Closet Extremist

I frickin' KNEW it!

There's been a dark cloud hanging over me for the last few day's. Things have been going too well, so I've had a vague feeling of dread and foreboding hanging about me. Well, the "other shoe" has finally dropped.

It started last friday, when I arrived at a new building to install the elevator. Wait a minute... It actually started Thursday. Thursday, we moved our Gang Box (kinda sounds dirty don't it?) over to the new jobsite. After we get things unloaded and into the building, I had a little chat with the job Superintendant. He advised me that they didn't have any equipment to unload the truck with. No forklift, no Boom lift, not an unloading sausage. I made a call to the office, and they said that they would "take care of it". Oh yeah, I'm so sure.

When we showed up Friday, we were expecting the truck to arrive with the elevator between 10am and noon, so we got to work preparing the hoistway, and generally getting things lined out. After futzing about all morning, we discover that the truck won't be there until 1:00pm. Crap. After we get back from lunch, the truck finally arrives, and now we've got to unload the SOB. Wait, I forgot to mention the rainstorm. You know, the one with 45 mile an hour winds, and the torrential downpour, and the lightning, and the tornado warnings.

I clmbed aboard the forklift that the office had "taken care of" only to realize that it was (around 1962 or so) originally a farm tractor that had been converted to be a forklift. The problem? Oh, there's no problem. I like operating a piece of equipment that has a forward and reverse pedal other than a selector that puts me into either gear. when you step on the forward pedal, it also applies the gas, so the RPM's climb, the more pressure you add to it, then WHAM that sumbitch finally decides to drop into gear, and the whole lift (including whatever precariously balanced load you are carrying at the time) jerks violently as the machine starts in its intended direction. The same thing happens when you apply the reverse pedal.

Unloading crates that weigh around two thousand pounds with this type of machinery is quite a dicey proposition indeed. Not to mention the fact that the "machine room", where the hydraulic pump and tank are to be installed, is on the second floor. The only acces that we have to the second floor is through the fire escape stairs at the back of the building, and the goddamn lift doesn't reach up high enough to get the machine and the tanks of oil over the railing for the staircase. Beautiful. We left it for today to get done.

After we had stacked the rails, and gotten some lunch today, we decided to go ahead and get the pump and a couple of barrels of oil up to the second floor, by tying them to the bottom of a platform lift, that would reach up that high. there wa no incident in getting them up there, and all things went extremely well.. until I decided to descend the aformentioned fire stair.

Who, in their right minds, decides to pour a staircase only partially? Hmmn? Didn't think you'd know. You see, a normal staircase is compased of a steel structure and supports, and the actual treads (where you put your feet. Do I have to explain everything?) are concrete that has been placed to fill in the space that is not steel. Each tread can be likened to an ice cube tray, made of steel and without the water in it. It is a bowl, that is not comfortable to walk on until it has been filled...with concrete. Savvy?

As I was coming down the stairs, I discovered that all was not completed here. The top level was poured full of concrete, all the stairs down to the middle landing were filled, the middle landing was taken care of, and the stairs down to the ground level were not. My left ankle can attest to this fact. It's the one that gave way when I was traversing this stairway in an expedient manner.

Dangit! Now my ankle hurts, and there's nothing to blame but "cruel fate". I wonder what else fate has in store for me? I'm prepared to wager that a broken fingernail is in my near future.

I KNEW something like this would happen.

Posted by Johnny - Oh at April 26, 2005 12:14 AM