Who's got the hottest job?

[Stand_watie]

I just checked the thermometer at one of my work stations and it read 45c (113f) and about 100% humidity.  Summer isn't even here yet (about 90 outside)! Thank God I don't have to work there for too long at one time. It's a balmy 90 to 100 at  my other work stations and a much more reasonable humidity.

So who can beat that? I'll bet we've got some roofers or steel mill guys here that can top it.

[jefnvk]

Try welding when it is 100 outside.

SO VERY GLAD I didn't become a welder

[Azrael256]

The A/C went down in the server room one time.  It was about 20 outside, but it was approaching 200 when we got everything shut down.

[Antibubba]

Not currently, but baggage loader for an airline.  Speed counts.

[DJJ]

Right now, I have the hottest job: living. I was out of town all week; spring turned into summer while I was away, and I hadn't gotten my air conditioner going. It's 1 AM, and it's 85. Downstairs. Upstairs is probably 10 degrees hotter. I've been in my underwear with the windows open since the sun went down, but it does no good. I was on the roof at 8:00, but I need parts before I can get it running.

[mtnbkr]

The A/C went down in the server room one time.  It was about 20 outside, but it was approaching 200 when we got everything shut down.

BTDT, except that we "only" got up to 150 before the right people were paged and we had beucoup fans sucking the hot air out.  Fortunately, we could fail over to our DR site and shut the room down to speed up cooling.

Chris

[jefnvk]

Server guys, did you actually go in the room  approaching 200?  That would be pretty warm, methinks, and probably not safe to stay in for long periods of time.

Thinking about this again, my new guess would probably be firefighters.

[OEF_VET]

I routinely stand over a 600 degree grill or alternatively, in front of a 650 degree oven for 8-12 hours a day.  Not to mention all the saute pans and boiling water giving off heat.  My wife is amazed if I don't come home from a day at work with a new burn, or cut, for that matter.

[Old NFO]

My vote goes to Machinist Mates on the old Bunker Fuel Carriers.  I did a short cruise on Coral Sea (not in the Black Gang thank G***), they were working in 140-150 degree temps for 8-12 hours.  They had set up canvas "ducts" that brought the temps down to a "cool" 110-120 degrees, but there was only room for two people at a time...  

As a volunteer firefighter, I've been in 800-1200 degree fires albiet for a VERY short period of time, but still had face shield and radios melt and run after less than 2 minutes...

[spacemanspiff]

thats hot.

[cordex]

Well, the air conditioning went out here one time and it was almost 85 degrees in here!  We had to open windows.



Used to do field work that was unpleasant on some hot, still days, but nothing all that miserable.

[Azrael256]

Server guys, did you actually go in the room  approaching 200?

Yup, ran right in.  I yanked the power out of the switches that connected us to the rest of campus while two other guys started shutting down whatever they could remotely.  Their offices are adjacent to the server room, so it was pretty toasty in there, too.  I only had to take down two machines from the console, and I started their shutdown process and then came back a few minutes later to check that it had finished.  I probably only spent a total of ten minutes in there over a half hour.  We weren't about to let anybody stay in there for more than a minute or two at a time.  Servers are cheap, heatstroke is not.  I was soaked in sweat when we finished, so I went outside for a roll in the snow... with no shirt on.  It felt gooooood.  Compared with firefighting, I think my experience rates as a frosty day on the north pole.

Since air is no longer effective as a coolant at around 150, as 150 is rapidly approaching the redline on the equipment, nothing was able to dump heat for about the last twenty minutes.  Two processors cooked off.  Amazingly, they were in separate dual processor machines.  Their sequential serial number counterparts survived.  Fortunately all the disks were recoverable.  We backed them up and trashed the old ones.  No sense in trying to find out how much longer they'd last.  We're building a new server room with a liquid cooling setup.  We can vent the heat exchanger to chilled air inside or outside (if it's cold), so it will have much more air volume over which to dissapate the heat should the chiller go down.  It will buy us an extra half hour (according to the manufacturer) and won't get the server room so hot.

[caseydog]

Well I don't do it continuously but for a few wonderful weeks every July and  August we do a good bit of paving at work, blacktop comes off the truck at 275°-325° and when you get a good full mat layed there is no escaping the heat. Even the hand rails on the paver can't be touched without gloves, insulated boots are mandatory. Ever drink a few gallons of water and not have to pee till bedtime ?

