welding's evolving all the time. So you got to be able to evolve with it, you know, and when you get blinders on, it just, you get stagnant. And when you get stagnant, there's no growth. And when there's no growth, you disappear. So if you want to, uh, Makes a struggle. Yep. A struggle. Is there anything else that you would love to cover while we're here? You know, this kind of, um, the podcast goes out to a lot of people, you know, 53 different countries, you know, you got anything to say to people in Singapore? You know, I don't know what kind of shield arcing they're doing in Singapore, but they love the show. I did see a picture of one of them holding a stick with a hood on it. So my best advice to them is don't do that. I don't know, dude. It's weird because they'll be like, they'll, they'll, I don't know. If it translates to other countries or not, like I can understand people listen to it in Australia. Obviously we both speak English, but Singapore, you know, some of it, maybe it's guys that's from the States that go over there and listen to it when they're doing whatever. But I always find those statistics kind of weird, you know, like they're just watching our mouths move and they'll enjoy it. I don't, I don't know what they're going on. That's funny. It is. I do wonder if they do, if it translates or not, but I don't know. I don't know. But I, I sure appreciate your time and I'll let you get on to your stuff. Yeah, I pulled over, I didn't want to lose service while we were doing that. I said, you know what, I'm just going to pull over because my luck, I'll lose service driving through here. Yep. Yep. So I do appreciate your time and I'll let you get on to it. Man, I appreciate you having me on. Yes, sir. And hopefully, you know, we'll see each other down the road. I know you looking at some things. Everybody looks at some things. You never know. I could be back in Texas well tomorrow, you know? Yes, sir. Well, for sure. For sure. I'm sure we'll see each other down the road. And like I said, it was a pleasure to be on here. I appreciate it. You know, I like what you're doing. Keep it up. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, sir. All right, so now it's going to stop.