What are some of your horror stories?
I was thinking back the other day about some of the different jobs I have had over the years and one in particular stood out. It was my first summer home after getting out of the military and I started working for a GC doing some of the most random projects... He asked me one morning if I had ever built any retaining walls to which I said 'no'... He then explained to me that I was about to get a crash course in it. It was late June and was already hot along the Carolina coast. I was soon to learn that the type of retaining wall I was about to construct wasn't your simple planter wall or inclined backyard type, unless that backyard butted up to the inter-coastal waterway. I spent what I consider the hottest and most miserable summer building railroad tie seawalls along the Carolina coast. The work was backbreaking, the temps were so hot that we could only work in the mornings and evenings and when the tides allowed. That being the case, we became a virtual buffet for the mosquito's early morning breakfast and late afternoon dinner, and then there was the mud. It literally would stain your skin black as it was easily waist deep in most areas. We finally gave up on the oily bug juice/sun block because our sweat would just make it drip into our eyes and would temporarily blind us. The weight of the GC's backhoe proved to be too much for getting close to the edge of the yard/waterway so we found ourselves doing all the lifting, digging and positioning by hand. If anyone ever asks you to build a seawall during mid summer along the east coast take my advice and decline...:no: I can honestly say that I was more miserable that summer than I was the summer I spent at Parris Island.
I was thinking back the other day about some of the different jobs I have had over the years and one in particular stood out. It was my first summer home after getting out of the military and I started working for a GC doing some of the most random projects... He asked me one morning if I had ever built any retaining walls to which I said 'no'... He then explained to me that I was about to get a crash course in it. It was late June and was already hot along the Carolina coast. I was soon to learn that the type of retaining wall I was about to construct wasn't your simple planter wall or inclined backyard type, unless that backyard butted up to the inter-coastal waterway. I spent what I consider the hottest and most miserable summer building railroad tie seawalls along the Carolina coast. The work was backbreaking, the temps were so hot that we could only work in the mornings and evenings and when the tides allowed. That being the case, we became a virtual buffet for the mosquito's early morning breakfast and late afternoon dinner, and then there was the mud. It literally would stain your skin black as it was easily waist deep in most areas. We finally gave up on the oily bug juice/sun block because our sweat would just make it drip into our eyes and would temporarily blind us. The weight of the GC's backhoe proved to be too much for getting close to the edge of the yard/waterway so we found ourselves doing all the lifting, digging and positioning by hand. If anyone ever asks you to build a seawall during mid summer along the east coast take my advice and decline...:no: I can honestly say that I was more miserable that summer than I was the summer I spent at Parris Island.