Rivers running down my back
Makes me slippery, like a fish
If I don't stop, I might drown
Falling down, down, down, down,
not dead yet covered with Sweat
(from the song of same name by Oingo Boingo)
Yesterday I did it. At about 7:30 in the town of Beatrice, Nebraska, I came down off the ladder for the last time on this outing. I was still an hour from the hotel which meant getting back at 8:30 at night, grabbing my favorite shrimp and Spinach salad from Applebees which I have had several times out here, but there was a huge sense of relief that I had survived one of the most physically challenging experiences of my life. For 14 straight days - with no weekends off - I was expected to put in 12 hours a day - and it was easy to go more than that in an efffort to call everybody, map out where I was going on Mapquest, and just try to keep up. I have to go back and look, but I averaged close to 6 inspections a day - some of them were within a block of each other, others separated by up to 50 miles of distance, and I covered about 1200 miles or so and another 70 to go to drop off the rental car as I head back to Omaha from Lincoln.
About 2 weeks ago I received an e-mail along with others saying help was needed with our office in Nebraska after a lot of storms had come through in the area. Seeing that my equity line had been chopped down and I never quite seem to "get ahead of bills I got to pay - no way no way" to borrow a line from "Rock the Nation" I thought I could use the extra 800 a week in overtime that was offered. Being away from home has ups and downs. I miss my dog, I miss my little girl who was very upset I was leaving - as far as the wife - a little absence makes the heart grow fonder never hurts anything, and probably even helps. My first run in Utah - 12 days including two days of driving to get there and back - was not nearly as physically demanding, though I did cover a lot more distance, suffer a nasty bout of diarrhea there, and was pretty drained by that one - but most of those claims were in doors in relative physical comfort. This one will now be a total of 16 days, today is a travel day, and 14 of them were nothing but inspections without a break other than to sleep and maybe to pick up my guitar if I wasn't too tired to fall asleep in the middle of it. I have now stayed at the Regency in Omaha, Holiday Inn Express in Lincoln - the longest run, 3 days at Holiday Inn in Grand Island, and the last 2 nights here at Staybridge Suites in Lincoln.
I was told to lug my bulky 15 foot collapsing Little Giant ladder along. Logistically it would have been challenging. I am not going anywhere without my guitar - it is what keeps me sane in the midst of impending insanity. Plus 2 weeks of packing in a suitcase - although after having done about 6 loads of laundry here I probably can pack less next time. My mother of a suitcase was actually over the 50 pound limit so Southwest - the last airline that doesn't charge you for wiping your ass - was going to charge me 25 for the over limit, but gave me the chance to re-shift. My company would have covered it, but still the thought of it bugged me - so a lot of stuff went into my guitar, my shoes went into my carry on, and I was covered. On the way back my guitar will be stuffed with underwear so I don't have to go through that again. In my briefcase all the essentials for work - laptop, car charger, portable printer, my back up drive - and really just packed with everything I used out here. With these things, and then a ladder - I can work just about anywhere - I have a wireless card and the whole world becomes my portable office. At every inspection, once I come down from the roof drenched in sweat, I then proceeed to write an estimate, print it out, write a check, and print it out, and try to avoid sweating all over it in the process. So anyways - I wasn't sure how many extra hands I had to carry a ladder, so at my wife's suggestion I asked if I could use one of the ladders in their Omaha office and they said sure.
Well when I checked out of the Regency (it turns out the Men's College World Series was going on which made finding rooms more difficult - the Carolina Tar Heels stayed at my hotel apparently the first night) I went to our Omaha office - after about 20 wrong turns not spelled out by Mapquest. I would get lost here many times - Mapquest is good about 98% of the time, but sometimes it is confusing, you miss your turn, or it just doesn't quite do it's job. A GPS would have helped, but I relied on the computer - often at times getting on line after pulling over - checking the address of the place I was near - and then re-Mapquesting from the place where I had gotten lost. Often this process of getting lost - after sweating all day - would result in something akin to manic screaming with all sorts of variations on the F word in the process. At times I thought I was losing my mind altogether. But anyways - I get to the Omaha office, and just being in the basement trying to figure out how to use the ladder I am sweating up a storm. The brief walk from the rental counter to the Enterprise car lot at the airport was also a major ordeal, so things were already looking ominous. On top of that, the ladder I took - it was the biggest one I could see - is this old wooden ladder with 6 metal hinges - two for each joint area - that are stubborn and often get stuck requiring gloves to unfasten them. It had duck tape around a splintered part. For two weeks I was married to this ladder - and after all the times I had to push and pull to get those hinges going, I was ready to haul it into the nearest river at times, but I must say it did the job.
