There I was, no S... Uh this really happened
35 years and a few days ago, I was a mid-career intel troop in the USAF. I was undergoing my upgrade training which is necessary to get promoted.
Part of my upgrade training was to conduct what is called a baseline analysis of a facility. A baseline is a "from scratch" complete description of the facility including tons of measurements and a lot of analysis. Back then a good baseline took about a week to complete.
I had to do several baselines for upgrade and they had to be from different types. For this was it was Industries and I could pick any facility I wanted. Since this was for training and evaluation, I picked a facility that did not need an official baseline and because I was a nuke analyst, I picked a nuclear industry.
By the end of the week, I was finished with all my research but did not have time to assemble my final report. Not to worry, this was for training. As it happened, I was scheduled to attend a class the following week so I could finish my upgrade task in two weeks.
It was for training and after all, nothing ever happens at Chernobyl.
So the following week I was at my class when the students started talking about this nuclear accident at a reactor. I asked which one but no one could remember the name, but based on the descriptions, it was my guy.
Lesson One in Life is Unfair
I was stuck in class that week. So a co-worker of mine took MY work and finished the finished the baseline, this time operationally. He became the defacto local expert on the latest status on Chernobyl. He got to do the briefings and got the accolades and awards and massively increased his reputation as an analyst.... on my work.
Lesson Two in Life is Unfair
When I returned from the class, I still had to complete my upgrade research task. I could not use Chernobyl because its baseline was already completed. Yes, my work that was used by the other guy would not count for my task.
So after all this, I had to go back to original training task and do the whole process again on a different facility.
Talk about adding insult to injury.
I can laugh about it now, but at the time I was pretty angry and frustrated. If it were not for that class, I would have finalized my baseline just prior to the accident and would have been the hero.
Life can be unfair.. always has, always will be.
