The job was simple, merely drill the rivets out of the existing face and place a new sign face in a steel tube frame that had been welded flag-mount style to one side of a 4" pipe, and paint the frame and pipe. The top of the sign was about 18 feet off the ground, and the whole thing was set back just a few feet from the main road in the local community of White Oak, Texas, where we had installed it 20 or so years before.

 

Our manlift was temporarily out of commission, but that sign and others had to be done, so we carried two stages of scaffolding on our small 10-foot utility trailer to make a portable working platform for us to use on easy-to-reach jobs.

 

I pulled into the client’s parking lot and eased my truck to the edge of the pavement, then backed very close to and parallel with that sign. We built the scaffolding on the trailer, lifted the walk boards and tools up near the top where we needed them, and set about taking the old sign face out. Soon I was handing the old sign face down to Kory, and he lifted the top of the new one toward me. I pulled it up and set it in that frame.

 

The sign was the correct size alright, but when I placed it in the trim inside that frame, it was soon obvious that it was just not going to fit, and the reason also was obvious and brought back memories. I remembered that this sign frame was built by Mike, a valuable employee of ours for several years, and the best welder we ever hired. However, I never could get him to always double check his measurements and angles, and sometimes his perfect welds showed up on projects that were a bit out of square. This sign was out of square by more than ½" along the top edge, and he had merely trimmed the sign face to match his error. Our new sign face was square and was not about to fit.

 

We would have to mark the new face off the old one and take it back to the shop to trim it at a slight angle on our sheet metal shear. Fortunately, we were only a few minutes from the shop, and to save time when we returned, I disconnected the trailer from the truck and left the scaffolding and everything in place.

 

In fewer than 20 minutes, we were driving back into that parking lot and ready to put that sign face where it belonged. I pulled the truck next to where we were working, but didn’t bother to connect it to the trailer at that moment.

 

Again I went up. And again, Kory pushed the top of the face high enough for me to grab it. I pulled it up and placed it in the frame; a perfect fit this time. We had not painted the frame or pole first because of the aggravations of working around wet paint, but now I had Kory paint the post as high as he could reach, while I painted the sign frame and the post working from the top down.

 

Kory finished before me of course, and while I was merrily painting away, he chatted a bit; and then for some reason he jumped up on the end of that trailer at the same time I had made my way to the end to paint around the sides of that pole, and in this one move he created an instant see-saw.

 

Up the tongue went and over we started. The motion of the scaffolding was going to be one large arch ending in the middle of the road we were next to—cars beware. My shock lasted only a half a second, and in a flash I chunked the contents of both hands, a nice bristle brush and a quart of blue enamel, so I could dive for the pole I had been painting and make a fireman’s slide to the ground. 

 

But, catlike, and just as quickly as he had landed on that trailer, Kory bounded off. The trailer seesawed the other way; and with a “thud,” the tongue end went back down where it had started. I managed to keep my balance physically, but mentally was thinking, “What in the world just happened?” 

 

What had happened was a small time bomb set decades before had just gone off. Mike’s mistake, compounded by our own, had instigated an event that could have cost me my life, or at least a set of clothes with a big blue stripe down the middle of them—an inconvenience in either case.

 

And once more the inevitability of Murphy’s Law and the consequences of dumb mistakes had nearly exacted a terrible toll—though like a cat with nine lives, I was spared once more. I thought I’d share the experience with my readers and fellow signmakers as a kind reminder that mistakes on the job, however innocent, have a way of coming back and biting you where the sun doesn’t shine, and when you least expect it. 

 

At any rate, I hope your sign business is going well, to heck with the recession, and you stay safe and have a really great month.