just another day at the office (?)

AT WORK, we undergo all sorts of training, besides the actual skills we need to perform.  First aid, health and safety, food safety, confined spaces training, et cetera.  It’s to keep our limbs attached to our bodies, for us to come home to our families in one piece, and to generally keep life hassle free for everyone concerned.  On the other hand, it keeps the company liability-free and the bottom line free from injury and lost-time man-hours, and in the black as often as the profit margin allows. Depending on how you look at it, I was lucky (or unlucky) enough to be available for Elevated Working Platform training, also known as working at heights, or simply heights training, and my shift partner (Rasputin the Racist, remember him?) was also free, so it was auspicious for the two of us, since we were usually expected to work in pairs, even beyond normal shift work. I know the brochure said Working at Heights, but I simply did not connect the course title to what we were going to be trained for, duh.  It slowly dawned on me while we were segueing from the theoretical to the practical session that we were going to be high on the roster list when working at heights was to be the flavor of the month (day).  Working. At. Heights.  Get it, Noel?  Whatever, just pass the free biscuits at teatime OK? Sure enough, on the Saturday the warehouse was being prettied up for the Woolworth’s audit, everyone who had no excuse was rounded up to clean, and I mean clean the place.  It’s not filthy, but there were corners there that the sun hadn’t shone on since the Spice Girls were still hot (weytaminit Noel, they’re still hot 😉 ) and our cleaning expertise was sorely needed. What I hadn’t contemplated on was that the warehouse was much higher than the mill area ceiling wise, and the scissors lift that was made available wasn’t there for picture-taking purposes. Guess, kabayan, who was expected to volunteer himself to get up on that platform, as in elevated platform ?  That’s right, little old me. Which brings me to the picture above.  I didn’t have the best of mornings, but it wasn’t, as experiences go, that bad.  The trick for me was to not, under any circumstances, look down.  I didn’t, and my irrational fear had no choice but to try another day. I know it doesn’t look like me (especially if you’ve seen me before), but that’s me. And yes, I survived.  Thanks for reading!

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