Gibson Door and Millwork

For about a month or so I had been going into the Union hall from 7 - 9am with the hope of a Job calling in requesting a carpenter.  

Friday I decided to bring my camera and take pictures of some of the old tools in the displays.

I was able to take some pictures and after the office was opened the word was given that Gibson Door and Millwork needed an apprentice to help tape plastic over windows on a job site.  So, off I went.

The first thing on the site was for me and Gary, the Foreman, to be trained on the Boom lift.  At that point I couldn't explain my fear of heights, or vertigo, because I needed the work.  

After doing some windows on the 1st floor Gary got on the Boom lift and I rounded up material to start the second and third floor.

After all we had to go through with passes to get on the base, get our safety card for the boom and then actually do work all the windows you see taped were as much as we could do the first day.

The following day, as you can see, tape came off of many windows and some of the plastic and tape came off entirely.

Day two it was time to go to the highest point and I wasn't looking forward to it.  But, like I said, I needed the job.

So it was up.

Up,

way up,

and away up.  For some reason it wasn't too bad.  The weather was perfect and there was no breeze.  I handled it very well I think.  Gary could sense my nervousness and was understanding, being that it was my first time on the boom that high.  I also drove the boom the second day and placed us at quite a few windows too.

The third day there it rained and we couldn't use the boom, so we had to do windows from inside.  We discovered that it was not only easier but faster doing it that way.  That day we did about 40 or 50 windows, which, I'm sure we couldn't have with the boom.

In the morning on the last day Gary and I got on base earlier and went to a different job site Gibson Door was installing door frames.  We grabbed about 8 door frames with concrete poured around the jams and placed them were they needed to go for Octovio, cleaned up the staging area and then went back to the other site.

After doing all the forth floor window openings it was time for us to climb up the rigging the Mason's had going and seal off the ends of the buildings.  

However, after it being explained that we would have to climb without our safety rigging on and not tie off to anything I realized that falling 4 stories wasn't worth the fear I'd have just trying to climb up.  Let alone doing the work and then climbing down.  Gary was great about it and realized my fear would only get in the way.  It was really a one man job anyway so he sent me off to do as much of the rest of the windows from the inside while he climbed up this rigging and did the side window.