Closet Extremist

Just stuff.

Well, we finally finished up our "cable-job" this afternoon. Jebus Tits that was a lot of pushing and pulling and finagling and hitting stuff with hammers. One of the Old Salts of the elevator bidness described it as "A good job o' work." Nice turn of phrase ain't it? I'll be adding it to my repertoire. Anyway, I have been completely wiped out from this job. The stress level was incedibly high, and the hours were long. Also, we changed shifts (Start and End time of work) four times over the course of seven work day's. Also, there were only three people on this job (myself included) that were there every day of it. The other three floated in and floated out, thereby adding to the stress levels.

My primary job on this deal was ensuring that everything went well with the counterwieght. This was a big responsibility for me, as none of the "lead" mechanics ever even came down to the pit. If you'll recall the (pitifully drawn) picture from this post, this machine was roped "2 to 1". How we do this type of job, is we run the elevator all the way up until the counterweight is sitting on its buffer stands (Or up on jack stands like we did these). The counterweight is heavier than the car, so it makes sense to set it on something solid (if you set the lighter car there, if something went wrong, then theweight would come down, and the car would be propelled through the top of the hoistway). Since the "weight" is so heavy, and has to take up so little room in the hoistway, it is quite tall. Let's see, sitting on eight foot jack stands, plus the 16 feet of counterweight, (carry the four) and you find yourself a "goodly" ways up a ladder in order to get to the shieve.

Since w are pulling the cable up through the top of the hoistway, The only thing that is holding it up is a couple of cable grips. If one of those failed, I would get anywhere from 100 to 400 feet of wire rope coming down on my head.. while standing on a ladder 20+ feet from the floor. I should have stuck a piece of coal in my ass, because after one was moving through there, I could have shit a diamond. Times twelve. (six ropes per car, two cars re-roped.) If crunching numbers was this exciting, I'd still be doing it.

There were only a few {exciting moments) on this gig, but the few there were, was at least once a day. I've come home so stressed/tired that I could only stare at the wall (and drink) until sleep overcame me.

The strangest part is: I still like this job.