Personal Narrative: My Time At Electric Boat

During my time at Electric Boat, I was one of two lead engineers assigned to refurbish a damaged chilled water pump on a nuclear submarine. Neither the requisite spare part nor a new pump was available and the vendor had quoted approximately $500,000 and 6 months for the replacement part.
When the Navy had determined that the repair was beyond their capability, the pump was shipped to us. We developed the concept of machining out a small teardrop shape from the damaged impeller and pressing in a machined sleeve to restore the piece to its original specifications.
During the final assembly, we encountered a number of challenges. Given the very narrow tolerances, we were obliged to finish the wearing rings by hand. The job was labor intensive and grueling. Owing to union rules, I was only able to supervise this work at a distance. During this time I tried to provide oversight, as well as develop a comradery with the technicians. After many hours, the wearing rings no longer touched. The technicians and their supervisor were convinced work was complete. …show more content…
This request was met with frustration, anger and negativity. However, I remained calm and respectfully explained the requirements and the reasons for them. I was able to utilize the comradery we had formed to reinforce that we were working together as a team. It was not easy to disarm someone in a position of higher authority, however by conveying politely and forcefully a clear explanation of the requirements, combined with our team mentality, I was able to resolve the issue. Although this eventually worked out, I am now much more attentive about explaining the requirements up front so that everyone has the same