Look at a road paver sometime , between the two operators positions there is a huge stack going up , this is in case a sudden rain shower or water line/water truck break hits while paving , it's a steam vent to buy the operator a few seconds to stop the machine and bail off so he doesn't get steamed like a clam.

Then you go back a few days later and seal the edges with a vat of 400° elastomeric sealer , hot time in the city !

Ray

[mfree]

I can't beat asphalt laying or firefighting, but the hottest job I've ever had was as a pizza cutter in a *very* *very* busy restaurant in Alcoa, TN.

Sunday mornings we'd have both forced-air convection ovens going full-tilt boogie since we made on line of 400 medium pizzas over 3 hours. They were set at 500, iirc, and had no recirc so that air came out, through the cutting station, then up the vent. Anything metal within 3' of the oven became too hot to touch.

The building was old and the A/C for the kitchen really inadequate, and it was a pretty constant 115-125 degrees on station Sundays, with really wet air. I smelled like pizza for 3 months after I left

[XLMiguel]

I worked for Marriott In-Flight (airline caters) for a couple summers at Washington [Reagan]National Airport in DC. It wasn't unusual for it to be near 130 on the tarmack in July/August, between the nominal mid-90's, plus DC humidity, solar gain on the asphalt and the heat of  jet engines from 60-80 active flights at any given time.  Losing 8 - 10# during a day was par for the course, the igloo cooler is your friend.

[Winston Smith]

Mike, is that 8 to 10 POUNDS?

[Azrael256]

Mike, is that 8 to 10 POUNDS?

Yeah, that's about right.  It comes to roughly a gallon of water, which you can easily lose if you're sweating like a pig for 8 hours.

[DustinD]

I am at the opposite end of the scale. At my current job I have to wear two pairs of thick socks, two pairs of pants, two thick sweathsirts with two jackets over them, gloves, and a hat. I am still cold all of the time in the refrigerator room because of all of the air blowing around.

[Stand_watie]

Are you a freezer picker Dustin? I heard that's the hardest job in the world.

[TNGO]

I worked in construction for six years. Roofing, paving, digging, jackhammering, etc. I remember having to pour water from an Igloo cooler onto a steel digging bar before I could pick it up. I gained an abiding dislike for Tennessee summers on that job.

Not the hottest job in the world, but enough for me.

[XLMiguel]

Yes, 8-10 lbs was about average, it could be more, but if it was much more, I got nauseous (this is called 'a clue').  It was important to stay hydrated, and salt tablets weren't a bad idea, either. TNGO, I've done a couple of roofs in the VA summer, I can relate.  Constuction, in general in high heat/high humidy is tough work, but the combo of sun, tarmack, and jets was the hottest for me.

[M67]

Where I live, most outdoor jobs are not all that hot, at least not for most of the year. Although we do get the odd three day "tropical" heatwave in July or August, when people can't sleep because night time temperatures approach 70 F.

We cheat, though, to keep ourselves amused in the winter. You should try a sauna. A real one, not one of those barely above body temperature things that some people mistake for a sauna. The warmest I know I've tried was 115 degrees. A few minutes in there and then out into -20 for a nude snow ball fight. Repeat every few minutes until bored or out of beer. In degrees Fahrenheit that should be around 240 and sub zero, respectively. I have rolled in the snow in below -30 F, but at those times the temperature in the sauna has been no more than 200 or so, so the temperature difference has been less. But as I said, that's for fun. You'd have to be touched in the head to do something like that for a living.

[Iapetus]

It hit 31C (88F) in London on Friday.  Not as hot as some of you guys are getting, but its hot for the UK at this time of year.  I felt real sorry for the guy in the lion costume handing out flyers outside a store.

[Stand_watie]

It hit 31C (88F) in London on Friday.  Not as hot as some of you guys are getting, but its hot for the UK at this time of year.  I felt real sorry for the guy in the lion costume handing out flyers outside a store.

I'll bet it was humid too.

[Sean Smith]

Hottest ever for me was when I went to the National Training Center when I was in the Army.  115+ degrees, but hey, it was a DRY heat.  :p

But for overall heat + all-around awfulness, I worked at a plant that made vinyl siding briefly.  Horrible smells and hot as hell.  That, combined with having a mental midget for a boss, made it easy to leave that profession.