Day 4 Thread 4 - scared stiff as an apprentice

[MaintenanceSpark]

When I was a 16 year old apprentice in 2008 there were two situations that scared me stiff that I’ll never forget and I thought I’d share and see if anyone else has any stories from their apprenticeship days.

1) I was tasked with changing the lamps in floodlights that shone on a hotels name, the floodlights were sat on top of bay windows either side of the main entrance. I climbed the triple ladder and climbed on to the “roof” of the bay window to replace the lamps. The job was no problem at all, lamps replaced in quick time. The problem came when I had to try and climb off of the roof and back on to the ladder, I couldn’t grab the ladder and turn my body to get back on, I was too scared as I was looking down now rather than looking up. 25 minutes I stood up there trying to build the courage to get down with my boss shouting you’ll be fine, come on. Luckily for me I got to foot the ladder for the next bay window floodlights! I got sweaty palms writing that, awful memory haha.
Nowadays I would be using a cherry picker and have a suitable harness!

2) We were doing work in a care home and I was tasked with replacing a light in a downstairs toilet. I was a couple of rungs up the steps when a resident grabbed my trouser leg and started pulling on it really hard and shouting Frank!! Frank!! is that you Frank!! As a 16 year old I didn’t know what to do, I froze in panic. Thankfully it didn’t take too long for a care worker to come and save me. I later found out from the care worker that Frank was the residents late husband. Funny to look back on now but also very sad as obviously the resident wasn’t very well at all.
You can guess what my nickname became for the next couple of weeks!

Anyone else have any stories to share? Would love to read them.

 

[westward10]

I started in around 1982 and remember putting conduits across the ceilings of some small industrial units. There was two A frames with two scaffold boards across them and I had to fit the saddles and measure the runs whilst two old boys threaded the tubes then passed them up. It still makes me shudder, I don't like heights and I was bricking it up there.

 

[littlespark]

Heights were never a problem when i was young and stupid.


A couple of instances now spring to mind....


Standing on the handrails of a walkway above grain silos, holding a very large motor as the journeyman... who would have been getting paid 3 times what i was getting, very slowly bolting it up into place.... me taking all the weight.



Primary school refurb.... Tasked with quickly taking down the lampshades before strippout which they were keeping.... just to cut through the pendant flexes... as another person went to find and isolate the boards....
Jumped the gun a little bit... turned off the switch... lights went out.... young me thinks its safe to cutty cutty.....

Wrong... Neutral was switched for some reason, not the live... and there was a cpc in the flex..... I not only found the corrct fuse to isolate the lights, but also found a reason to get a new pair of pliers.

It was a high ceiling. I was on a large stepladder straddled across 2 classroom tables to reach as high up on the flex as i could.

 

[pirate]

Haha! Normally I would sweat just reading those posts!
I'm not that steady on my feet when I'm standing on the ground, so ladders are hateful for me...
but now I am so old, and have recently finalised my last Will and Testament, I don't bother too much!
However, doing as much as I can at ground level, and thinking ahead, reduces ladder-work a lot...