Lately My Job is Simply Electrifying

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Sometimes my job gives me the creeps.

Like the time we were replacing the skylights in the Reptile House at the Lincoln Park Zoo. Before we started, I had to put plywood over the tops of the snake pens. That meant I had to get up on top of several 50-year-old cages, while underneath me -- some 12 feet or so -- lay a bunch of lazy 20- and 30-foot-long reticulated pythons, boa constrictors, and other legless reptiles. If the cage failed, I'd find myself right there with my least favorite lifeforms -- other than lawyers -- and probably with a few broken bones for good measure. Like I said, it gave me the creeps.

Recently I've been getting the creeps again. My recent assignment has me working in several old electric facilities, part of Metra's electric railroad division on the south side of Chicago. The buildings are part of the former Illinois Central commuter rail division, and they were built in the later 1920s.

With the recent economic downturn, our company is pretty slow. So slow that I have lost my stripes as Superintendent, and have been working as a carpenter, laborer, janitor -- any damned thing to get a day's work on the books. That means I no longer command the construction battles from my windshield. Instead, I'm in the trenches again. With chipping guns, shovels, brooms -- whatever it takes.

What's giving me the creeps is all the live electric equipment I have to work around. The buildings we are renovating are called "sub-stations." Every six miles along the railroad, they need to feed electric power out to the overhead power lines that drive the trains. So ComEd brings the power to the sub-station, where they transform it from high-voltage AC power into lower-voltage DC power. That's done with these huge "rectifiers," which are just giant-assed versions of the transformers we had on our electric trains and slot-car sets when we were kids.

Remember those transformers? They had a vague ozone smell, and hummed when you turned on the power. Now imagine that times 10,000 or so, and you know what the places smell and sound like. A constant hum and buzz all day long in the air. Only now, it's not just a hangover or the dull ringing in my head from the 30 or 40 rock concerts I went to 25 or 30 years ago...

But the really creepy part is all the exposed electric equipment. All of it dangerous.

When we first started the job, Metra told us simply not to touch any equipment. Period. Which was a pretty easy to follow directive.

But as the job went along, you get used to the hum and the buzz and the fact that the electric equipment right next to you -- the thing you just leaned your broom against -- is carrying enough power to blow your ass half way to Florida if something goes wrong.

The basement of these buildings is the wildest thing -- many exposed solid-copper buss bars, switches and taps and levers you haven't seen since the last time you caught "Frankenstein" on Creature Features on Channel 9. When the newer electronic gear fails -- and it DOES fail -- the Metra guys can run downstairs and throw these Franken-switches to bypass the power to other sub-stations. There is virtually nothing preventing a dumbass like myself from reaching out and actually grabbing a live cable. Maybe a sign like "Danger - Alive," or "4000 volts" or, better yet "13,500 volts," but that's all.

There are four types of equipment downstairs.

1 - Live electric, which WILL kill you if you touch it.

2 - Live ground bars, which MAY kill you if you touch it.

3 - Emergency equipment, which will kill you if you touch it when it's energized. How can you tell if it's energized? Here's the fun part -- you can't.

4 - Abandoned equipment. If you touch it, you don't die, you just shit your pants, because you try not to touch ANYTHING at ANY TIME when you're downstairs.

How can they leave stuff exposed like this? Easy. These buildings were built in the good old days, before you could sue someone else when you did something completely stupid. Back then, if you were down there, it was assumed you knew better than to touch anything that looks electric.

When someone fucked up, the widow wouldn't sue. If she did, it would go like this:

Judge: "How did he die?"

Widow: "He grabbed a live, bare 13,500 volt electric cable."

Judge: "What was his job again?"

Widow: "He was an electrician...."

Judge: "Working for the electric railroad company?"

Widow: "Yes, but..."

Gavel: BANG! Case closed.

But the judge still awards her $2.50 anyway because the deceased had already put in his money for the 1934 fantasy football league pool...