“This Is How We Visual…”
Not long after I started work, a diver brought in a tank to be filled. He wasn’t one of our regular customers, nor had he bought the tank from us. The co-worker who was “mentoring” me stepped in and explained that, before we could fill the cylinder, it would have to be visually inspected.
At the time, the whole idea of visually inspecting cylinders was relatively new. Thus, we had to explain to the customer that this requirement was for his safety as well as ours.
Needless to say, the customer wasn’t thrilled at having to pay an extra fee; however, this potential inconvenience was mitigated by the fact my co-worker offered to do the inspection on the spot. “Come with me,” he said. “I’ll teach you how to do an ‘inspection’.”
We adjourned to the back room where “Joe” drained the cylinder in record time. He then walked me through removing the valve, and I reached for the inspection light.
“We won’t be needing that,” he said, tearing a small piece of paper from a notepad. “Joe” then folded the paper in half and reached for a glass jar on the shelf. He next opened the jar and emptied a small portion of the contents onto the paper. It was rust filings.
Taking the folded paper out to the customer, “Joe” shook his head and said, “I’m afraid we have some bad news. Look at what we found inside your tank. It’s going to have to be tumbled and hydro’ed.”
The customer wasn’t happy — but he didn’t want to gamble on using a tank that might blow up on him. (That — and the fact it was clear we wouldn’t fill the tank unless he consented to the procedure.) Reluctantly, the customer signed the work order, left his “rusty” tank with us and rented another for the weekend.
In retrospect, I should have quit on the spot. However, I was young, I really wanted to work in the dive industry — and I couldn’t quite believe what I just saw. There had to be more to this than just a blatant rip-off.
“Why did you do that?” I asked my co-worker.
“He didn’t buy the tank from us,” was the response.
“And if he had?” I inquired.
“Then I’m confident it would have ‘passed’ visual,” he replied with a devious grin. “Hell, he may end up buying a tank from us anyway.”
“Why is that?” I asked.
“Well, it wouldn’t surprise me if that tank of his ‘failed’ hydro after we tumble it.”
I was too dumbstruck to respond.
Here’s the catch:
The customer’s tank, which “failed” visual was not a steel cylinder. It was one of the brand-new aluminums which had just hit the market. As such, there was no possible way that iron oxide (rust) filings could have been found inside.
Obviously, the customer didn’t know that aluminum doesn’t rust. If he had, he could have caught “Joe” in a lie. It gets better, though.
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