I’ve answered this question before but I have no problem answering it again in case someone missed it. My last name is Fales so immediately folks wanted to call me “Never “ Fales but that isn’t the case of why I’m called “Seldom” Fales. When I was first turned out as a Journeyman Welder in Dow I was in the Dow’s Capital Construction Projects crew. The CCP, though Dow tradesmen competed against mechanical contractors so we were pretty much looked at as contractors but were Dow employees. Even though we worked in visqueen fab shanties and changed clothes and took breaks in trailers.
As a young journeyman welder I was on a capital project where there were 4-5 crews of fitters and each crew had a welder to fabricate & weld the piping each crew was assigned isometrics each morning . On this one particular project 20% of all welds of each welder were being x-rayed on the project according to the B31.1 piping Code. If a weld was rejected the fitters had to cut the piping apart and the welder had to reweld the joints plus for ever failed weld, 2 more welds were x-rayed for every welder that originally failed. Pipefitters hated failed welds because of the extra work involved and not for some mistake they made. On this particular project quite a few welds were being rejected of the other welders but none of mine! My fitters, who were older fellas who didn’t like “extra” work caused by the weldler were tickled pink because they didn’t have to do extra rework because of their welder’s ability to pass x-ray!
They tagged me with the nickname “Seldom” Fales because of my welds never failing x-ray. They wanted to nickname me “Never” Fales but I talked them out of that because I figured every welder needed a cushion to fall back on in case of a slip! LOL The nickname “Seldom” stuck and for the rest of my career whether I was working with the tools or as a Non-degreed Welding Engr before finishing my career I was known as Seldom. Some apprentice pipefitters I worked with for several years never knew my real name of Mike.. Later, after retirement the wife and I would be grocery shopping or somewhere out in public and some old pipefitter or someone I’d worked with over the many years would call out “Hey Seldom”!
There was a time when working with the tools was given a 1 ton truck that had a welder on it for me to weld “problem /tough weldments” around the Dow plant. An old Dow painter presented me with this sign to hang on the front of that welding truck which I did. That painter has long passed away but I still have his sign on the door of my fur shed in his remembrance because he was a great guy to have thought enough of me to make that sign!!