A Helper Should Be A Helper

One of the fellows I worked with was an old timer.  He told me a story of when he began wiring in Minnesota before the electricians were unionized.  He was doing pole work.  He was using the general practice of having a helper on the ground.  He had fastened a pulley on the top of the pole and run a rope through it and down to the ground.  The helper was to put tools and parts into the bucket and use the rope to transport them up to the electrician on the pole.

It’s a good system if you pay attention to the rules.  Some electricians will joke about it.  They will hold their tool pouch open and tell the helper to toss what they need into the pouch.  That’s not very efficient.

Back to the story; the old timer was working on the pole when it broke and fell to the ground, with him underneath it.  The helper responded by jumping in the pick-up and taking off, leaving the electrician under the pole, half dead.

Eventually the electrician regained consciousness and crawled and struggled to the nearest house.  They called for an ambulance.  When he was able to get around, he looked for the helper and asked him; “Why did you run off?”

The helper answered; “I was afraid.”

(Do you appreciate today’s ease of communication via cell phones?)

Years later another electrician told me his “helper” experience.  He was also working on a pole but it was during a bitter Northern Montana winter.  He called down to his helper and the helper had disappeared.  Of course he had to come down the pole.  He found his helper in a heated building getting warm.  He wasn’t a very helpful helper.  There are similar circumstances involving ladders, but that’s another story.

One of my helpers, or more accurately, fellow workers was blind in one eye.  I one time called him “Dead Eye”; not stopping to think if he was sensitive about it or not.

Sometime later he was doing the wiring in a Safeway store remodel.  He called down to the shop for additional help on the job, so they sent me.

When I walked in the front door of the store, he was standing on a scaffold about center of the store.  He looked down and saw me.  He said; “Well I did ask for a little help.”

I found out then that he was one of the good guys.

Welding

A welder can work for any trade.  In fact it is a trade in itself.  In the union they refer to it as a tool of the trade.  That means a plumber, an electrician, a carpenter, or a sheet metal worker (Tin Knocker) could be a welder.  But not all in a specific trade can weld, including me.

For one thing you can ruin your eyesight from the welding flash if you don’t wear proper PPE (personal protective equipment).  There are electric welders, gas welders (acetylene), and other types.  Many times in my years as an electrician, people have assumed that all electricians are welders.  Not true.

One time I was called out to a job on a farm in the back country to wire a shop.  One of the requirements was to install a receptacle for an electric welder.  That was fine.  I could do the wiring – the farmer could do the welding.

When I finished the wiring portion of the job I put my tools and left over material in the truck.  I was in a hurry to get home because it was getting late.  The farmer asked me to show him how to use the welder.  I responded that I can wire for a welder but didn’t know how to weld.

Since it was an electric welder the farmer said; “You’re an electrician, you must know how to weld.”  Most farmers I know are expert welders, but at the time the REA (Rural Electric Association) had just come into the area.

The farmer said; “You must know something about it.”  So I told him I would give it a try.

He found two pieces of iron and set one on top of the other.  I had no idea what setting I should use but took a weld … er … wild guess, put on the mask, and … everything was totally black.

Did you ever try to run a stick along a crevice when you can’t see the crevice, or the stick for that matter?  More wild guesses.

Every time the welding rod would touch one of those pieces of metal it would flash and I could see momentarily.  Then the rod would stick and I would twist it off of the metal and try again.  Each effort I got a little closer to the spot I was trying to weld.

I finally caught on to the process of holding the rod close enough to the metal that it would arc, but not so close that it would stick.  The light from the arc would tell you where to go.  I finally “welded” a few spots on those pieces of iron, took off the mask, shut down the welder and told that farmer; “That’s how you weld.”  Then I went home.

I often wondered if he thought that all of that flashing and slashing I had done was part of the process.

I felt like I was the world’s greatest pretender.  (cue music)

Screaming Hank

I don’t know what his name was, but the people on the job called him “Screaming Hank.”  He was a building contractor.  When I first met him I heard him before I saw him.  He was up on a building under construction and hollering to his helper for something or other.  We found out he wasn’t hurt, just giving loud instructions.

Some time after I first met him I wound up working on one of his projects again.  He was building houses from pre-built panels.  The pre-built sections would come in by railroad.  Screaming Hank’s crew would assemble them on prepared foundations.

My boss had the wiring contract for the houses.  The carpenters would set up the inside walls but not nail them solid.  That would come later.  I learned this one day when I inadvertently leaned on one of the walls and it moved.  I thought we were experiencing an earthquake before I figured out what was happening.

One of the first things I would do on this type of building project was get up above the ceiling level and drill holes for wire in the outside wall partitions.  After the trusses and roof were on it would be much more difficult.  Some of the inside walls came pre-sheetrocked on both sides and also needed to be drilled right away.

The process for the carpenters was to also set up scaffolding around the outside of the house so that they could work on the soffits and eaves.

One day one of the carpenters – John is all I know him by – was in the future attic putting roof sections together.  Screaming Hank came driving up, apparently John wasn’t doing something right.  Screaming Hank started hollering “John!  Oh, John!”

John didn’t answer, he just kept nailing.  He didn’t acknowledge Hank.  John acted like Hank wasn’t even there.

After calling a number of times Screaming Hank exploded.  He crawled up the scaffolding and started across the ceiling rafters toward John.  I thought to myself; “Uh oh.  There’s going to be bloodshed.”   I eyed the distance between John and me and knew I could never get there in time to help.  Besides, what could I do?  I would likely only wind up getting hurt myself.

All of a sudden Screaming Hank disappeared.  About that time John turned around with his hammer in his hand with a look that said he was really going to nail something.   I went over to where I had last seen Hank.  There he was lying on the kitchen floor staring up at the hole he had made in the sheetrock above.

I heard Screaming Hank say; “Now I have to repair that ceiling.”

Hank got up, got into his car and drove away.  Old John spit out a stream of tobacco juice and kept nailing.  He had never uttered a word.

That was the last time I ever saw Screaming Hank.

Or John.