Fear Of Heights
 

ok so i have been at my new job (carpentry) for about a month now..
i haven't seen my boss since i started besides to pick up my check. he went in for a quadruple bypass the day i started. every one i work with has been great. and work with me cuz i don't like heights. i get about 10 feet up and get nervous. i keep trying regardless. once i break about 10 feet my work gets sloppy and i'm real slow working and holding on to what ever i can with a death grip.
even i find it odd because i have no problem with say riding my bike over 100mph.

any way my boss found out that i don't like heights. talked to me when i picked up my check. i just told him, if i had told you would you have hired me? he said no.
because it's a job requirement. i told him that i realize this is something i need to get over and i figured if i want the job bad enough i will just need to keep working at it thats the best i have to offer. he seemed ok with that and understood.


it seems like no matter how hard i try.. the one fear i have i can't get rid of.
it's irritating as hell too! what do you guys suggest? cuz i really like this job the people are great!

Is it the hights that bother you are the ladders. I did roofing for a while and the hights didnt bother me but climbing the ladders and working from ladders is what bothered me. I found just to keep at it and started to trust my self. The more you do it the more you feel safe. Thats the best i can help ya bud.

Start Sky diving

all of it, i was up on a single story roof the other day attempting to strip the ridge caps.. i wasn't happy with it but i done it.

i took some singles up to the guys on the addition that up 3 stoies. i was more nervous cuz the singles where riding against the ladder the whole way up and kinda throwing me off balance.

Once you take that first 3 story high dive you won't be afraid of yer job anymore. That's a bet.

I'm about the same way, I just can't look over the edge. As long as I'm lookin out and down I'm fine. I tried strippin the gutters off a 3 story house one time to but I had two ladders with the plank in between em using them as walkways. That was a little to much for my world. I tied a rope off from the chimney and used a harness for that one.

ya need to focus real hard on the task at hand and yer mond wont get worried bout the heights

its hard to do.....we have some at work that are like you and its easier for guys like me to just do their job for em.....................I swap em out for crap detail heheheheeee

Are you "tying off"? OSHA requirement after 6 feet.

If you are wearing a harness and are tied off you will feel a little more confident.

Remember. It is not the fall that kills you, It's that sudden stop at the end.

in the 6 weeks i worked at the overhead door company i never tied off once, never even mentioned a harness and we were working on doors that was 25 feet tall, and my big 340 pound ass was on a 250 pound rated aluminum extension ladder......talk about flex.......sometimes i didnt even have anything to hold onto.......

There was a big fuss around here about the new OSHA regs on this, until the day came and they were in affect and then eveybody just ignored them anyway. I have yet to see a single company using a single harness.

I didn't even mind the fall off the barn roof so much as I did all the time I had to think about how bad it was gonna hurt while I was fallin. That short time was worse then the landing.