I found out after my first inspection how much sweat was involved. Even though I work out on cardio machines at the gyms regularly, this is a different type of sweat. On the cardio machine, you are in doors at a comfortable temperature. You have a towel and you get in the shower after you are done about an hour later. Out here, my body temperature would make me feel like I was an oven producing sweat. And after doing this physical activity - going around the roof slopes, looking for my "test square" to determine how much hail damage there was - and depending on the size of the roof and number of slopes this could take from 15 minutes to an hour, I would come down, sweat bullets, and then have to shift to offfice worker entering data to get the claim processed. There was no shower until the last inspection was done, so I would drive around and work in soaked clothes most of the day. The data entry would involve a diagram of the roof onto the computer, calculating the estimate costs, uploading and labeling photos, printing up a check after manually entering the numbers, and then entering those same numbers into the "main frame", and putting notes into the activity diary and using the payment tracker in Xactimate to finish this. It was like juggling 6 different activities - and at times I had to figure out how to not sweat onto the computer because it would be dripping like bullets. At times, I was offered to come inside, lug my mess of tangled wires, printer, checkbook, and laptop in the house, work in air conditioning, and maybe be offered a nice glass of cool water, soda, or ice tea. At other times, I would be working in the "Cruiser" Enterprise gave me - hopefully but not always in a shady spot if I could find one. I would sometimes find if the humidity was bad enough I would be sweating almost as much inside the vehicle with all windows open as I was going up and down the ladder - and many homes have a separate detached garage or outbuilding which would mean I would go up and down the ladder two or more times for some inspections. I would always look for the shortest way up, try to avoid resting it on a gutter as it tends to slide, try to enlist the owner to hold the ladder for me if possible, and then just pray that this wooden antique was not going to buckle in on me. One of my customers told me he used to go up on ladders regularly and carefully like me, until one day he fell off for an unknown reason, messed up his back and is now disabled for life. That is always encouraging to hear that - and the reality is any day it could happen to me - no matter how careful I am. You prepare as much as you can, are as careful as you can be, hold the ladder in a secure place, but if karma is going to put you on your ass and your back, what can you really do. Same with driving in a car - you can't control not getting into an accident - you do your best not to, but if it is going to happen it is going to.
Every day - I would get back from a day of doing this - sometimes as many as 8 times in a day, exhausted, sweaty, dying from the humidity and heat, stumble into the shower, maybe pick up something to eat from Applebees, map out my next day, see how many new assignments I had gotten since the last day, how many calls to make. I would try to sleep, but the new time zone threw me off and hotel sleep is off and on. One night explosive thunder from the sky and there goes the sleep. So I would wake up, ever day, some feeling better than others, knowing it was all starting over again. Saturday was another work day. While people were home enjoying their air conditioning, the sound of them would almost mock me while I was sweating away on a roof. I have these Cougar Paws massive roof shoes that help, but on the steeper slopes all the blood goes to my toes. The steeper slopes are the worst - they are uncomfortable - there is more of a fear of falling off, getting around is not easy. I had one in Lincoln around 5 PM- you know it was the hottest part of the day, the sun was beating down on me with the humidity going, it was a charcoal black roof which captured all the heat, and I should have brought my gloves but instead burned the palms of my hand as I tend to Spiderman my way around the steeper roofs and by the end of the day at the most tired and worn out day, this was a real ass kicker.
So in so many words - the day I never thought was going to arrive is here - I head back - in one piece - no falls - all inspections completed - only one customer who looked like he was ready to take my head off when I told him the mortgage company had to be named on the check and he was an ex-Vietnam fuck everybody type - but I am ready to go home. Somehow I survived one of the most grueling experiences of my life. The typical CAT - catastrophe run is 3 weeks and I have barely made it through two. I am sure I will have no problems sleeping on the plane.
