The WorkGroup

One job I had as a temp was working for a scab plumber at a local lock factory. I didn’t know anything about plumbing and am the least handy person in the world.

This is why you should hire union plumbers instead of scabs for any important home plumbing jobs, much less large scale commercial or industrial work.

But anyway, my main assignment for the day was to hang pipe brackets from ceiling beams for a sprinkler system pipe. My mode of reaching the ceiling was a giant, unsteady stepladder. It had to be at least a 20 foot latter. I can’t help but think that a more safety-conscious union plumber might have used a lift.

I’m not bad on regular stepladders, and have no trouble with extension ladders that lean on buildings for support, but this required a whole new level of ladder legs. No matter which way I moved, the ladder would sway twice as far.

I got over my initial well-justified terror enough to do a half-assed job of installing a few of the brackets. I had an eagle-eye view of the factory floor, and was high up enough that anyone who cared wouldn’t notice the obvious fear in my eyes, and that I wasn’t getting much work done.

Just after lunch a group of workers gathered around a break area. They were having a welcome back party for a visually impaired woman who’d been out on sick leave for a couple months. I watched as one of her co-workers reoriented her to the newly designed work area.

Most of the factory layout remained the same apparently, since she didn’t need orientation anywhere else. I thought nothing of it and went about my poor semblance of work.

I started to get worried when the visually-impaired woman started to head for the bathroom. Because of the location of the pipe I was working on, I had to put the ladder right in the middle of the aisle. When I caught sight of her she was about five feet in front of my ladder, and wasn’t using her walking stick at the moment.

Now I was REALLY terrified, and was about to call out to her when she was distracted by another co-worker who she’d yet to say hello to.

In those few seconds of absolute terror though, my life flashed before my eyes, and I imagined what I would do when I was home getting workman’s compensation, or whether I would even get coverage being a mere temp worker for a cheapass plumber.

Such is the life of the temp.