Don’t Forget to Turn the Power On
I worked as a Radiation Protection Tech at a power plant that was refueling. My job was to sit outside of a contaminated area, and if anyone wanted to take something out of the site, such as tools, etc., I had to make sure it didn’t have any radioactive particles on it.
To do that, I had to wipe the tool with something like a tissue and then hold the tissue up to a machine called a frisker. If the needle on the frisker went above a threshold, then the tool had to be cleaned or left in the area. One day, I came back to relieve a guy who had been sitting outside the area for two hours.
He told me there had been no issues, and everything had cleared. But I noticed something that he hadn’t. I looked at the frisker, leaned over, and turned the machine on.