Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do by Studs Terkel Page B
Authors: Studs Terkel
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street, he’s an electrician. We have one that’s an engineer for Allis-Chalmers. We have two policemen that live here. Everybody kind of minds their own business.”
He is a forty-eight-year-old construction worker who has been at it for twenty-two years. His wife works; his two married children live elsewhere. He is considerably overweight and his breathing is labored. “l’m a heavy equipment operator . I run a crane. ”
There is a pecking order: apprentices; “dirt work” — sewers, water mains, tunnels, roads; buildings; “soft jobs” for the older or disabled. “They’re supposed to be in the union at least ten years and fifty-five years old.”
There’s no job in construction which you could call an easy job. I mean, if you’re out there eating dust and dirt for eight, ten hours a day, even if you’re not doing anything, it’s work. Just being there is . . .
The difficulty is not in running a crane. Anyone can run it. But making it do what it is supposed to do, that’s the big thing. It only comes with experience. Some people learn it quicker and there’s some people can never learn it. (Laughs.) What we do you can never learn out of a book. You could never learn to run a hoist or a tower crane by reading. It’s experience and common sense.
There’s a bit more skill to building work. This is a boom crane. It goes anywhere from 8o feet to 240 feet. You’re setting iron. Maybe you’re picking fifty, sixty ton and maybe you have ironworkers up there 100, 110 feet. You have to be real careful that you don’t bump one of these persons, where they would be apt to fall off.
At the same time, they’re putting bolts in holes. If they wanted a half-inch, you have to be able to give them a half-inch. I mean, not an inch, not two inches. Those holes must line up exactly or they won’t make their iron. And when you swing, you have to swing real smooth. You can’t have your iron swinging back and forth, oscillating. If you do this, they’ll refuse to work with you, because their life is at stake.
They’re working on beams, anywhere from maybe a foot wide to maybe five or six inches. These fellas walk across there. They have to trust you. If there’s no trust there, they will not work with you. It has to be precision. There has been fellows that have been knocked off and hurt very seriously. If there’s someone careless or drinking . . . I had a serious accident myself. My one leg is where I don’t trust to run a crane any more with 239, 240 feet of stake.
These cranes are getting bigger and bigger, so there’s more tension. Now they’re coming out with a hydraulic crane. Cherry pickers they’re called. They’re so very easy to upset if you don’t know exactly what you’re supposed to do. And it happens so quick.
They’re more dangerous if you don’t respect ’em. Everything inside your cab has got a capacity, tells you what it can lift, at what degree your boom is. But there’s some of these foremen that are trying to make a name for themselves. They say, We’re only gonna pick this much and that much and there’s no use we should put this down. A lot of times they want you to carry things that weighs three or four ton. On level ground this can be done, but if you’re going down a slope, you’re asking for trouble.
It’s not so much the physical, it’s the mental. When you’re working on a tunnel and you’re down in a hole two hundred feet, you use hand signals. You can’t see there. You have to have someone else that’s your eyes. There has been men dropped and such because some fellow gave the wrong signal.
Then there’s sometimes these tunnels, they cave in. There’s been just recently over here in Midlothian, it was four fellas killed. They encountered some gas in there. Sometimes you get a breakthrough in water. There was one of ‘em here in Calumet City about a year ago. It was muck. This thing caved in their mushing machine. A big percentage of ’em, the
He is a forty-eight-year-old construction worker who has been at it for twenty-two years. His wife works; his two married children live elsewhere. He is considerably overweight and his breathing is labored. “l’m a heavy equipment operator . I run a crane. ”
There is a pecking order: apprentices; “dirt work” — sewers, water mains, tunnels, roads; buildings; “soft jobs” for the older or disabled. “They’re supposed to be in the union at least ten years and fifty-five years old.”
There’s no job in construction which you could call an easy job. I mean, if you’re out there eating dust and dirt for eight, ten hours a day, even if you’re not doing anything, it’s work. Just being there is . . .
The difficulty is not in running a crane. Anyone can run it. But making it do what it is supposed to do, that’s the big thing. It only comes with experience. Some people learn it quicker and there’s some people can never learn it. (Laughs.) What we do you can never learn out of a book. You could never learn to run a hoist or a tower crane by reading. It’s experience and common sense.
There’s a bit more skill to building work. This is a boom crane. It goes anywhere from 8o feet to 240 feet. You’re setting iron. Maybe you’re picking fifty, sixty ton and maybe you have ironworkers up there 100, 110 feet. You have to be real careful that you don’t bump one of these persons, where they would be apt to fall off.
At the same time, they’re putting bolts in holes. If they wanted a half-inch, you have to be able to give them a half-inch. I mean, not an inch, not two inches. Those holes must line up exactly or they won’t make their iron. And when you swing, you have to swing real smooth. You can’t have your iron swinging back and forth, oscillating. If you do this, they’ll refuse to work with you, because their life is at stake.
They’re working on beams, anywhere from maybe a foot wide to maybe five or six inches. These fellas walk across there. They have to trust you. If there’s no trust there, they will not work with you. It has to be precision. There has been fellows that have been knocked off and hurt very seriously. If there’s someone careless or drinking . . . I had a serious accident myself. My one leg is where I don’t trust to run a crane any more with 239, 240 feet of stake.
These cranes are getting bigger and bigger, so there’s more tension. Now they’re coming out with a hydraulic crane. Cherry pickers they’re called. They’re so very easy to upset if you don’t know exactly what you’re supposed to do. And it happens so quick.
They’re more dangerous if you don’t respect ’em. Everything inside your cab has got a capacity, tells you what it can lift, at what degree your boom is. But there’s some of these foremen that are trying to make a name for themselves. They say, We’re only gonna pick this much and that much and there’s no use we should put this down. A lot of times they want you to carry things that weighs three or four ton. On level ground this can be done, but if you’re going down a slope, you’re asking for trouble.
It’s not so much the physical, it’s the mental. When you’re working on a tunnel and you’re down in a hole two hundred feet, you use hand signals. You can’t see there. You have to have someone else that’s your eyes. There has been men dropped and such because some fellow gave the wrong signal.
Then there’s sometimes these tunnels, they cave in. There’s been just recently over here in Midlothian, it was four fellas killed. They encountered some gas in there. Sometimes you get a breakthrough in water. There was one of ‘em here in Calumet City about a year ago. It was muck. This thing caved in their mushing machine. A big percentage of ’em, the
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