well I got the boot from a company once for not wanting to use a normal ladder, I say normal as in the type that slides inside itself, it was made up of FOUR long ladders hooked over one another on the second last rung of each and held together with tie wraps (cable ties) and was in a large industrial warehouse with two heavy lifting cranes on a beam/roller system that went all the way from one end to the other of the building, it was to get up to a steel beam running the length of the building (80 meters long or thereabouts) and was just under 30 meters up, and still about 8 meters from the lowest part of the roof, the beam was covered in about an inch of cement dust from the workshop below that did stone cutting and metal work, and there were dead pigeons all along it as well, getting onto the beam meant standing at the very top of the ladder, leaning over the power rails for the cranes (inch thick copper bars with a wobbly bit of Aluminium above them, 415V) and doing a pull up to get onto the beam, then crawling the length of the beam with a heavy cable whilst people down below were rolling out the drum, suspended by one of the cranes via a vehicle tow rope (the flat strap kind) hooked over an old scaffold pole...it was very dodgy.....after a tea break, three of the other sparks got phoned off to go to another job 50 odd miles away and said "see ya ff for that phew" and I got left with two idiots, I was about half way up the ladder contraption (15m) and the boy below was supposed to be holding it, he was standing smoking instead, but I doubt if he would have been much use strength wise anyway as the ladders probably totalled 100Kg without me on them as well....ladder went "eeeekkkkkk" along the floor (noise it made) slid backwards and fell forwards, clunk, landed against an H beam that went to the floor from the horizontal beam, theres me holding on to the beam and ladder at the same time and it is still trying to slide more, I was thinking if this goes beyond a certain angle it will go down and hit the floor in 2 seconds flat with me still on it, ladder swaying from side to side, crapping myself, other lad in fits of laughter.....climbed down as fast as I could manage thinking the more I get down the less I have to fall when this thing goes....got to the bottom and refused to go back up, end result was pumped the next morning (Friday) via text from agency....all because the company did not want to use safe climbing equipment...
