Westwood and Wilkins

This is the intersection where I spent most of the week at my inappropriate and intolerable job with the City of Los Angeles in January of 2009. From the online advertisement for the job: "DUTIES: An Assistant Signal Systems Electrician assists a Signal Systems Electrician in installing, repairing, maintaining, and modifying electric and microprocessor based traffic signal control devices, and video and computer communication systems." Once I was hired and on the job, an example of the advice I was given was "You need to harden your hands, get some calluses. You'll be better with the shovel." That's never been one of my career goals, and I wasn't about to make it one when I was 3 weeks away from turning 64.

I was supposed to level the nuts and washers underneath the base before the concrete was poured so the pole would be vertical when it was mounted.

This is how it's supposed to turn out (somebody else did this one)...

And this is wrong (the one I did). I was given incorrect instructions. I was told to adjust the nuts so that there would be one or two threads above the tops of the nuts, but the next day somebody else told me that they're supposed to be at a height so that the bottom of the base is level with the sidewalk. Notice how they filled in underneath the base with concrete. I've seen worse examples of this, where they've sloped the cement up to the base so it sits on top of a mound of concrete. On the other hand, if you've got an inch or two of bare threads sticking up above the nuts, that seems like it could create a hazard. In any case, it appears to be a matter of opinion. If there's a standard, they have no effective way of communicating it to new hires.

I remember this rope. You need a rope or two to pull the pole into exact position while the crane operator is getting it as close as he can. I don't remember if I was directly involved in tying it to the pole, but I know it wasn't my responsibility to untie it.