Electricians on Ice

 Sounds like a fantastically comedic show, no? This wouldn't be the first time I've considered how to turn my job into a sitcom or a play, but the fact of the matter is that the antics would be the only source of amusement. It isn't like a barista job where there are wacky new flavors on their chalkboards or a restaurant where the wait staff has witty banter with their customers. We sometimes rarely see our "customers" and when we do we generally ignore each other because there is nothing a customer can do but distract from the task at hand. But conceptualizing an electrician themed performance was not what I came here to do (wait... Tim Allen's Home Improvement... how much of that tackled actual repair work?).

The program I am a part of is considered "indoor" electric work. This is not necessarily the case. I AM lucky to be currently working indoors as the season grows colder, and I acknowledge that the cold I've endured thus far is barely a whiff of what it could be. THIS BEING SAID - I work in a basement of a damp, turn of the century building with concrete and brick walls and partial dirt floors. There is no heat there. In the summer, it was a haven as even the hottest day couldn't penetrate the underground pit. I'm certain it never got warmer than 70 degrees Fahrenheit, even that may be an overestimation. But now the daytime temperatures rarely exceed 50 and are steadily dropping. As a native north easterner, I am familiar with cold environments and therefore the many levels of cold one can feel. The topical cool brush of air across skin, almost pleasurable in it's contrast to the body's warmth. The persistent chill that demands a sweater or light jacket and handsomely flushes the cheeks. The foggy breath cold that numbs the fingers and nose and requires a down coat when leaving the house. Then there is the biting freeze that penetrates the bones and sets your whole body to trembling; hair stands on end, teeth chatter, knees knock. No amount of layers can bring the warmth back because your body seems to no longer create heat to be contained. These days take hours of thick blankets in a toasty home and long, steamy showers to melt the core of ice that has seemingly solidified in your core. 

I don't think I have quite gotten to this fourth level of northeast cold on site (and believe me, I know there are more levels that could be named, including some that I have not and hope to never experience). But our dank basement encourages a bone breaking internal freeze whenever one stops moving long enough. During our union-required two breaks, I find myself reflecting on days that now seem long past... back when I worked as a kayak tour guide in North Carolina. The company that employed me would travel outside the U.S. during the winter and continue tours in the Virgin Islands. At the time, such an opportunity seemed wearisome; living in an oppressively sunny, humid environment and paying my bills by schmoozing overprivileged, wealthy tourists. But as I sit, day after day on a metal folding chair in a clammy basement where water will trickle through the rock lined wall and freeze, I question my life choices. I lace my fingers protectively around a mug of hot, green tea, cradling it to my chest and gaze into it's earthy depths. I imagine I am small...cozily seated at the bottom of the mug, wrapped as in a blanket by the fragrant liquid, ambient sound muffled. But reality always breaks through after thirty minutes. The boss will say again, "Alright, let's hit it hard" and my body's core will greedily reclaim the heat that had tentatively circulated back out to my extremities. 

This deep-seated chill is especially inconvenient as a job like ours requires reasonable dexterity in our fingers for fine motor skills. Not only does the cold hurt the skin and joints, but it makes your very muscles unwilling to function  (particularly for a woman who cannot seem to get a pair of work gloves that fit snugly). Fingertips won't pinch a wire, knuckles won't clench a tool, your shivering doesn't permit precision placement. It doesn't seem wise to me to have electricians working in temperatures below 30 degrees. Construction workers like to gleefully repeat, "The heat is in the tools!" when someone complains of the chill. Happily, one day I was drilling numerous holes in brick and concrete and the repetitive action was overworking the hammer drill. The entire drill became nearly too hot to touch with bare skin. In between drilling I would hug the tool to me and absorb the excess warmth. In this case, the heat WAS in the tool and I was content to be doing the monotonous, treacherous work. 

Lastly, while on the topic of temperature, I'll mention that my foreman calls PITA jobs (pain in the ass jobs) "hot" jobs. During the summer when we were trapped in an unventilated, three story high, red brick building a hot job was reason to cry or throw a tantrum on 90 degree days. Conversely, in November when my foreman says he has a "hot" job for me, I drop my icy metal tools and jump up to complete the task, hoping, if nothing else it may require me to work in one of the heated spaces of the building. If no such opportunity presents itself, I may take a walk to the second floor anyway...just to make sure all the outlets have covers.