Years ago I was working on a job at a college campus.  We were wiring an addition to the auditorium.  Part of the building was below ground on one side.  The part we were working on was about ground level.

There was one door that led off into the lower level, and the door to it was locked.  The door had a small window in it and someone had attached a dark cloth over the window on our side.  Of course my curiosity got the better of me.  I just had to see what was behind the door.  I wondered who it was that didn’t want what we were doing to be seen.

When I peeked in the window I saw some indoor tennis courts.  I wondered what the big deal was.  I didn’t think it was that out of the normal to have indoor tennis courts for use in bad weather.  Someone else must have had the same curiosity.

Construction workers have always had the reputation of being crude, rude, and even somewhat misogynistic.  I should have picked up on it when one of the guys was pretty insistent, saying; “Adrian, you ought o go look in that window.”

I replied; “I have.  It’s just some tennis courts.”

He said; “Yes, but go look now.”

I returned to the curtained window and on the other side were some college age girls playing tennis; in their skimpy tennis court attire.  Aha!  Now I knew what they were so captivated by.  I thought to myself that the curtain was on the wrong side of the door.

About the time I moved to the Spokane area changes had occurred in the traditional construction workforce.  More and more women were showing up on the job.  At first, most of the women on a construction crew weren’t sure how to assimilate.  As a result there were a few that just paraded around the job site and talked like they knew something about what was being done.  As time went by they began to realize they actually had to be workers, not just exhibitionists.

One of the best workers I ever came across was a woman.  She could out-work any man I ever worked with.  She had no ulterior motives, but was anxious to be a good electrician.

Times changed.

And that was a good thing.

One day I was working on a six story office building.  My job was on the deserted fourth floor.  I was up on a six foot ladder working on ceiling lighting.

I was intensely occupied with my job when I felt someone pulling on my pant leg.  Without looking down I asked; “What do you need?”

No answer.

I paused what I was doing and looked down.  There was no one in the room.  I thought someone was pulling a prank by pulling on my pants leg and immediately leaving the room.  After that thought I wondered why I didn’t hear whoever it was walking or running as they left the room.

I went back to my work.

Then it happened again.  I came off the ladder and went to checking out my surroundings very thoroughly.  I went into the hallway.

No one.

I checked the other offices.

No one.

I went back to my job, keeping my eyes halfway towards the door, watching out of the corners of my eyes.

Then my pants leg was shaking again.  I carefully searched the room again.  AHA!

I realized a couple of windows had been left open due to the hot summer day.  Short breezes would come in and shake my pants leg.

I closed the windows and the Phenomenon stopped.

Thank goodness I wasn’t losing my mind.

However that wasn’t the last of the curious things that happened to me while I was working on that building.

Those instances can be the foundation for at least a couple more stories.

I was put in charge of wiring a building for a distribution center.  Material for the job was transported from the factory to a distribution point, sorted as to destination and reshipped to the customers or to their job sites.

When the main panel for our job came in it was about seven feet high, four feet wide, and two feet deep.  It was a floor standing model and took three 800 amp fuses.

I was working that time with a young apprentice.  When the panel was hooked up to the power and ready to be turned on, I told him; “Shut your eyes.”  I did it to pull his leg a little.

I hit the power and “BAM!”  It blew a hole in the side of the panel wall about 10 inches across, and fire blew out the hole.  The apprentice said; “Wow!  I thought when you said ‘shut your eyes’ that you were joking.”

I tried to convince him I thought I was joking too.

We discovered that the factory had run a screw from the outside of the cabinet through the metal into a main buss.

An 800 Amp fuse is pretty expensive.

My mistake was that I had assumed that, coming direct from the factory, everything had been checked out for operation and safety.  In this case, … not so much.  Since that time I have found a number of cases where product came from the factory in a faulty condition.

When such a large scale mishap occurs, the company sends an engineer out to see if the product is still usable.  The lesson I learned on that job is, you never assume anything.

While I was still on the job at the distribution center, my company hired a young girl from Labor Ready as a runner.  She had picked up some wire for me to use on the job.  Instead of bringing 2/0 wire (for 200 Amps), which was what I needed, she brought #2 (for 100 Amps).  No one had explained the difference in wire size and function to her.

It reminded me of the old electrician’s joke about an apprentice bringing wire to a journeyman.  The apprentice said that he couldn’t find a roll of #12 wire so he brought two rolls of #6.