Makes me slippery, like a fish
If I don't stop, I might drown
Falling down, down, down, down,
not dead yet covered with Sweat
(from the song of same name by Oingo Boingo)
Yesterday I did it. At about 7:30 in the town of Beatrice, Nebraska, I came down off the ladder for the last time on this outing. I was still an hour from the hotel which meant getting back at 8:30 at night, grabbing my favorite shrimp and Spinach salad from Applebees which I have had several times out here, but there was a huge sense of relief that I had survived one of the most physically challenging experiences of my life. For 14 straight days - with no weekends off - I was expected to put in 12 hours a day - and it was easy to go more than that in an efffort to call everybody, map out where I was going on Mapquest, and just try to keep up. I have to go back and look, but I averaged close to 6 inspections a day - some of them were within a block of each other, others separated by up to 50 miles of distance, and I covered about 1200 miles or so and another 70 to go to drop off the rental car as I head back to Omaha from Lincoln.
About 2 weeks ago I received an e-mail along with others saying help was needed with our office in Nebraska after a lot of storms had come through in the area. Seeing that my equity line had been chopped down and I never quite seem to "get ahead of bills I got to pay - no way no way" to borrow a line from "Rock the Nation" I thought I could use the extra 800 a week in overtime that was offered. Being away from home has ups and downs. I miss my dog, I miss my little girl who was very upset I was leaving - as far as the wife - a little absence makes the heart grow fonder never hurts anything, and probably even helps. My first run in Utah - 12 days including two days of driving to get there and back - was not nearly as physically demanding, though I did cover a lot more distance, suffer a nasty bout of diarrhea there, and was pretty drained by that one - but most of those claims were in doors in relative physical comfort. This one will now be a total of 16 days, today is a travel day, and 14 of them were nothing but inspections without a break other than to sleep and maybe to pick up my guitar if I wasn't too tired to fall asleep in the middle of it. I have now stayed at the Regency in Omaha, Holiday Inn Express in Lincoln - the longest run, 3 days at Holiday Inn in Grand Island, and the last 2 nights here at Staybridge Suites in Lincoln.
I was told to lug my bulky 15 foot collapsing Little Giant ladder along. Logistically it would have been challenging. I am not going anywhere without my guitar - it is what keeps me sane in the midst of impending insanity. Plus 2 weeks of packing in a suitcase - although after having done about 6 loads of laundry here I probably can pack less next time. My mother of a suitcase was actually over the 50 pound limit so Southwest - the last airline that doesn't charge you for wiping your ass - was going to charge me 25 for the over limit, but gave me the chance to re-shift. My company would have covered it, but still the thought of it bugged me - so a lot of stuff went into my guitar, my shoes went into my carry on, and I was covered. On the way back my guitar will be stuffed with underwear so I don't have to go through that again. In my briefcase all the essentials for work - laptop, car charger, portable printer, my back up drive - and really just packed with everything I used out here. With these things, and then a ladder - I can work just about anywhere - I have a wireless card and the whole world becomes my portable office. At every inspection, once I come down from the roof drenched in sweat, I then proceeed to write an estimate, print it out, write a check, and print it out, and try to avoid sweating all over it in the process. So anyways - I wasn't sure how many extra hands I had to carry a ladder, so at my wife's suggestion I asked if I could use one of the ladders in their Omaha office and they said sure.
Well when I checked out of the Regency (it turns out the Men's College World Series was going on which made finding rooms more difficult - the Carolina Tar Heels stayed at my hotel apparently the first night) I went to our Omaha office - after about 20 wrong turns not spelled out by Mapquest. I would get lost here many times - Mapquest is good about 98% of the time, but sometimes it is confusing, you miss your turn, or it just doesn't quite do it's job. A GPS would have helped, but I relied on the computer - often at times getting on line after pulling over - checking the address of the place I was near - and then re-Mapquesting from the place where I had gotten lost. Often this process of getting lost - after sweating all day - would result in something akin to manic screaming with all sorts of variations on the F word in the process. At times I thought I was losing my mind altogether. But anyways - I get to the Omaha office, and just being in the basement trying to figure out how to use the ladder I am sweating up a storm. The brief walk from the rental counter to the Enterprise car lot at the airport was also a major ordeal, so things were already looking ominous. On top of that, the ladder I took - it was the biggest one I could see - is this old wooden ladder with 6 metal hinges - two for each joint area - that are stubborn and often get stuck requiring gloves to unfasten them. It had duck tape around a splintered part. For two weeks I was married to this ladder - and after all the times I had to push and pull to get those hinges going, I was ready to haul it into the nearest river at times, but I must say it did the job.
