PROFESSIONALISM
Durability, Cost and Ease
of Maintenance If I am buying my own work clothes, I want them to last a long time. They need to be durable to survive in the environment in which we work. We work with many caustic materials and sharp objects, making normal street clothes inadequate for our profession. We are the T-shirt and jean generation and I will be the first to admit that 90 percent of my wardrobe is made up of these. But, unlike our fathers’ shirts and jeans, ours are made of much cheaper materials and unfortunately, are much more expensive to buy. I can’t believe that we actually pay more to have them look like they are already worn out. It just doesn’t make sense, does it?
Weather Conditions Here in Wisconsin where we are exposed to weather extremes, the secret to dressing for work comes down to layering. I lived in southern or coastal regions of the country most of my career. I have only been living up here for the past 15 years and I have seen a phenomenon that I can’t explain. I have driven to work in in the morning during the winter with the temperatures below freezing and seen young boys standing at the school bus stop while dressed in heavy winter parkas and shorts. I know that this isn’t just a fad because one of my mechanics (you know who you are, Mitch) still dresses this way, and he is in his thirties. The rest of us with more sense know that we must dress for the extremes. Just because it is winter and snowing, doesn’t mean that helicopter maintenance waits. We can spend hours out on the flight-line tracking and balancing the rotor system and if we aren’t prepared for the drop in temperatures due to wind chill, we won’t last ten minutes. A quality set of coveralls is worth its weight in gold up here. They insulate but don’t weigh you down. It’s important that you remove these when you come back into the hangar for any length of time so that you don’t perspire. Moisture in your clothing can freeze and absorb your body heat faster. Excessive heat and humidity is just as critical to our health and productivity. When our body temperature rises even a few degrees above normal (98.6 F), we can begin to experience muscle cramps and become weak, disoriented and dangerously ill unless the body temperature cools down. We want to choose clothing that is lightweight, loose fitting and allows air to pass through. This air passing over our body helps evaporate the sweat, thereby cooling our body. Our clothing should also be light colored if possible.
Company Standards
or Requirements Many companies have taken these issues into account and provide uniforms to their employees. They might have a contract with a cleaning service to provide uniform maintenance or they might just give the employee a cleaning allowance to maintain their own uniforms. Whatever your company chooses to do, the main purpose is to convey a professional workforce to the customer. Dress like a team, work like a team. Wearing a company uniform that bears the company logo should make you proud. As a company representative, and as a helicopter mechanic specifically, your company has placed a lot of responsibility on your shoulders. Management feels that you can handle these responsibilities. You are not “just a mechanic,” you are a representative of the management and all the other employees of your company. Besides, why not let your company buy your work clothes for you?
Good Taste and Personal Hygiene Whether our company supplies uniforms to us or we dress ourselves, it is important to remember that we are working with the public and basic social skills still apply. As I said earlier in this article, I am not one to judge fashions but the hangar is not the place for practicing our rights to free speech. While I will defend our right to express our individuality, I believe that the hangar is a place of business and we are being paid by our company to be professionals. T-shirts have become billboards for the self-expression of an individual’s personality. I love t-shirts. They can be very thought provoking and very creative but they can also be very offensive and obscene. Use your good judgement if you choose to wear them. I can’t say enough about the importance of personal
hygiene at work. The fact that you work in an environment filled with odors doesn’t mean that nobody will notice poor hygene. They will, so bathe. It’s very important, working in this type of environment, to remove all of the chemicals, oils and fuels from our bodies and our clothing, as there can be long-term health effects from this exposure. Even though we might end the day all greasy and oily, it is important to start the day out with clean clothes. No one wants to put on sweaty, oily clothes from the day before. If we take pride in ourselves, the quality of our work
will reflect this.
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HelicopterMaintenanceMagazine.com February | March 2016
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