Pole climbing class was the final step in the process of getting hired to be a phoneman and it was clearly designed as a test of one’s willpower, a “weeder” class as we used to say in college. My class started out with twenty-one people and ended with thirteen. Everyone who left did so by their own choice.
To have gotten that far one would have already taken two sets of written tests (problem solving and math), sat for an oral interview, had a physical and taken a drug test.
The first phase of testing took place in a tall office building in downtown Detroit. The day I took mine, hundreds of people had shown up early in the morning on a Tuesday and were divided into groups of forty or fifty to be administered the tests in two parts, math and problem solving. At least half of the applicants were weeded out during that part of the process.
Those who passed the intelligence tests were then given some simple physical tests, which weeded out more people.
The rest of us were cleared to proceed to "pole climbing school".
Now, here I was at pole climbing school. It was early October and mild. Cool mornings, sunny and pleasant by midday. We students had all been through the testing and the physical and the piss test and were now going to learn how to climb poles using leg gaffs.
Gaffs are metal spikes which fit to your instep attached to rigid metal splints and are strapped to your lower leg. The spike, (or gaff) itself is surprisingly short; about an inch and a half long. When you are climbing a pole the gaff rarely actually sinks more than a half inch into the wood. The key is to keep your body at a sufficient angle away from the pole so that your weight will drive the gaff into the wood and prevent it from coming loose, or “cutting out”.
If you lean in too close and hug the pole, a natural instinct, you will cut out and fall, collecting a whole bunch of splinters on the way down.
Most of my colleagues today proudly say they haven’t gaffed since the day they completed that class. I still gaff occasionally; especially when it’s easier than wrestling a ladder to some difficult-to-reach location. But when I do gaff, I always use the body belt on the way up and down. The belt makes it easier to lean away from the pole thus helping to prevent a “cut out”. In class we were required to climb without the aid of the belt. In order to pass we had to "free hand" up to the work station, then attach the belt, then detach the belt and free hand back down.
It may not sound like much, and writing this, it doesn’t seem so bad to me anymore either. But, I’m telling you, it was terrifying. It is so counterintuitive to lean away from the pole. Every instinct in your body wants to hug it. But if you do that, you fall.
The first day was mostly classroom stuff and getting acquainted with the equipment; we didn’t do any actual climbing. The last thing we did before being sent home was walk out to the practice field; a courtyard with 24 telephone poles in varying degrees of wear and tear, (making me think of photographs taken after hurricanes where all the trees have been stripped of leaves and limbs and bark and all that’s left are naked trunks).
The ground was scattered with wood chips and didn’t appear in any way to be a soft place to land should one happen to fall. Just looking at those poles was frightening. The next morning there were three less people in class.
There was a lady in my class, Sherry, who I felt so sorry for. She was one of only two women in the class in fact. (The other girl was one of the three who dropped out after the first day).
Sherry was probably about fifty but looked older. She told me she had worked in an office position for the phone company for twenty-two years and had recently been informed her job was being eliminated and that if she ever wanted to reach full retirement she was going to have to learn to be a line technician. This poor lady was absolutely terrified of heights.
For our first drills we were working only six feet off the ground and she was barely able to get through it. She would be shaking like a leaf, white as a ghost and crying softly to herself. She told me she had three kids and that her husband was on disability and that she had to, absolutely had to, keep her job.
She didn’t keep her job.
By the third day we were working at twelve feet. Sherry had managed to slowly get up to that height but while fumbling with her body belt she leaned into the pole, cut out and went straight down, scraping her arms and chin on the rough, splintered pole on the way. The instructors rushed over but she just lay there in a crumpled ball crying. It really broke my heart.
The rest of us just sort of hung there in space, not knowing what to do. Sherry finally stood up with help from the instructors and seemed to get a grip on herself. She stood there, blood running down the front of her sweatshirt and said, almost to herself,” I can’t do this.”
A few of us voiced words of encouragement. She looked around blinking and, her voice growing louder, she repeated “I can’t do this.”
“I’m going home to my husband my children. Tonight I think I’m going to get really shitfaced and, tomorrow, I’m going to have to start looking for a new job. I wish you all the best of luck.”
She walked inside accompanied by one of the instructors and the rest of got back to our drills. The lead instructor, a crusty old-school phone guy, turned to us and said
“I knew she was never going to make it. Well now that we got rid of her, let’s get back to work.”
I hated him at that moment.
A half hour later we had our mid-morning break and I looked to see if Sherry was still around but she was long gone. I never found out what happened to her.
So the week wore on. We worked at increased heights, a few more people dropped out and a few more people cut out and and fell. No one was seriously hurt, mostly splinters, but we heard that somebody from one of the other classes had a bad fall and was taken away in an ambulance with a concussion.
By the last day, Friday, we students had built up a camaraderie based on our shared intense experience. Our final exam was scheduled for that morning. We had to gaff up to eighteen feet, perform a series of maneuvers, and gaff back down safely. If you cut out, you failed the class. Eighteen feet may not sound that high, but when you’re up there on a pole with all your body weight on what amounts to a fat nail, believe me, it’s nerve wracking.
When it was time to take the test I volunteered to go first. At that point I just wanted it over and done with. So, with everyone else watching and cheering, I started climbing. In that instant I had a moment of clarity, I knew I was going to make it and all the fear just drained out of me. I made my way up, maneuvered left and right, placed a coin on the top of the pole for the next person to retrieve, and made my way back down safely. It was over. I had passed.
One by one the others took turns taking the test, alternately placing the coin and bringing it back down; the rest of us cheering and back-slapping each new graduate.
One guy didn’t make it.
His name was Alvin and he, like Sherry, had come from an office position and was desperate to not lose his retirement. He was in his fifties, was rather fat and had been having a lot of difficulty in class. But he was extremely good natured and gregarious and everyone was pulling for him, inspired by his determination. Even the instructors were on his side.
He would always wait to go last whenever we had a skill test and this final exam was no different. Everyone else in class had passed the test and when it was Alvin’s turn he walked up to the pole, grabbed it and then did nothing; just stood there looking at his feet. The rest of us were saying “Come on man you got this! It’s easy once you start.” stuff like that, but he just froze. The lead instructor said something to him which I couldn’t hear.
Alvin took a deep breath, dug one gaff into the pole and stopped again. The rest of us got quiet and looked around at each other, concerned.
After maybe half a minute he pulled his gaff out and stepped away from the pole saying he couldn’t do it. We all started shouting “Yes you can, c’mon brother, you got this” He took a step back toward the pole, took another deep breath and then something just went out of him. His spirit.
I could actually see it; I saw the moment he lost his spirit. And it wasn’t just me. Everybody saw it. A disappointed murmur ran through the class. Alvin’s shoulders slumped; he sighed loudly and walked back inside. The instructor gave us a look that said "Stay there! Don’t say anything!" and went inside too.
Moments earlier our mood had been jubilant but now it was as if someone had stuck a pin in a balloon. We all knew it was over. After some time, maybe ten minutes, the instructor came back out, looking genuinely pained, and said he couldn’t convince Alvin to try again, that he was already on his way home. He half-heartedly congratulated us but the atmosphere was decidedly somber. Alvin, we realized, had become our rallying point. If he could stick it out, we all could. It felt like we had let him down somehow.
To this day I wonder, if Alvin hadn’t waited to go last, but had instead given up like that with others still waiting to test, if we may have lost another person or two.