I found out after my first inspection how much sweat was involved. Even though I work out on cardio machines at the gyms regularly, this is a different type of sweat. On the cardio machine, you are in doors at a comfortable temperature. You have a towel and you get in the shower after you are done about an hour later. Out here, my body temperature would make me feel like I was an oven producing sweat. And after doing this physical activity - going around the roof slopes, looking for my "test square" to determine how much hail damage there was - and depending on the size of the roof and number of slopes this could take from 15 minutes to an hour, I would come down, sweat bullets, and then have to shift to offfice worker entering data to get the claim processed. There was no shower until the last inspection was done, so I would drive around and work in soaked clothes most of the day. The data entry would involve a diagram of the roof onto the computer, calculating the estimate costs, uploading and labeling photos, printing up a check after manually entering the numbers, and then entering those same numbers into the "main frame", and putting notes into the activity diary and using the payment tracker in Xactimate to finish this. It was like juggling 6 different activities - and at times I had to figure out how to not sweat onto the computer because it would be dripping like bullets. At times, I was offered to come inside, lug my mess of tangled wires, printer, checkbook, and laptop in the house, work in air conditioning, and maybe be offered a nice glass of cool water, soda, or ice tea. At other times, I would be working in the "Cruiser" Enterprise gave me - hopefully but not always in a shady spot if I could find one. I would sometimes find if the humidity was bad enough I would be sweating almost as much inside the vehicle with all windows open as I was going up and down the ladder - and many homes have a separate detached garage or outbuilding which would mean I would go up and down the ladder two or more times for some inspections. I would always look for the shortest way up, try to avoid resting it on a gutter as it tends to slide, try to enlist the owner to hold the ladder for me if possible, and then just pray that this wooden antique was not going to buckle in on me. One of my customers told me he used to go up on ladders regularly and carefully like me, until one day he fell off for an unknown reason, messed up his back and is now disabled for life. That is always encouraging to hear that - and the reality is any day it could happen to me - no matter how careful I am. You prepare as much as you can, are as careful as you can be, hold the ladder in a secure place, but if karma is going to put you on your ass and your back, what can you really do. Same with driving in a car - you can't control not getting into an accident - you do your best not to, but if it is going to happen it is going to.
Every day - I would get back from a day of doing this - sometimes as many as 8 times in a day, exhausted, sweaty, dying from the humidity and heat, stumble into the shower, maybe pick up something to eat from Applebees, map out my next day, see how many new assignments I had gotten since the last day, how many calls to make. I would try to sleep, but the new time zone threw me off and hotel sleep is off and on. One night explosive thunder from the sky and there goes the sleep. So I would wake up, ever day, some feeling better than others, knowing it was all starting over again. Saturday was another work day. While people were home enjoying their air conditioning, the sound of them would almost mock me while I was sweating away on a roof. I have these Cougar Paws massive roof shoes that help, but on the steeper slopes all the blood goes to my toes. The steeper slopes are the worst - they are uncomfortable - there is more of a fear of falling off, getting around is not easy. I had one in Lincoln around 5 PM- you know it was the hottest part of the day, the sun was beating down on me with the humidity going, it was a charcoal black roof which captured all the heat, and I should have brought my gloves but instead burned the palms of my hand as I tend to Spiderman my way around the steeper roofs and by the end of the day at the most tired and worn out day, this was a real ass kicker.
So in so many words - the day I never thought was going to arrive is here - I head back - in one piece - no falls - all inspections completed - only one customer who looked like he was ready to take my head off when I told him the mortgage company had to be named on the check and he was an ex-Vietnam fuck everybody type - but I am ready to go home. Somehow I survived one of the most grueling experiences of my life. The typical CAT - catastrophe run is 3 weeks and I have barely made it through two. I am sure I will have no problems sleeping on the plane.
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