Shut It Off!  Shut It Off!

One of the men I worked with did everything at 100 miles per hour.  He was really a sharp electrician.  When he would check out what was wrong with a furnace or other piece of equipment, he would grab a piece of #12 wire, strip the ends, jumper out (if you are an electrician you know what this means) and check out the valves, switches, motors, controls, etc., and in a few seconds he would say “the trouble is right there.”  He was invariably correct.

He could also be quite impatient with me because, in his perception, I was too slow.  The speed with which he worked, and expected everyone else to work, may or may not have been caused by his past employment.  He had worked as an electrician on board Navy ships during World War II.

One day we were disconnecting some wiring in a basement.  He was standing on a small stool and reached into a closed space.  I was working about 20 feet away from him when I heard this strange noise.  I looked around and he was shaking on this stool and shouted; “Shut it off, shut it off!”  Right away I knew he had gotten into some hot wires.

The electrical disconnects were beyond where he was standing, at the other end of the basement.  I figured I’d kick the stool out from under him because I didn’t want to grab hold of him and have two dead bodies in the basement.

I had taken about two steps when the stool tipped over and he broke loose from the hot wires.  He had burned a hole, about 1/8” round, on the surface of his hand.  However, electrical burns damage the skin in a cone shape that enlarges as it goes further under the skin.  His burn was a serious burn.  I didn’t have opportunity to work with him again, so I don’t know if he lost any use of his hand or not.

I learned a lot from this fellow.

I learned both what to do and how to do it – and what not to do and why not.

How Many Fuse Boxes

Near the shop I was working out of, there was a small building undergoing de-construction. Demolition – to be straight up about it. I was tasked to strip the wiring out of the building. I was not allowed to touch the Power Company owned wiring. To prevent shock hazard, I took all the fuses out of the fuse box and threw them on the floor. (After all, if the fuses are on the floor they won’t be facilitating electrical shock hazards.)

Proceeding with my assigned task, I was cutting wire out of the runs and proceeding apace. At one point I had to reach over some boxes to get to my objective. As I stretched across the boxes, I cut one wire.

POW!

I blew a hole on the cutting edge of my brand-new pliers. How could that have happened? The fuses were lying on the floor. How could the wires be hot?

I did a careful search and eventually found the second fuse box. One I had not been aware of.

I took those fuses out, assigning them to the floor too. (O.K. So I threw them on the floor like I had the first ones.) I used a few choice words to describe the stupid electricians responsible for feeding two hot panels in one building.

Once again, I was working at cutting and stripping wires from the building. Soon though I was cutting another wire and POW!

Again!

I’m not saying if it was another set of pliers that got a hole in the cutting edge. However, I started to amend the identification of the electrician with a lack of intelligence.

Yes. There were three(!) fuse boxes in that small building.

You can spare yourself some grief (and tool destruction) if you check first.

Out of Gas Again

One of the contractors I worked for supplied me with a company pick-up. Yes, it was a 1945 Ford, but at the time it was only about 12 years old. Since for a time we were wiring a movie theater across the street from the shop, I would leave the pick-up parked at the shop and walk to the theater job.

At times I would get called away from the theater to do random small jobs. I would walk across the street, take the pick-up out, do the small job, return the pick-up to the shop, and walk back across the street to the theater.

There was a small gas station where the contractor had set up an account. We could fill up with gas and the bill would be sent directly to the contractor. We didn’t have to worry about it. Just keeping the rigs filled was all he asked. I would leave the shop, pass the station on my way to whatever small job I was going to – with my mind on the job I was headed for.

I would forget to gas up.

After completing the short call, I would return the pick-up (past the gas station) to the shop and hurry back to the theater. This went on for a couple of days with the gas gauge getting lower and lower.

One day I was working in the theater when my boss came over and asked to use my pick-up as his was being repaired.

I said, “Sure, it’s your pick-up. The keys are hanging in the office.”

When I went in that night he took me to task. He said, “I pay for the gas. I pay for the time it takes to put gas in the pick-up. Why can’t you keep the pick-up filled with gas?”

I apologized and told him I had just forgotten. I asked if he had to walk far. He said, “No, I was just in front of the station when it ran out and I coasted up to the pump. I want you to keep this thing filled with gas!”

A couple of weeks went by, and it happened again. I was at the theater, and he needed my pick-up. I forgot to tell him it was low on gas. That night when I went in, he never said a word. I noticed the next morning the pick-up was full of gas.

A couple of weeks went by and I noticed it was low on gas. This time I didn’t forget. As he filled the tank the attendant told me that my boss was “rather perturbed” with me because I ran my tank too low.

I said, “He told me he was just in front of the station when he ran out and he coasted in.”

The attendant said, “That was the time before. This last time he was clear across town.”

I noticed that my boss never asked to use my pick-up again. I think he gave up on me.