What stories do you know about working outside?

I raced sailboats on Long Island Sound.

 

I worked as a surveyor for pipeline companys. We would do priliminary and as-built measurements for new pipelines that were to be built. I loved it, walked 8-10 linear miles a day and god knows how many more as we made side measurements. We would hike through woods, fields, across rivers. Somedays we'd come to work in swim trunks cause we were gonna do all the river measurement that day. At times we got to use a helicopter to look for hidden features of the terain. Once, in New Jersey, we came into an area where there were big holes dug all over the place. We couldn't figure it out till we finally found a guy in one of the holes. They were digging for Carnelians, a semi precious stone. Over lunch break I started digging around and found a fist sized stone. Later I had it cut and polished...still got pieces of it...Fun Job!

 

I picked worms at night on golf courses. I worked on dairy farms and a tomato farm. I did landscaping: pruning trees, cutting grass etc. Worked for the municipal parks department, mostly digging fence post holes and hauling garbage. Did some guiding for fishermen.

I guess the rest of my jobs were indoor, unless I'm forgetting one or two.

 

outside, like outside the HipForums??

cant think of anything.

 

Summer of '85 I worked as a ramp attendant for an international airport staffed by city employees. That was when I was young enough to know everything. (I wonder if I can even get near an airport now- with my radical ideas and such...). Our job was deal with arrivals that were not Delta or United... the chartered flights and airlines that didn't, service every aircraft (refuel, drinking water, "lav" service, remove garbage, etc.).

I became acquainted with differences between different model jumbo jets- the duty roster indicated whether we would be dealing with a DC-8,9, and 10; L1011; Boeing 727, 737, and 747. If I was assigned "stairs" my job was to position the stair vehicle properly at one of the two exits on the fuselage so service people can access the aircraft and not interfere with passengers who might be deplaning. Much of the details have faded with the distance of time- but one thing I recall- among the cautions about driving a motor vehicle around a jumbo jet was the sage bit of advice NOT to place the stair truck in park- but in neutral and use the parking brake. A plane taking on fuel will settle with the added weight... gotta allow the drive wheels to be able to roll a bit or you'll need to be deflating tires to get the truck away.

I also learned that loading baggage is something that needs to be done with weight distribution in mind... we were sometimes supervised by a slightly better dressed engineer when returning bags to a non-containerized flight... he'd have a tentative bag count and would instruct cargo netting to be fastened into place once a portion of the belly had been loaded.

Our equipment included WWII vintage Willys jeeps- modified to tow carts and containers of luggage from the landed plane being serviced to the "grunts" working at the conveyor to customs which worked in the IAB (International Arrivals Building).. which was the assignment most likely to be drawn. We would show up for an assigned arrival and wait by the gate while the "Follow Me" pickup drove out near the runway to guide the jet to the correct gate- there were three total- one each for Delta and United and one for charter flights.

This was technically a part time job but we were subject to being called in- sometimes at 1 or 2 in the morning for a fuel clearance... guaranteed four hours of pay for two hours of work... easy beer money.

Ear protection was a must... if you forgot yours you were sent home. If you had a habit of forgetting they'd acquire the habit of not calling you in.

 

Now John Henry was a mighty man, yes sir. He was born a slave in the 1840's but was freed after the war. He went to work as a steel-driver for the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad, don't ya know. And John Henry was the strongest, the most powerful man working the rails.

John Henry, he would spend his day's drilling holes by hitting thick steel spikes into rocks with his faithful shaker crouching close to the hole, turning the drill after each mighty blow. There was no one who could match him, though many tried.

Well, the new railroad was moving along right quick, thanks in no little part to the mighty John Henry. But looming right smack in its path was a mighty enemy - the Big Bend Mountain. Now the big bosses at the C&O Railroad decided that they couldn't go around the mile and a quarter thick mountain. No sir, the men of the C&O were going to go through it - drilling right into the heart of the mountain.

A thousand men would lose their lives before the great enemy was conquered. It took three long years, and before it was done the ground outside the mountain was filled with makeshift, sandy graves. The new tunnels were filled with smoke and dust. Ya couldn't see no-how and could hardly breathe. But John Henry, he worked tirelessly, drilling with a 14-pound hammer, and going 10 to 12 feet in one workday. No one else could match him.

