The most dangerous thing you have done for a paypacket?
Discussion
I know this is similar to the 'worst job thread' but different.
I had a job i enjoyed,installing multi room A/V but on occasion i had to do some nasty/dangerous stuff.
The Job was in California BTW.
One of the jobs was a new construction complex for lovely waterside properties, every house had a jetty. Standard CA construction leaves crawl spaces under the houses. These come in very useful for running wires and stuff, so some of my time on most jobs was spent crawling around in dusty, but not really unpleasant crawl spaces.
On this particular house though a quick inspection of the crawlspace with a torch revealed lots of spiders webs reaching from under the floor of the house to the actual dirt which was about a 30" gap. Where there is water there are bugs and flys, and where there are bugs and flys there are spiders. In this country, spider webs are just an annoyance, 'over there' they have more dangerous varieties. I lowered myself into the crawlspace to get a better look and see if i could see any actual spiders, and was greeted by the sight of Lots of these
scurrying up their webs and hiding in the under floor insulation.
I put on a set of overall's and taped up the cuffs/ legs/ neck, taped my 4 cell Maglight to a broom and went in. I had to make my way from one side of the house to the other, about 60 feet each way, dragging a bunch of cables and had to use the broom to try and sweep webs away and scare the shit out of the deadly spiders that were inches above my head as i crawled underneath them. Once i was down there and making an awful kerfuffle they all hid from me but i had long 'Brian May' style hair, so would probably not have noticed a stow-away
I was actually quite afraid of normal spiders when i did that, now I just collect housespiders and chuck em outside!
I am sure a lot of you guys have done some stupid shit in the name of work?
I had a job i enjoyed,installing multi room A/V but on occasion i had to do some nasty/dangerous stuff.
The Job was in California BTW.
One of the jobs was a new construction complex for lovely waterside properties, every house had a jetty. Standard CA construction leaves crawl spaces under the houses. These come in very useful for running wires and stuff, so some of my time on most jobs was spent crawling around in dusty, but not really unpleasant crawl spaces.
On this particular house though a quick inspection of the crawlspace with a torch revealed lots of spiders webs reaching from under the floor of the house to the actual dirt which was about a 30" gap. Where there is water there are bugs and flys, and where there are bugs and flys there are spiders. In this country, spider webs are just an annoyance, 'over there' they have more dangerous varieties. I lowered myself into the crawlspace to get a better look and see if i could see any actual spiders, and was greeted by the sight of Lots of these
scurrying up their webs and hiding in the under floor insulation. I put on a set of overall's and taped up the cuffs/ legs/ neck, taped my 4 cell Maglight to a broom and went in. I had to make my way from one side of the house to the other, about 60 feet each way, dragging a bunch of cables and had to use the broom to try and sweep webs away and scare the shit out of the deadly spiders that were inches above my head as i crawled underneath them. Once i was down there and making an awful kerfuffle they all hid from me but i had long 'Brian May' style hair, so would probably not have noticed a stow-away
I was actually quite afraid of normal spiders when i did that, now I just collect housespiders and chuck em outside!
I am sure a lot of you guys have done some stupid shit in the name of work?
Ok, whats a Norsafe Frc?
A quick google only reveals that they make life boats for the offshore industry and a few inflateables [sp]. No self respecting pirate would be scared by an inflatable ramming him, and a life boat would probably not be worth plundering.
Pics please
and how do you know they were pirates? did one of them have a parrot? maybe you played chicken with some some innocent holiday makers, and they freaked out and
ed off because they thought they were rescuing you from your lifeboat and you tried to ram them?
>> Edited by hedders on Tuesday 6th December 23:22
A quick google only reveals that they make life boats for the offshore industry and a few inflateables [sp]. No self respecting pirate would be scared by an inflatable ramming him, and a life boat would probably not be worth plundering.
Pics please
and how do you know they were pirates? did one of them have a parrot? maybe you played chicken with some some innocent holiday makers, and they freaked out and
ed off because they thought they were rescuing you from your lifeboat and you tried to ram them? >> Edited by hedders on Tuesday 6th December 23:22
I used to do Laser Exhibitions and we were hired for a 5 day tour to celebrate the anniversary of the release of Nelson Mandela. The brief was to provide a laser show during the live stage performances in the evenings.
Every night after the show we were shot at while removing the lasers from the stage. To compensate us my manager gave us each a £100 bonus!
Every night after the show we were shot at while removing the lasers from the stage. To compensate us my manager gave us each a £100 bonus!
hedders said:
Ok, whats a Norsafe Frc?
Very similar to the ones we had, but ours had a 300 bhp cummins diesel engine. They did about 35 kots, and when they are coming full pelt at you, they are damned intimidating. The Pirates had smaller boats, with a little outbord on them. Althought they never had guns, they did have machetes, so we would nudge their boats, and bump them till they headed off in the other direction. We did this every other day almost. It was woprse at night as we couldn't launch the boat, so had to post watches to make sure no-one came onboard.
>> Edited by andy mac on Tuesday 6th December 23:33
hedders said:
Beat ya
I have been out in something like like on diving courses, luckily i didn't come across pirates in the plymouth sound!
Odd... I heard Plymouth was full of Pirates! I remember going on a coaurse up in Peterhead in the North of jockland, and we were whizzing in and out of the harbour, when we heard on channel 16 about 9/11... Thus I will never forget that day, all huddled around the wee shop at the dockside after we whizzed back to the dockside quick as a flash (we had some yanky-doodles with us)... No-one went out that night, and was glued to the tv's in the hotel.
Nothing as dramatic as crawling around with black widows, but a couple of my trips to the delta region of Nigeria reviewing construction progress on a gas-gathering station were kind of tense with major issues with the local communities, Nigerian army running around in powerboats with machine guns, etc. As a staff engineer at the time, I recall thinking how pathetic the salary 20% uplift was during these missions, given the potential dangers.
God that first vodka tonic on the air-conditioned plane taking me home used to taste good.
God that first vodka tonic on the air-conditioned plane taking me home used to taste good.
nel said:
Nothing as dramatic as crawling around with black widows, but a couple of my trips to the delta region of Nigeria reviewing construction progress on a gas-gathering station were kind of tense with major issues with the local communities, Nigerian army running around in powerboats with machine guns, etc. As a staff engineer at the time, I recall thinking how pathetic the salary 20% uplift was during these missions, given the potential dangers.
God that first vodka tonic on the air-conditioned plane taking me home used to taste good.
These pirates were off Gabon, and the Congo...
andy mac said:
These pirates were off Gabon, and the Congo...
As I understand it the pirates off the west coast of Africa are pretty primitive - machetes only as you say. Still a risky old business for £30k!
Far worse are the asiatic waters near Indonesia - there they tend to have kalashnikovs. Funny how people tend to assume that piracy sort of died out with Blackbeard, etc. Modern piracy is in fact an ever increasing problem.
dvs_dave said:I met a fella who works for a private security firm over there. He says it takes a good couple of weeks at home before he can relax and not jump up at every slight noise.
Working as a contractor in Iraq for the past 2 1/2 years. I've had my fair share of rockets, mortars and gunfire directed at me.
....the paypacket is good though
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