We’re running a contest! Everyone is eligible. For details, please read on:
For a while now, we’ve been meaning to tell you that Enbridge has started its very own blog! Trust us when we tell you that it is every bit as good as you might imagine. In fact– no offense to all the marvelous sites we visit regularly— it’s pretty quickly becoming our favorite blog ever. It’s so good, in fact, that if we had the time, we’d write about it almost every day. Why? Well, many reasons. For example, there’s the incomprehensible corporate claptrap:
“This means we have a unique opportunity to collaborate with the various components of our value chain,” she adds, “on the role that CSR practices and market-based innovation can play in reducing carbon emissions and improving other aspects of environmental performance.”
There’s the fact that it appears to be written for an audience comprised of junior high school kids:
Energy is as essential to sustaining life today as water. Energy cooks our food, grows our crops, and provides the sustenance we need to lead active lives.
There’s the lineup of authors, which is supposed to make us believe that these Enbridge executives are typing up these blog entries themselves, as opposed to the Enbridge marketing team, which must mean that all Enbridge executives are taught to write in the same bland voice, full of corporatized, hollow slogans:
Our strength is in our people.
As North Americans, we owe our economic and social progress to fossil fuels.
Working together, we will achieve our target of top industry performance.
There’s even the shameless attempt to exploit adorable dogs to persuade people to their point of view (seriously, who would do that?).
But by far, the best post yet comes from (is attributed to?) Leon Zupan, Enbridge’s Chief Operating Officer, Liquids Pipelines, who recently tried his hand at an extended metaphor. According to Zupan, pipelines are a lot like people and many of Enbridge’s employees are a lot like doctors. It goes like this:
First off, let me say that I am conflicted, as most of our pipelines, other than the original four lines, are older than me. I know that the regimen we follow to keep our lines in top shape definitely exceeds my personal regimen of exercise and diet.
Pipelines have some similarities to us:
- They have to have a health check;
- They may need some preventive work and the occasional professional treatment, and;
- If properly looked after, they can last a very long time, maybe an active working life longer than many of us.
We have some of the best pipeline “physicians” in the world working for Enbridge, and coupled with a team of external consultants and repair specialists, we do an industry-leading job of ensuring all of our lines are healthy and fit for purpose.
It goes on in this vein for a few more paragraphs before concluding on a sort of wistfully humanizing note, as Zupan says that he should “aspire to be as fit as the pipelines I look after.”
Now, it just so happens that we love a belabored metaphor. And we love it even more when the metaphor is terribly ill-conceived, as this one is. In fact, it got us thinking about some of the other ways that pipelines are just like people. So much so, that we thought it might be fun to make it a contest. So what do you think? How are pipelines like people?
We asked the crack Line 6B blog staff and they came up with these:
- Sometimes pipelines are mistreated and neglected by the people who say they’re taking care of them.
- Pipelines, like people, often do not fit the perfect ‘mold’ – they are not able to be inspected by the latest ILI devices, having a few too many curves or dips or divets.
- Pipelines are like people: stuff’s supposed to go in one end and out the other end. It’s bad if it comes out in the middle.
- Or, if Enbridge wants to be serious about the health care metaphor, consider this: the U.S. still does not have universal health care for all of its citizens. 14 percent of Americans remain uninsured. But that’s still a better situation than for hazardous liquid pipelines, where only about 42% of them are subject to rules that require periodic “health check” inspections. As for other 58% of them, operators aren’t required to take them in for check ups or “occasional professional treatments” ever. EVER. Until they fail, and then they have to fix them – much like the uninsured going to the ER. One would think that both ought to get some preventive care, no?
So there’s your challenge: how are pipelines like people? pipeline operators like doctors? (surely someone can cook up a good malpractice joke!). We’ll conduct the contest over at the Line 6B blog Facebook page. The winner, determined by the number of “likes” will receive bragging rights and admiration!
Submit your entry over on our Facebook page.