I was working on a job out in Seattle.  My apprentice partner was of Latin- American descent.  He was a rather strong fellow.  He had just started his apprenticeship and was anxious to learn.  He was a good worker.

We were installing the trim in one building, and the sheet rockers had leaned a large amount of sheet rock against the wall in front of one of the receptacle boxes.  I suggested that I could hold the sheetrock straight up, away from the wall, while he went behind and installed the receptacle.  This would give him real electrical experience.  He obviously didn’t need sheetrock holding experience.

A moment of clear thinking would have allowed me to reconsider.  He was the stronger of us two.  I would take up less room between the sheet rock and the wall.  It was a snap decision that didn’t turn out very well.

While holding the sheet rock upright I became overbalanced.  The sheet rock started falling back toward me.  As I tried desperately to hold it upright, I fell over backward with the sheet rock on top of me.  (We later determined that the sheet rock weighed a ton.)  A number of men came and lifted the sheet rock off of me.

I was able to get up but my feet had been flat on the floor while my legs were turned sideways at the ankle.  It was not a pleasant experience!  I wouldn’t recommend it.  They hauled me off to the hospital.  The doctor kept asking me if I had heard a pop or a snap.  I hadn’t noticed either one.  The X-rays did not show anything broken but the ligaments had been stretched considerably.

I had been staying with my daughter and son-in-law in Seattle, so my wife came over to the coast to pick me up and take me home.  There followed four or five months of hobbling around and physical therapy.

During that time we had very little income.  L&I was very slow to compensate us.  I received an opportunity to inspect wiring for FHA homes.  At the time it seemed like a reasonable solution.  I could hobble around a home and verify wiring, and wait for the compensation for being injured on the job to show up.

I was mistaken.  The fact that I was earning something cut off the very little that L&I was compensating me.  A great number of correspondence letters ensued, with me trying my best to get everything cleared up.  My lawyer said that I just dug the hole deeper every time I wrote a letter.  He eventually got it all corrected.

It took some time before I was able to contact the apprentice who had been working with me and assure him my injury was not his fault.

It was my own mistake.

Besides, dry wall is heavy stuff.

One shop where I worked told me to come in early on Friday afternoons to clean out my truck and restock for the next week.  I considered it an excellent policy.

One fellow never put anything away.  When he finished a job, he threw everything in the panel in a large pile.  If he needed something he would search through the pile to see if he had it, walking on the stuff already there.

One day when my van was in the repair shop and this fellow was on vacation, the company gave me his van to drive.  What a mess!  I would park next to the curb, open the sliding door and wiring material would fall out and roll down into the gutter.  When I went in that night I informed the shop I couldn’t work out of that vehicle.  It was impossible!

The stockroom boy told me that one other fellow had used this truck and when he opened the door and saw the interior, he closed the door, drove back to the shop, backed up to the door of the stock room, got a scoop shovel and shoveled everything out into a pile on the dock; tools and all.  The stockroom boy said it took him a week to put everything away.

Apparently the guy to whom that the truck had been assigned never got the hint.  However, when he retired the company gave him the van.  He must have been considered “valuable.”

While I was still at that company, we were working on an out of town job.  We were issued a water cooler and paper cups.  When winter time came the cooler was emptied so that it wouldn’t freeze up.

The guys came across a “road kill” cat beside the road.  They stuck it inside the cooler as a surprise for the stock room boy.  Everything was unloaded but the stock room boy never opened anything up to check it out.

Months later this terrible odor permeated the stockroom.  They had to go through everything to find where it was coming from.

It was necessary to discard the water cooler

I don’t recall if anyone answered for the “surprise” with their employment.  Some shops just do not tolerate such horse play.

I worked on the Sacred Heart Hospital while it was being built.  I had the privilege of working with a crew of about 50 electricians.  The building was constructed out of poured concrete.  They used small cranes for several floors.  An opening was left in the center of the building in each floor.  The crane would lift itself up to the next floor and the hole would be poured shut.

For a long time I worked on the temporary lighting.  I would take a long string of wire cable and install a series of lights on it.  Each light string would be installed on a particular floor so that light was available until the permanent lighting was installed.  Then we would take the temporary light string down, make repairs and go to the next floor.

To have room to make up the temporary lighting, as well as repair it, I would stretch out the temporary light string in the yard about shoulder height.  From there I would install the fixtures or make repairs, then take the string inside the building and install it.  Every so often someone would inquire about what I was doing out in the yard.  My response was; “I’m building a fence – our cows have long legs.”

When the building project was fairly well along, there was no more need for temporary lighting.  I was assigned to installing permanent fixtures in the building.  While the finish carpenters were installing cabinetry, I was assigned to work on one of the floors down at the end of a hallway.  I can’t remember what it was now, but whatever needed to be worked on had been changed or had been left incomplete.

As I walked down the hallway I came across a finish carpenter.  I talked to him briefly and continued down to where I was to work.  As I was working, I heard the carpenter say; “Hey, come here!”  I thought to myself: “That was sure a strange thing to call out.”  What did he want?  He didn’t sound desperate and I was anxious to get my work done.  The second time he called out, I decided to go see what was up.

I came down off my ladder and was about to go down the hallway when I heard voices talking with him.  At least two other people.  I thought he had help if he needed it so I went back to work.  At the end of the day I was walking down the hallway, he was in one of the rooms working.  As I passed he said; “You wouldn’t come and help a guy when he was in trouble.”

He told me he was trying to fit a cabinet into a corner and it didn’t quite fit.  So he had leaned the cabinet over to walk behind it.  It reached almost to the opposite wall.  He caught his finger between the cabinet and the wall.  He was stuck there until someone came along to help.

It seemed a strange way to call for help.  Maybe he didn’t like to use the word “Help.” Or maybe he was too embarrassed.

I think he should have used “May Day!”, or just “Help!  Help!”