It is profitable for someone. What happens in that stuff melts, blows up, etc, in the toughest places to get to. Ie, a decades old conduit that was already jammed beyond capacity buried under a busy street. So as a quick fix, it gets routed around. That is emergency work. This propagates scheduled repair work for months. Obviously emergency work remains the priority for the summer. There are very few days a year where Con Ed can do infrastructure upgrades, which are considered high risk and low priority. What the electricians do is take vacation during the time they are supposed to do infrastructure upgrades, as that is when their bosses like them to take off. So the upgrades never get done. What the electricans like to do is work when they can either get 2x OT or get paid to stay at work and do nothing. I believe right now, shifts are extended and they are required to come in 4 hours early and stay 4 hours late, just to be there, not to actually do electrican work. All OT. And they have the option of just staying. If you are like my bud and it takes 2 hours to drive in and 2 hours to drive home, it is simply not worth it to go home, when you can be paid an OT rate to sleep. Then, for the rest of the year, he will schedule repair work, ideally on days or weeks when he can get the highest rate per hour. That tends to be on weekends, so he works mostly weekends and fishes during the week. Not a bad life, unless you are a family man.
