Living (sort of) on the edge

Magazine editing is a dangerous job.

In fact, I’m risking life and limb as I write this column. Well, maybe I’m not risking my life, necessarily, but certainly my limb is in danger … or, what I mean to say is that a portion of my limb, specifically my wrist, is in some sense in the neighborhood of perhaps being injured.

Carpal tunnel can be bad news. It’s a serious nerve problem that can really make a wrist … sore … for a while.

OK, the fact is I don’t live dangerously, professionally speaking. Although Kevin Kruckeberg, a senior project manager for Kenosha-based Riley Construction Co. Inc.’s Lake Bluff, Ill., office, said he could help me add a little risk to my job if that’s really what I want.

“If you insist on living that way, we can do it,” he said. “We’ll put you on a scaffold that’ll curl your hair.”

Kruckeberg knows danger. He once climbed a ladder 200 feet above a reactor building at a nuclear plant. I’m assuming he did it for work, but you never know with you construction folks.

“As you’re climbing, you’re telling yourself, ‘This could be the last step of your life if you’re not careful,’” he said. “It’s awful to go that high on a ladder.”

I imagine it was equally awful when, many years ago, Kruckeberg would descend in a basket 40 feet into a caisson hole to inspect the soil at the bottom before pouring concrete.

“It was crazy,” he said.

It is sort of crazy (although I’m guessing more modern safety regulations have curbed some of the crazy factor in the industry). But it’s a calculated, cautious craziness.

Construction is a dangerous job. You’ll read about that specifically in this month’s cover story, but you see instances of construction risk everywhere.

In the Work in Progress feature this month, Steve Janke talks about a project where a buried cable could evaporate someone if they hit it during excavation. He doesn’t speak of this cable as a solid reason to put down the shovel and walk away carefully (as I would do); he regards it as a serious risk to be noted, much like I might take care to look both ways before crossing the street.

While I shudder at the thought of an evaporation-causing cable, many of you most likely nod as you remember a similar situation you dealt with. And I guess that’ll just have to be one of the differences between us.

You keep doing dangerous work, and I’ll stay right here delicately (because my wrist is kind of sore) crossing my fingers for you.

And, by the way, of course Kruckeberg was working when he climbed above the nuclear reactor. What do you think he is? Crazy?

— Chris Thompson, Editor