Then one day a salesman came along to the camp. He had a steam-powered drill and claimed it could out-drill any man. Well, they set up a contest then and there between John Henry and that there drill. The foreman ran that newfangled steam-drill. John Henry, he just pulled out two 20-pound hammers, one in each hand. They drilled and drilled, dust rising everywhere. The men were howling and cheering. At the end of 35 minutes, John Henry had drilled two seven foot holes - a total of fourteen feet, while the steam drill had only drilled one nine-foot hole.

John Henry held up his hammers in triumph! The men shouted and cheered. The noise was so loud, it took a moment for the men to realize that John Henry was tottering. Exhausted, the mighty man crashed to the ground, the hammer's rolling from his grasp. The crowd went silent as the foreman rushed to his side. But it was too late. A blood vessel had burst in his brain. The greatest driller in the C&O Railroad was dead.

Some folks say that John Henry's likeness is carved right into the rock inside the Big Bend Tunnel. And if you walk to the edge of the blackness of the tunnel, sometimes you can hear the sound of two 20-pound hammers drilling their way to victory over the machine.

 

ive spent a couple summers as a canoe guide, and i just finished a winter as a winter camping guide

 

My sister did "conservation" work for the city. (Cleaning up empty lots of weeds and debris)

 

I've spent a half-dozen summers falling trees as a surveyor and a forest fire fighter.

I've worked my family's trapline on and off over the winter for a couple of years.

 

I do all my work outside..year round..and i have the arthritis to prove it

 

My dad was one of the greatest workers that the Mass Highway had ever seen. He worked outside for 17 years and government officials actually went to watch him run the equipment because he was so good with it.

 

Back around 1990 I was on the ramp of a large international airport when the then new model 747-400 came in for a landing maybe about five hundred yards away from me. The guy in charge looked at me and said, "I don't care how many times you explain it to me, I will never understand how that thing gets off the ground." He spent a lot of time inside the belly of that monster.

 

I worked the streets of Manchester , England for 16 years …… in a capacity of Traffic Officer, the things I saw, the things I heard, the stories to tell, ah, Good times Maybe a book isn’t a bad idea after all. But for now, a couple of chapter entries: -
“What was that”? = A bomb in 1996,
“A stone Rolls in” = Bill Wyman films a show (thanks to my help), “Toasting success”! Manchester United players buy me a drink (1999) “Royal approval” = Acknowledgement of my service provision,
“Don’t do it”! = A fellow in (mental) need – disarmed!
“TV, I am a natural”- An interview for the Force
- Hmm I guess I must make a start
eace:

 

I had a hemlock snag snap halfway up outside our work zone in no wind. I ducked behind another tree, and if I wouldn't have jumped I would have been crushed. I've had hemlocks that I've actually been cutting break halfway up and fall backwards. I've just about been barberchaired twice.

I've seen a couple dozen retardant shows on fires. I've seen a couple hectare fire just explode in the middle of the night because an inversion passed through and the temperature spiked. I've seen 2000 pound logs shoot 200 feet into the air on fires.

I saw a guy get stomped on with caulk boots. Pretty grizzly - "loggers smallpox".

I've had a couple dozen bear encounters, including one where we got stalked for over 2 kilometers. I've started fires in pissing rain, I've been soaked to freaking bone for weeks at a time. I've seen a guy get full on kicked by a deer.

 

747s were relatively rare... lots of DC-8's, -9's and -10's, L1011's and 727's and 737's. The airlines we handled included British Air Tours, Balair, British Caledonian, Ports-of-Call, and among others I'm undoubtedly forgetting, the dreaded "National Air Lines"... military charter... generally less well maintained... a National Air 747 is not an arrival you wanted to draw "lavs" on.

How that giant object gets off the ground? LOTS of ground shaking thrust created by a single, drawn out and focused explosion created by igniting compressed air and jet fuel.... and yes, that was grossly oversimplified but hey- I'm no rocket scientist.

 

well I worked as a grounds keeper for a cemetery for two years. That was a lot of weed whacking and mowing. It was a very rewarding job many people were more than appreciative for the job I did. Now I work as a concrete finisher, we install concrete floors. The work is a challenge but very fast paced and interesting. it also allows me to travel around new england in order to put in high end floors for a wide range of clients

 

I give roofers a lot of credit. That is hard and dangerous work. A friend of mine does roofing and he was out there last summer which was one of our hottest summers in years and he almost died from heat stroke