AtD/VL: The Traverse Clan

[kelber at mindspring.com]

All right, I'm self-servingly posting a real-life vignette of construction work life that I wrote for a memoir-writing workshop:

Times were good in the New York construction industry, and accordingly bad elsewhere, so travelers (as they were called) from other locals were allowed to work in our jurisdiction.  There were several travelers on this particular job.  The local guys treated them as inferiors, for the simple reason that they could.  Being female, and therefore inferior myself, I was teamed up with one of them.  I don't remember his name, but I have a clear picture of him in my mind.  He was a small, thin, forty-ish white guy who smoked a pipe.  

I'd been a mechanic (a synonym for journeyman, or, in my case, journeywoman) for only about a year, and this guy was unquestionably more experienced.  When two mechanics are partnered together, three things can happen.  They can work as true partners (a rarity).  They can refuse to get along and make each other's lives a living hell (all too common, but usually of mercifully short duration).  In most cases, though, one of them becomes the "lead" mechanic.  I've been in all these situations and have even been the lead a couple of times.  In theory, the older, more experienced mechanic becomes the lead, except in cases of extreme stupidity or laziness.  Many white men won't accept a black man or a woman of any race as the lead.  There was no question, though, that this guy, being my senior, was the lead mechanic.

The foreman came and laid out the work for us:  a standard pipe run, through various areas of the office floor we were renovating.  He made eye contact with my partner and addressed all his comments to him.  He was the lead, after all.  After the foreman left, my partner asked me:  "So, what do you want me to do?"  I looked at him in surprise.  "You're from the local.  That makes you the lead mechanic."  I surveyed his face for any signs of bitterness or contempt, but found none.  He was merely stating the rules of the road.  I gathered up the blueprints.  "Maybe we should start on the other side and work back this way.  You know, so we work away from the ductwork, not into it?"  He shrugged in acquiescence and walked over to the place I'd indicated.  Did he hate me?  I wasn't sure.

We worked in silence.  The work was pretty self-explanatory and didn't require much discussion other than an occasional request from me (as the measurer and installer) for a piece of pipe from him (the cutter and bender).  We sat together in silence during our coffee break.  He cleaned his pipe, I drank my coffee.  I wasn't sure whether his silence was based on shyness or contempt.  It's usually easy enough to tell.  When the silence became too oppressive, I asked him where he was from.  

"Alma, Georgia.  You heard of it?"  I hadn't. 
"They call it 'Little Phoenix.'" 
"Because it's risen from the ashes or something?"  
"No, you know, it's like Phoenix, the city, only smaller.  Like it was back in the day."
"In what way?"
"You know, saloons, gambling joints, cat houses."

We fell silent again and this time he broke the silence with some sort of anti-Semitic observation.  I mentioned I was Jewish and he hastily brought up a very good friend of his who happened to be Jewish.  We segued into some talk about the differences between New York weather and Georgia weather before lapsing into silence again.  Once more he attempted to bridge the gap with an anecdote about a "colored guy" in his town who had had the nerve to sit in the main section of the local movie theater instead of the balcony.  "He got his ass kicked," he chuckled.  We went back to work, lonely and silent.

During the course of our pipe run we had to pass through an area where the carpenters were constructing the ceiling grid.  The lead carpenter made it pretty clear by means of scowls and contemptuous gestures, that he had no liking for women workers.  My partner had wandered off somewhere, when I noticed that this carpenter guy was attempting to move one of our light fixtures.  Like any good electrician I said:  "If you need one of our fixtures moved, I'll move it for you."  He responded vociferously, with words to the effect that there was no real electrician on the premises, that not only was I a person with female genitals, but I was the personification of the female genitalia, and furthermore, he had several undignified suggestions about what I could do with my light fixture.

I walked away from him and found my partner.  Brushing angry tears from my eyes, I described the encounter.  My partner listened impassively, shrugged his shoulders and wandered off.  I was seized with despair.  What did it take to get some sympathy?  Was I that much of a leper?  My musings were interrupted by the loud curses of the carpenter.  "The fucking power's out!" he yelled, clutching his impotent screw gun.  Then all the lights in the area went out.  My partner sauntered back and gave me a wink.

"No one fucks with my partner."


Laura 

-----Original Message-----
>From: Monte Davis <montedavis at verizon.net>

>
>Laura sez: 
>
>> I was a member of IBEW, Local #3, Construction division, for 18 years.
>Lots that was good 
>> in the union, lots that was terrible.
>
>It's built in, I fear: few unions can resist the "guild"  temptation of
>raising barriers to new (worker) entrants, any more than corporations can
>resist the temptation to collude against new competitors.
>
>My personal experience is limited to relatively brief episodes with writers'
>unions (talk about herding cats) and teachers' unions (seriously
>depressing).
>
>-Monte   
>