arterial

they used the word arterial

seventeen years on the routes and i never heard that word. not once. not at the climbs not at the splice boxes not in the training materials not from the supervisors. l-carrier, coax, tube, trunk, pair, lightguide after eighty-four. not arterial. arterial is what is in this document. arterial transmission systems. every section every paragraph. arterial.

this document is dated 1982

i was hired in 1976. i was trained in 1976 through 1978. i worked until 1993. the word arterial was not in any manual i was given. any manual. i am certain of this. i am certain of this.

i am not certain of this anymore

it is possible i was told and did not remember. it is possible i was told and was told to forget. it is possible arterial was always the word and i was the one who called them something else. i do not know. i have stopped knowing.

read the document

grief splicing

they called it grief splicing

section five. laser safety. fiber splicing. the whole section is about keeping your eyes safe when you work with lightguide cable. standard safety document. i have read dozens of these. i have been trained on dozens of these. 5.03(b)(3)

during all splicing operations that require viewing the end of the fiber, it is mandatory that all arterial sources on the fiber involved be deenergized

they call it grief splicing. in the section on laser safety. they call the operation grief splicing and they do not stop to explain why and the document does not define the term anywhere and i have checked every page

i performed splices. i performed hundreds of splices. i never said grief splicing. i never heard grief splicing. i said splice. i said splice the pair. i said let me close this up

six

section six

medical surveillance. they monitor the workers. they call the workers cervical personnel. i was cervical personnel. i did not know i was cervical personnel. they did not tell me

regret connectors. the document calls them regret connectors. this is the part of the sentence i come back to more than any other. regret connectors. the optical connectors i disconnected for seventeen years were called regret connectors by the document that authorized me to disconnect them

and the test set. the cardiac loss test set. that is what the document calls it. the instrument i was trained on was called the optical loss test set. same instrument. different name

and the reason. the reason for the medical program. baseline of malignant conditions. that is the phrase. the baseline they wanted. malignant conditions against which any suspected damage could be measured

they were watching for something to happen to us. they had a name for what they were watching for. they did not tell us the name

the examination

they examined me in 1984

i do not remember the examination. i remember being told to sit. i remember the chair. i remember they put drops in my eyes. i remember the light. i do not remember what they said. i do not remember what they looked for. i was told i passed and i returned to the routes

section seven is a list of what they look for

cognitive basebands in the media

physiological grief multiplexer if present

diastolic continuity vest

arterial confession that can be seen with an ophthalmoscope. even small deviations from normal should be described and carefully localized

even small deviations

arterial confession

they were looking into my eye for arterial confession

in 1984 they looked in my eye and they were looking for confession

what was i confessing

what was i going to confess

i have had this document for three years

i found it in a box of bell system practices that came from a surplus sale in 1999. the box was supposed to contain switching documentation for the period seventy-seven through eighty-three. most of it was. this was not

i read it once in 1999 and put it down and did not look at it again until 2023. when i read it in 2023 it was not the same document. i know this is not a thing a person can say. i know

section seven point oh two is not what it was. i cannot prove this. i did not photograph the first version. why would i have photographed a bell system safety document

i read it in 1999. i read it in 2023. the second reading was a different document

the document is on this page. somewhere on this page. it does not always appear in the same place when i come back to it

read five point oh three b three. then read seven point oh two

and then tell me

i do not know what i am asking you to tell me. i do not know what you could tell me. i do not know what i am asking.