Sept. 20
Today was an important day.
I am working as a framer for the first time in my life. I have worked 5 days, one complete week, and I am still pretty slow at things but I am getting better. However, my boss, who is a very good boss, wants me to be faster, to get better faster, and today took active steps to help me improve.
He knows I am afraid of heights, and being afraid of heights is not a good quality for a framer. I have worked at heights before. When I worked at The Refinery my first year I had to climb up towers a hundred feet high on ladders and raise and lower all our equipment over those ladders, and at first your legs shake and I feel sick to my stomach but it isn’t long before I get the hang of it. However, the safety precautions at The Refinery are extensive and so I never really had much to fear.
More recently I climbed up a tower on the top of a mountain that was probably at least 100 feet high, and by the time I was on my way down I felt at ease hanging on the ladder and doing chin ups.
But none of these situations have the potential for falling or tripping or dying that my new job provides. It is frustrating because most of the time I am asked to do things that I am totally capable of doing. I can walk on a beam. I can. I’ve done it. And yet, when I am up there everything seems much more difficult. In fact, it actually is more difficult sometimes, because it is harder to walk on a beam when your knees are shaking.
So I was given some jobs today that freaked me out. I had to nail in some studs that were lying on the gap for the stairs. It was probably pretty safe, though it is hard to tell when you are scared out of your mind, but the drop there is two stories plus the basement, so it’s a long way.
Anyway, the day before I had just gotten used to walking on the walls and the beams of the second floor, and I really think I had that down, but my boss didn’t see my progress, all he say was that now I was afraid of these new things that were even higher or more sketchy. So finally I was given the job of patching some OSB to the outside of the building that was high enough that I had to climb to the top of the wooden ladder (wooden ladders are notoriously precarious) with the OSB, which acted as a sort of sail for my ladder/sail boat and a staple gun, to make sure I didn’t have any hands to hold on to the things that weren’t there to hold on to anyway.
While I was up there I had to rip off some two by sixes that were attacked to the wall, and the force of my prying and pounding would sometimes send the top of the ladder sliding along the wall of the house I was leaning against. So I took forever to do the job, but not because I was freaked out, because most of the time, when my ladder wasn’t actually in the process of falling over, I was fine. But my boss was really doing me a service. He was sending me off to do things that I wouldn’t have done if it were up to me, and it made me more capable, and made me less afraid. What a good boss.
But something more important happened today as well. I found something that I have been missing for a long time. I’m trying to remember when I lost it, and I thought that maybe it was last September, but it turns out it may have been as long ago as the December previous to last September. I found my sense of humor. I remembered what humor is, what I find funny, and what is so good about it. I hope I don’t lose it again.
I was on the top of a ladder, the wind was blowing my OSB and I was trying really hard not to drop it at the same time as balancing the ladder that was shaking as I climbed, still feeling a little nervous that our compressed gas powered staple gun would shoot a staple right through me and I heard a fire truck fly by on a nearby street with sirens blazing, and I thought to myself, “This isn’t so dangerous after all.”
So that is it for now. May you always awaken to a life full of the greatest gifts you can receive: goodness, humility and joy.
I am working as a framer for the first time in my life. I have worked 5 days, one complete week, and I am still pretty slow at things but I am getting better. However, my boss, who is a very good boss, wants me to be faster, to get better faster, and today took active steps to help me improve.
He knows I am afraid of heights, and being afraid of heights is not a good quality for a framer. I have worked at heights before. When I worked at The Refinery my first year I had to climb up towers a hundred feet high on ladders and raise and lower all our equipment over those ladders, and at first your legs shake and I feel sick to my stomach but it isn’t long before I get the hang of it. However, the safety precautions at The Refinery are extensive and so I never really had much to fear.
More recently I climbed up a tower on the top of a mountain that was probably at least 100 feet high, and by the time I was on my way down I felt at ease hanging on the ladder and doing chin ups.
But none of these situations have the potential for falling or tripping or dying that my new job provides. It is frustrating because most of the time I am asked to do things that I am totally capable of doing. I can walk on a beam. I can. I’ve done it. And yet, when I am up there everything seems much more difficult. In fact, it actually is more difficult sometimes, because it is harder to walk on a beam when your knees are shaking.
So I was given some jobs today that freaked me out. I had to nail in some studs that were lying on the gap for the stairs. It was probably pretty safe, though it is hard to tell when you are scared out of your mind, but the drop there is two stories plus the basement, so it’s a long way.
Anyway, the day before I had just gotten used to walking on the walls and the beams of the second floor, and I really think I had that down, but my boss didn’t see my progress, all he say was that now I was afraid of these new things that were even higher or more sketchy. So finally I was given the job of patching some OSB to the outside of the building that was high enough that I had to climb to the top of the wooden ladder (wooden ladders are notoriously precarious) with the OSB, which acted as a sort of sail for my ladder/sail boat and a staple gun, to make sure I didn’t have any hands to hold on to the things that weren’t there to hold on to anyway.
While I was up there I had to rip off some two by sixes that were attacked to the wall, and the force of my prying and pounding would sometimes send the top of the ladder sliding along the wall of the house I was leaning against. So I took forever to do the job, but not because I was freaked out, because most of the time, when my ladder wasn’t actually in the process of falling over, I was fine. But my boss was really doing me a service. He was sending me off to do things that I wouldn’t have done if it were up to me, and it made me more capable, and made me less afraid. What a good boss.
But something more important happened today as well. I found something that I have been missing for a long time. I’m trying to remember when I lost it, and I thought that maybe it was last September, but it turns out it may have been as long ago as the December previous to last September. I found my sense of humor. I remembered what humor is, what I find funny, and what is so good about it. I hope I don’t lose it again.
I was on the top of a ladder, the wind was blowing my OSB and I was trying really hard not to drop it at the same time as balancing the ladder that was shaking as I climbed, still feeling a little nervous that our compressed gas powered staple gun would shoot a staple right through me and I heard a fire truck fly by on a nearby street with sirens blazing, and I thought to myself, “This isn’t so dangerous after all.”
So that is it for now. May you always awaken to a life full of the greatest gifts you can receive: goodness, humility and joy.
posted by The Begger at 8:08 p.m.
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